This year’s Holy Week Trilogy is a series of three visions of the crucifixion, each primarily illumined by one of three different ‘light sources’: Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Resurrection Sunday. Each day’s particular illumination draws out certain aspects of the same, infinitely meaning-filled event—the Crucifixion of the Risen Lord. In part 2 of the […]
Holy Saturday – 2023 Read More »
This year’s Holy Week Trilogy is a series of three visions of the crucifixion, each primarily illumined by one of three different ‘light sources,’: Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Resurrection Sunday. Each day’s particular illumination draws out certain aspects of the same, infinitely meaning-filled event—the Crucifixion of the Risen Lord. The first picture receives its
Good Friday – 2023 Read More »
Here is the one thousandth and thirty-fourth picture in the verse picture series, which is also the third and fourth pictures planned for inclusion in the upcoming Colossians Board Book. This picture will span two pages and the associated text will be Colossians 1:16. ‘For by Him, all things were created, in heaven and on
Colossians 1:15, ‘He is the image of the invisible God, the Firstborn of all creation, for by Him, all things were created…’ This is the artwork from the first two pages of a planned board-book based on Colossians 1:15-20. I’ve recited these verses over our son almost every night of his life as a way
Isaiah 41:17-20, ‘When the poor and needy seek water, and there is none…I YHWH will not forsake them….I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water. I will put in the wilderness the cedar…I will set in the desert the cypress…that they may see and know…that the hand
Song of Songs, 3:11, ‘…look upon King Solomon, with the crown with which his mother crowned him on the day of his wedding, on the day of the gladness of his heart.’ Now, at first, today’s picture may not seem to fit at all with the chosen text. However, there is a connection that was
Song of Songs 3:11 Read More »
Colossians 2:14, ‘He cancelled the record of debt that stood against us, with its legal demands; this He set aside, nailing it to the cross.’ ‘Nailing it to the cross.’ This is crucifixion language…Paul sees no tension whatsoever in affirming that Jesus Christ is the image of God, the Ruler of Creation, the Source and
John 20:28, ‘My Lord and my God!’ Thomas’ confession that the crucified Jesus who is risen is His Lord and His God (echoing the OT titles of YHWH) is an event that takes place in a single moment in time…and yet, simultaneosuly, it is an encapsulation of every moment of the Christian’s life. As Paul
Proverbs 25:11, ‘A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in a setting of silver.’ A classical understanding of ‘the Beautiful,’ recognized ‘Beauty’ as that which appears when diverse parts harmoniously agree with one another, revealing a new whole within the concert of their unity. The idea of ‘fitness’ in Proverbs 25:11 seems to
Isaiah 26:19, ‘Your dead will live; their bodies will rise. Awake and sing, you who dwell in the dust! For your dew is like the dew of *morning,* and the earth will bring forth her dead. Today’s picture was created at the request of a friend, Izzie Thom (with whom I worked on the most
2 Peter 1:19, ‘And we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed, to which you do well to pay attention, as to a lamp shining in dark place, until day should dawn and the morning star should rise in your hearts.’ Peter speaks of 3 lights: a lamp, the day, and the morning star. First,
Job 19:25-26, ‘For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last He will stand upon the dust. And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God.’ With these words, it is as though the the skeletal hand of Job’s faith, livened by the breath of the
John 11:21, ‘If you had been here…’ ‘If you had…’ — With these words, Martha’s imagination conjures a state of affairs that she believes would have been better than what has, in fact, happened…If Jesus had been here, Lazarus would not have died, she and her sister would have been spared the pain of loss,
Hebrews 12:2, ‘…looking to Jesus, the originator and perfector of faith.’ One of the surest ways to descend into a labyrinth of confusion, apprehension, and spiritual weakness is to make our own faith the object of our scrutiny. ‘Am I really trusting?’ ‘Is my faith sincere?’ ‘Is my faith strong enough?’ etc. Questions like those
Hebrews 2:8-9, ‘we do not yet see everything in subjection to Him. But we see Him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely, Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God He might taste death for everyone.’ Notice the
1 Peter 1:5, ‘…who, *by God’s power*, are being guarded *through faith* for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.’ Note that in this verse, Peter tells us that it is *God’s power* that guards the believer, but the means by which His power guards them is *their own faith.* The power
Isaiah 6:2, ‘Each [Seraph] had six wings; with two *he covered his face*…’ Isaiah 53:3, ‘He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men *hide heir faces*…’ In the depths of His agonies, Jesus Christ became as one from whom men hid their
Job 23:8-10, ‘Behold, I go forward, but He is not there, and backward, but I do not perceive Him; on the left hand when He is working, I do not behold Him; He turns to the right hand, but I do not see Him. But He knows the way that I take…’ In verses 8-9,
Isaiah 9:6, ‘For to us a child is *born,* to us a son is *given*…’ In the literary structure of Isaiah 9, the eschatological light, joy, freedom, and peace promised in verses 1-5 are entirely grounded upon v.6 and the brith of this child, the giving of this son. Now, the Apostle John certainly read
Hebrews 11:19, ‘…[Abraham] considered that God was able to raise [Isaac] from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back.’ See the place that resurrection plays in Abraham’s faith. In this passage, resurrection is the unexpected—yet necessary—conclusion that arises from the equation of God’s Promises + Death. The Genesis 22 command
