Seen and Unseen
By Raphael. Public Domain.
Creating art is an act of translation. Art mediates between the artist’s experience and others’ understanding of it. There’s this beautiful idea of the veil between heaven (God’s realm) and earth (“our” realm) being very thin. Perhaps art is part of the “in between,” like air passing through this thin veil. There are hardly words or colors or musical notes sufficient to the task, but these are the media we have. We fashion the unsayable with fingers on strings, letters, paint, voice. We long to catch the mystery between the visible and invisible.
The author of the book of Hebrews names Jesus as mediator between God and humankind. The go-between. The translator. Fully God and fully man, both feet in both worlds. No one can plumb the depths of the Trinity, but God allows analogies as we strive to articulate Him. Paul calls Jesus “the Image of the invisible God” (Col. 1:15). The Jewish people knew this God as mountain-shaker and law-giver, as Holy One. These people could not bring themselves to write every letter of his name, but chose abbreviation as the safe, reverent route. It is to these people that the Image came revealing the tender valiant heart of the God named Father. His life—both simple and astounding—has been painted many thousands of times: the face peeking out of a manger, the young boy found in the Temple, the One whose eyes looked so intently at the man who almost followed him—and loved him anyway.
The Image translates invisible God, the King, to us. Instead of accepting human ideas of power and violence, the Image chooses kindness and peace, yet does not abide falsehood masquerading as truth. His wrath is real but he does not display it as we would expect. This Image of God surrenders to human hands and bleeds. Glory is the powerful Presence hidden in the Holy of Holies. And it is the Image perfectly reflecting the Father, glorious precisely when He refuses any weapon He could wield. The Gospel writers told the Great Story, and Paul and others began to translate the untranslatable. God died. And then He picked up the life He laid down, put it back on, and passed it around to anyone who wanted abundance. Hand-to-hand, mouth-to-mouth, the Bread of Life still comes to those hungry enough to hold out open hands.
Starting with the New Testament Scriptures, a myriad of hymns and compositions strain to give voice to this Mystery. There are thousands of paintings of His crucifixion; no one work or the mass together could possibly contain the glory-saturated Christ. We could say we have enough creative data; surely we understand by now. But art is not ultimately about understanding or seeing or hearing. Encountering the enfleshed Image of God—hearing his teaching, witnessing his healing power—did not result in immediate abundant life. That encounter opened the door, but the choice resided inside: What will I do with Jesus? And what, if I say yes, will He do with me? These are questions of communion—not only an ethereal bond. This union is substantive, deeply concerned with the reality of blood. As e.e. cummings so wonderfully wrote in his poem, “i thank You God for most this amazing”: “(now the ears of my ears awake and / now the eyes of my eyes are opened.)” We need double senses to make any sense of this Mystery.
The Image translates the Father to humankind through flesh and then heals us to hear the miraculous news of this God-Man. He invites us to touch his side and to abide as branch in Vine—both grounded in touch and beyond it. The artist accepts the invitation to help us perceive the unknowable. We give parts of ourselves to transformation at the altars of notebooks, easels, and instruments. Perhaps, like wind, the Spirit carries our work between heaven and earth, lets it live as a bridge between threads of that thin veil. Thus, we translate between glory and glory: both seen and unseen.
