The Advent Project: Week 5Sample
Jan. 2: The Time of Awakening: The Bridechamber
The Kiss, Gustav Klimt c. 1907. 72 x 72 in. Belvedere Museum, Vienna, Austria. Public Domain.
“Canticle of the Groom” from the album For The Bride byJohn Michael Talbot.
“Canticle of the Bride” from the album For The Bride by John Michael Talbot.
Poetry:
“The Kiss”
by Sasha Pimentel
On Gustav Klimt’s painting, 1907-1908
Do you really think if you bend
me, I will love you? You
crack my chin up, your hands
brown pigeons scheming reunion
at my cheek and temple, your jaw
cragged at the end of your thick neck
of longing. I claw onto you
as the only tree here, your
swing. I’m mad for gravity though
I’m bound, diagonally, to
you. Let me. Push from your trunk towards
the edge and my freedom. Leave me
to wither while moss weeps
in the corners, our halo liquid
as yolk, waving from our bodies’ heat,
our divinity melting. My dress
blossoms loudly. You are still
wrestling me closer. If only I could
release to you my mouth just this
once and you would leave me,
but the shadows of your robe are
so haphazard. I know you will try
to smother me again. The poppies scratch. My feet
reach beyond spring.
THE TIME OF AWAKENING: THE BRIDAL CHAMBER
Gustav Klimt’s famousThe Kiss is a large, imposing painting. A golden opulence, a halo even, envelopes the lovers, above and to their right, as the viewer takes in their embrace. Each one’s robed splendor is individually patterned yet their bodies merge in embrace. The richly fertile meadow sends up shoots of flowering vines to meet them in the flourish of excess. Are they edenically serene with their hair braided by flowers and leaves? Surely this is an ideal portrayal of private bliss––note how wondrously alone they are, needing only each other. They teeter on the edge of the world, their paradise open to the blaze of celestial consummation of beauty at the last day. Their love is enclosed in the singularity of their entwining ardor. But, on display, it is also a public rejoicing at the fecundity, fruitfulness, and fun of the created good of one flesh union. The portrayal calls out to all who can imagine their own embraces proclaiming and participating in such riches.
Song of Songs celebrates an awakening of affection in keeping with the rhythm of God’s good creation, the liveliness of Spring in the paradisal pastures powers the lover’s invitation to the beloved. Equally our Scriptures orient this human love to its framing by God’s love. Isaiah refers to the celebration and delight in the marital covenant to the larger truth of God’s rejoicing over his covenant people, the objects of his love. And the Psalm guards this moment from becoming idolatrous and solipsistic: our fullness comes with communion with God, in his presence we will know fulfillment. The gilded glitter of physical intimacy is a good but penultimate good in the light of the coming of God to dwell with us that we celebrate this Christmas time.
And yet, the coming to us of our God in love is also that wondrous and necessary work of salvation. What agency did Gustav Klimt’s models, whom he would take as lovers, have in their display to the world? Was that taking ever really a true giving on their part? Here lurks the powerful danger of a man’s delusions of mutual attraction enmeshed with exploitative social status and artistic genius. Certainly, Sasha Pimentel’s poem reads the dynamics of the image alert to the painting’s material history as a product of the artist’s actual practice. Here the woman is being wrestled, wishing, tragically, that she could submit to his pleasure if only to finally escape his violent clutches, her feet ready to leap into the abyss. If Solomon features in Song of Songs as the idealized king, what do we make of his taking of multiple wives and concubines? Too easily blaming them for leading him and Israel into idolatry, we can fail to see the idolatry of self-absorption in the taking of the covenant one-flesh union and making it a serial parade of status and diplomatic glory.
Possibly, Klimt’s sin need not cancel the beauty that can be read in his painting, just as Solomon’s sin does not undo the God-givenness of Scripture’s good news of salvation in Song of Songs. But what we can do at Christmas is recognize that the intimacy we may enjoy or hope for is fragile in our fallenness. The calling to be united to Jesus, Immanuel, God with us, disciplines the marriage unions among us to not look to human passion as the source of our eternal rejoicing. Each one of us is the victim of sin, the world, and the devil, and we, each one of us, sin in our enjoyment that too easily becomes use or even abuse of others. Scandal plagues our church and witness. People are hurt. Contrition and repentance can be hard to find. But in Jesus’ vulnerable coming we may dare to hope to enjoy most truthfully that love we offer and receive in vulnerability. We do so only when qualified by the hope of the judgment, perfection and reconciliation of all things in God’s love that will beautifully surpass our own.
Prayer:
Lord, God,
Lead us, by your Spirit, to love as you love us in Christ,
Lead us to confess and repent of our sin,
Lead us to honor the marriage bed and keep it holy,
Lead us to support and celebrate beauty as we glorify you alone,
Lead us to love your church, gathered, local, messy, painful, and persevering,
Lead us to see the vulnerability of your incarnation, for us, as the opening for conversations, acknowledgements, recognitions, and celebrations that draw us closer to each other and to you,
In your Spirit’s power, and in the name of Jesus,
Amen
Dr. Andy Draycott
Associate Professor of Theology
Talbot School of Theology
Biola University
For more information about the artwork, music, and poetry selected for this day, please visit our website via the link in our bio.
About this Plan
Biola University's Center for Christianity, Culture & the Arts is pleased to share the annual Advent Project, a daily devotional series celebrating the beauty and meaning of the Advent season through art, music, poetry, prayer, Scripture, and written devotions. The project starts on the first day of Advent and continues through Epiphany. Our goal is to help individuals quiet their hearts and enter into a daily routine of worship and reflection during this meaningful but often hectic season. Our prayer is that the project will help ground you in the unsurpassable beauty, mystery and miracle of the Word made flesh.
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We would like to thank Biola University for providing this plan. For more information, please visit: https://ccca.biola.edu/advent/2024