by Graham Kent

Second in a series looking at works in the Methodist Collection of Modern Christian Art

images reproduced with permission from the Trustees of the Methodist Collection of Modern Christian Art

The ‘Christmas Stories’ – the gospel Birth Narratives, have obviously produced some wonderful artwork over the centuries, some of it fantastical, legendary even apocryphal!  This is not surprising because the accounts in Luke and Matthew are both beautifully written giving great material for the worship leader’s imagination.

Preaching around Christmas time has many distractions, trivialities and demands, keeping Advent free of carol and toy services is well nigh impossible whilst ‘the Sundays after Christmas’ – including Epiphany, usually a weekday – get lost altogether, or muddled up with Covenant Sunday!

This is a real pity. The Birth Narratives play an important role in our understanding of who Christ is and have profoundly influenced Christian culture in the past. Maybe by looking at two very different Epiphany images we could begin the rediscovery of these stories to be used after Christmas as well as in it.

Albert Herbert’s picture is deliberately painted to make us look hard at it as the actual technique and choice of colour require the searching which wisdom demands.

We can see the Mother and Child lying down in the house and, along what looks like an arm, figures arise at their journeys end. These details should get you thinking. For example ‘The Wise Men’ are not gorgeously attired, nor are they kings, which they aren’t in the Bible anyway!  But maybe they are seekers, explorers after truth, people looking to see God revealed and made obvious in their lives and world. Epiphany means making manifest.

There is a lovely security and homeliness about the tabernacle for the mother and child. This is a contrast with the later parts of the story when it gets very violent and dangerous.

Herbert’s style introduces us to the idea that works of art do not always have to be descriptive in a modern or western sense. ‘Art’ he once said ‘is not about meanings but about feelings’. So this picture, like many others, is more to do with an emotive, subjective and even introspective response. Does this make the story less true? Is it less to do with salvation? Can it be that more conservative Christians are troubled by art because it is not authoritative and defining enough?

Nicholas Mynheer is a very different kind of artist, which you will notice straight away. He has a background in illustration but is also very conscious of ancient Christian art and illumination.

This story is not in the Bible, but the magnificent story of Christ as a refugee seeking asylum in an enemy land has generated marvellous devotion over the years. Legends about the journey of the Holy Family are almost to be expected and there are some delightful ones about trees bending over and offering their fruit. Should the worship leader discourage this and how do we prevent outrageous and ridiculous interpretations? One safeguard is to go back to what Matthew is really trying to say about the coming of Christ by using stories and ancient styles of writing. A Christmas story is obviously wrapped around with all kinds of meanings and traditions so we will have to keep on guiding our hearers through this thicket.

Mynheer portrays the Holy Family taking a moment’s rest in the shade of a tree. With the threat of Herod receding, Mary and Joseph are able to play with the baby Jesus.

The artist writes ‘I remember being told that the Judean Desert blooms with wild flowers for about two weeks every spring. I had the idea that, as the Holy Family travelled across the desert, it flowered in response to the presence of The Lord’. Even the tree under which they are seen resting has come into fruit; for Nature itself responds to God, praising in its own way. This picture encapsulates my own faith for it seems to me that man is not separate from Nature and the world but rather part of it. God is to be found in everything around; in the clouds, the mountains, the trees and animals, even the stones and dust. All these things glorify God in their own way. In the words of The Benedicite: ‘O All ye Works of the Lord, bless ye the Lord: praise Him, and magnify Him for ever’

These paintings explore the ways in which Christ can be seen and felt by those who look for Him and challenge us always to make Him known in all the activities of the church.