His Presence at Gloaming
“I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.”
As we look to spend the remainder of the Easter season in intimate presence of the Risen Christ by dwelling with him in the Upper Room, I’ve been browsing through various artistic depictions of the space. This is a picture of Chris Ofili radical, ambitious, and profound installment titled — simply and directly enough — The Upper Room (1999-2002).
The precise scale and of impact Ofili’s work is hard to capture: we have to employ our imaginations to evoke what impact encountering this extraordinary installation would have on our bodies and souls. We have ti squint to see it. Coming into the dimly lit room would be like entering a sanctum where the sacred and profane intermingle. Thirteen canvases carefully arrayed as a kind of immersive iconostasis, that taken together somehow evoke at once the Last Supper and a primal scene from Eden. The individual panels are thirteen colorful, abstract, larger-than-life paintings of rhesus monkeys seated amidst lush, bejeweled foliage. Are they fallen angels or bestial Adams awaiting their Eves? Their pensive gazes and gestures of play beckon us into a riddle.
At the base of each canvas a talisman, of sorts: two orbs of elephant dung improbably anchor each of these visions. The vilest of matter becomes a point of fixity, a grounding for the ecstatic dance of colors and forms that seem to unfurl from it. Paradox upon paradox - the lowest has literally become the highest, the foundation for outrageous transfigurations of beauty.
In this whimsical iconography, we hear echoes of the apostle's radical inversion: God's strength is made perfect in weakness, his wisdom perceived as folly to the world. The shameful thing, the rejected and discarded, is made the chief cornerstone. It is through such absurd alchemies that the Spirit unveils glory.
As the iridescent surfaces reflect our gaze, refracting it into a thousand scorched fragments, we intuit the thick atmosphere of that Upper Room, luminous with the Paraclete's hovering incandescence: epiphanies flaring into being with each flicker of the gleaming brushstrokes and glittering resin - for those with eyes to see, the entire cosmos is alive, shimmering with the uncanny geometries of the Beloved's self-calligraphy.
Ofili has erected a something of a trompe l'oeil maze of sacred pareidolia. Like gazing into a fire's depths or reading auguries in the chevrons of geese threading the sky, he invites us train our vision to discern holy signatures stitched into the fabric of all that is. For as the apostle promises, love alone grants us the clarity to see the Word made flesh dwelling among us, full of grace and truth.
Bless our God, you peoples, and make the voice of his praise to be heard.
— Psalm 66:7
Fifth Sunday of Easter
Texts for Today
Prayer
Almighty God, whom truly to know is everlasting life: Grant us so perfectly to know your Son Jesus Christ to be the way, the truth, and the life, that we may steadfastly follow his steps in the way that leads to eternal glory; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
Святий вечор! Holy Evening!
Like many folk songs that stand in the lineage of ancient, densely symbolic meditations, this Ukrainian carol is obscure and deeply paradoxical in its meanings. It describes a debate between the Lord and Peter as to whether heaven or earth larger. (Ой Петре, Петре, сперечалнику! “O Peter! Peter! You intractable debater,” one verse winks.)
Peter thinks heaven is the larger territory — an understandable enough position! But the Lord tells him that, in fact, quite contrary to the evidence of his senses and his reason, it is the earth that is bigger. They go on to measure it out, and — sure enough — somehow! — Jesus is right … once again.
O wonder! O marvel! What could this mean? We are invited to astonishment: to ponder this strange enigma, and all of the paradoxical imagery that surrounds it. Indeed, this strange parable pierces to the heart of our faith. If the Uncreated Creator has come into the midst of his Creation … all bets are off. Creation itself has expanded beyond the bounds of its nature and beyond all possibility: it now extends into the Infinite by virtue of containing it within its Finitude.
The same fractal mystery repeats itself again in this Easter season, and in this Upper Room where we find ourselves this week in our Gospel lesson. As Jesus sits at table with his Disciples and speaks in hushed, sacred riddles, in the half-dark illumined by flickering candlelight, we hear the promises of God himself who ordains to infect our sinsick nature with the spiritual contagion of his healing holiness: and through us, turn the earth inside out and here establish his heavenly kingdom.
Perceiving these things, how can we but fall awestruck to our knees as Peter? We end, as the carol: Вінчую, вінчую тебе, пане господаре! “I crown you, I crown you, Lord and Host!” This Jesus, whom we recognize in that thin, epiphanic instant as Lord and God, is not just the brother-friend we followed along the way all those years, but the King of the Universe, and the Benefactor who throws the feast of our every delight, both in this age, and eternally.
