The Book of Hours: Paintings 1-4

Click here to go to the second set of paintings in the series. 

1.

Sunday afternoon: Descending Olivet

Gold and purple speak royalty.

Dark-grey the color of flint.

Flint: hard, dark, a catalyst.

Confetti-like scraps of golden paper

Signify celebration.

Celebration abounds as He rides

from Olivet toward the Kidron Valley and Jerusalem,

past Gethsemane.

He is determined, resolved, aware.

His face set like flint.

Darkness before Him.

His choice. This path. Love.

2.

Thursday Midnight: Anguish

A moonless night in Gethsemane.

The disciples barely visible.

Jesus is just beyond them, stretched on the ground in prayer

Great drops of blood mingle with sweat and earth.

Angels beg to assist, remembering an earlier night

when they sang “Glory”.

Surely the skies quake and rumble,

but even his friends miss the silent cacophony.

3.

Friday Morning: Broken

Scourged.

To the point of death.

The King of Glory? Unthinkable.

But darkness cannot overtake glory. Not without permission.

Silence from the One. He yields.

Pure gold, warm, and lustrous is bruised. Shattered.

Beaten. Spit on.

Despised.

Darkness thinks it is winning.

And yet.

Light shines from the broken pieces.

Glory reigns even while being broken.

4.

Friday Noon: Pierced

Those soldiers, are they so angry they ‘see red?’

The disciples see nothing. But red.

And flesh, torn.

For all the shades of skin that ever will exist, perfect flesh is ripped.

And bits of holy DNA scatter and drip.

Were they able to perceive His holiness that day?

A mere thief did.

Do I?

Click here for paintings 4-8 of the series.