Roger W. Lowther's Blog, page 11

The Holy Trinity

“The Holy Trinity” (1427) Masaccio

When you walk into the church of Santa Maria Novella in Florence, the above scene greets you from across the space. This fresco was made by Masaccio in 1427.

God the Father holds God the Son on the cross. God the Holy Spirit descends between the two like a white dove. On the left, the Virgin Mary gestures toward her son, drawing our eyes back to the middle. On the right, John the Apostle meditates on the scene. Below, a tomb and a skeleton are accompanied by an inscription in Italian. “I once was what you are and what I am you also will be.”

The cross and the tomb acknowledge our sin, but Jesus’ outstretched arms invite our embrace and offer forgiveness. God the Father presents this precious gift to us. This is the gospel. This is the throne of grace.

“Let us approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.” (Hebrews 4:16)

The Holy Trinity invites us to come where he is, but we cannot. The painting depicts a three-dimensional space on a two-dimensional wall we cannot enter. In fact, Masaccio was the first to master depth and perspective in the Western world.

What is fascinating to me about this painting is why he made it. When commissioned, plagues raged through Europe. In fact, some scholars think the artist himself succumbed to it just the following year, at the young age of 26. This painting was one of his very last. I believe the plague led him to develop the technique of perspective in order to create a space free of infection. A shelter that can protect. A quarantine that is safe. Perspective enabled him to portray just such a space, while also helping give birth to the Renaissance.

“Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, ‘He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.’ Surely he will save you from the fowler’s snare and from the deadly pestilence. He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart. You will not fear the terror of night, nor the arrow that flies by day, nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness, nor the plague that destroys at midday. A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you.” (Psalm 91:1-7)

Plague and pestilence once again reign in Masaccio’s beloved Italy and the rest of the world. Everyone is in danger of catching and spreading this life-threatening disease. The gospel portrayed here is as urgent and relevant as ever. God can be our refuge. God has prepared our shelter. Jesus is the door to entering this space. All we have to do is accept the invitation and enter.

聖三位一体

『聖三位一体』（1427）マサッチオ

これはイタリアの画家、マサッチオ(Masaccio)によって描かれた『聖三位一体』(“The Holy Trinity”)である。父なる神は中央に位置している。子なる神イエス・キリストは十字架にかけられている。聖霊なる神は鳩のように２人の間に降りて来る。

十字架の左に目を向けると、母マリアが、見る者の視線を息子であるイエス・キリストへと誘導するように中央へ向かって手を差し示す仕草をしている。十字架の右側では、使徒ヨハネがこの場面について深く思い巡らすように導いている。十字架の下には、棺（ひつぎ）と人骨が横たわっている。その後ろには「過去の私は現在の貴方であり、現在の私は未来の貴方である」という碑文がある。

この絵は神の恵みの御座を描いている。

ですから私たちは、あわれみを受け、また恵みをいただいて、折にかなった助けを受けるために、大胆に恵みの御座に近づこうではありませんか。（へブル4:16）

イエス・キリストの両腕は私たちを抱きしめるために広げられている。その腕は私たちの罪を知っていながら、私たちを許してくれている。イエスは私たちと同じ等身大の人間の形で描かれ、父なる神は私たちにこの宝物を下さっている。

この絵画はイエス・キリストがいる場所に来るように私たちを招いているが、実は私たちはそこに行くことができない。この絵は三次元の空間を、私たちが入ることのできない二次元の壁面に描いているからだ。マサッチオは遠近法を導入した最初の画家だった。

この絵画の製作が依頼されたとき、疫病がヨーロッパで猛威を振るっていた。実際、マサッチオ自身もその病にかかったようで26歳の若さで亡くなっている。彼の功績の一つはこの絵を描き、後世に残したことである。彼は、その時代の窮迫した様子を描写している。私たちは、皆、いずれ死ぬ。私たちはいずれ誰もが、絵画の中の骨のようになる。私たちは感染症の恐怖から逃れられる場所を切望しており、私たちを護ってくれるシェルターを求めている。神の住まう場所に隔離されることを望んでいる。マサッチオの絵はその場所を示しているのだ。神がそのシェルターである、神こそが、その隠れ家であると。

いと高き方の隠れ場に住む者
その人は　全能者の陰に宿る。
私は主に申し上げよう。
「私の避け所　私の砦
私が信頼する私の神」と。
主こそ　狩人の罠から
破滅をもたらす疫病から
あなたを救い出される。
主は　ご自分の羽であなたをおおい
あなたは　その翼の下に身を避ける。
主の真実は大楯　また砦。
あなたは恐れない。
夜襲の恐怖も　昼に飛び来る矢も。暗闇に忍び寄る疫病も
真昼に荒らす滅びをも。」（詩篇91:1-7）

疫病が、マサッチオの愛したイタリアと全世界を再び襲っている。今日を生きる人々は、この生命を脅かす病気にかかり、感染を広げてしまうかもしれないという恐怖の中にある。この絵に描かれている聖句がこれほど意味を持ち、迫ってきたことはかつてなかった。神は私たちの隠れ家となってくれる。イエス・キリストは私たちのシェルターとなるために用意されたのだ。イエス・キリストはそこへ入るための扉であり、その扉を開く鍵なのだ。私たちがすべきことは、イエス・キリストの招きを受け、その腕の中に入ることだけである。

翻訳　天海和彦

An Era of Beautiful Harmony

May 1st marks Crown Prince Naruhito’s ascension to the Japanese throne to become the 126th emperor of the world’s oldest monarchy and the start of 令和 (“Reiwa”). The name for this new Reiwa era was announced on April 1st.

The term Reiwa comes from Japan’s oldest collection of poetry, dating from the eighth century, called the Manyōshū (“Collection of Ten Thousand Leaves”). At this point in the collection, a group of artists gather at the Governor-General’s house for a party after a long hard winter. They see plum blossoms flowering, the first sign of coming spring, and write poems of hope for the future. “With the heavens as a parasol and the earth as a mat . . . the guests sat knee to knee to express their deepest emotions in the garden of letters.” Their time is described this way:

It was in new spring, in an auspicious (令 “rei”) month,
When the air was clear and the wind a gentle (和 “wa”) breeze.
Plum flowers blossomed a beauty’s charming white
And the fragrance of the orchids was their sweet perfume.

The character 令 (rei) means “auspicious” or “beautiful.” The character 和 (wa) means “gentle” or “harmonious.” When put together, 令和 (reiwa) means “beautiful harmony.” Prime Minister Shinzo Abe described it as representing “a culture being born and nurtured by the beauty of people coming together.”

To understand the deeper significance of this word, we need to look at the etymology of rei.

The above picture shows how the character rei changed over time. Originally, it showed a person kneeling under a roof waiting for a command from their god or king. It represented 命令 (“command” or “order”).

As a Christian, Reiwa makes me think of the beautiful harmony ordained by God.

The law of the Lord is perfect,
refreshing the soul.
The statutes of the Lord are trustworthy,
making wise the simple.
The precepts of the Lord are right,
giving joy to the heart.
The commands of the Lord are radiant,
giving light to the eyes. (Psalm 19:7-8)

The commands of the Lord are “perfect,” “trustworthy,” “right,” and “radiant.” Everything God ordains is the best and most beautiful it can be. When people look to God for their commands, beautiful harmony is the result. As we enter this era of Reiwa, may we indeed be a people who glorify God by moving in “gentle harmony” with him and with each other.

I trust in you, Lord;
I say, “You are my God.”
My times are in your hands. (Psalm 31:14-15)

Tasting the Gospel through Tsukudani

At the mouth of the Sumida River on the edge of Tokyo Bay, we live on a famous island called Tsukuda. Tourists from around Japan often flood our area to taste its history. Around 400 years ago, fishermen on the island of Tsukuda in Osaka provided the famous shogun Ieyasu Tokugawa and his army with a large amount of fish. As a reward, Tokugawa invited these fisherman to move to Tokyo, where he ruled all of Japan, to supply the castle with fish. Leftovers were sold at nearby Nihonbashi, the “center” of Tokyo where all roads led. This elite group of fishermen settled on our island and renamed it Tsukuda in memory of their previous home. (The connection between these two cities is kept alive today: every year, students at Tsukuda Elementary in Tokyo, my sons’ school, and Tsukuda Elementary in Osaka visit each other on field trips.)

The legacy of these fisherman lasts today in a new kind of food they invented called tsukudani (literally “Tsukuda simmering”), made from simmering small fish, shellfish, or seaweed in salt and soy sauce (made from fermented soy beans). This process preserves the food, enabling it to last for over a month in the humid climate without rotting or losing nutritional value. It also provides tasty seasoning for a bland meal of rice. Tsukudani quickly became popular with all fishermen, travelers, military, and residents in the mountainous interior of Japan, and because of the heavy dependence on the sea and limited amounts of farmland, this new method of preserving seafood is essential to the diet of Japan. It joins a dizzying array of dried, salted, preserved, and fermented foods, which accompany every meal, including umeboshi pickled plums, tsukemono pickled vegetables, nukazuke pickled vegetables, kiriboshi daikon (small strips of dried radish), dried seaweed, dried fish, miso, dashi cooking stock, natto fermented soybeans, mirin, sake, plum wine, and many others. (Most of these words are in italics because they were invented here and have no English equivalent!)

Tsukudani is essentially made from salt and yeast. Jesus said, “You are the salt of the earth” (Matthew 5:13), and, “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into about sixty pounds of flour until it worked all through the dough” (Matthew 13:33). Like salt and yeast, grace works through us, preserving us and making us stronger. It saves us from the rot and stench of sin and invisibly transforms us from the inside out. “We…are being transformed into his image” (2 Corinthians 3:18). Little by little, grace helps us become “tasty” and attractive creatures who reflect the image of God and the kingdom of heaven in a world that is falling apart.

Through tsukudani, God provides yet another redemptive analogy that points to him in the best of Japanese culture. Every time I sit down to eat a meal, I am reminded of the presence of his grace continually at work in us to give a little taste of heaven to a hungry world.

Finding Hope in the New Year

Kiyomizu Temple is my favorite temple in Japan. It sits on the edge of a cliff beautifully overlooking the city of Kyoto. It received its name “Pure Water Temple” from the water that pours out of the side of the mountain so clean that it does not need to be purified to drink. Every December, the head Buddhist priest of this temple draws the Japanese kanji character that best illustrates the sentiments of the past year. Last month, it was 災 (sai), a character that reflects both natural and man-made disasters. The year 2018 was full of disaster and brokenness in Japan.

In high school, my Latin teacher taught the following illustration about language, which I have never forgotten. “Eskimos have many words for snow: one for light snow, one for wet snow, one for powdered snow, and so on. In English, we only have the word ‘snow.’” People attach importance to things and their differences by giving them words.

Many point to the difficulty of understanding the gospel in Japanese to an absence of words to describe it. There is no word for one God, the creator of everything. There is no word for sin. There is no word for forgiveness, and so on. Many of the Christian concepts use a Japanese alphabet reserved solely for foreign things. However, it is interesting to note that there are MANY Japanese words for brokenness. I am currently reading a book on kintsugi, the Japanese art of pottery repair, which lists ten types of brokenness that can be found in a bowl. The best English word to translate each case is, simply, “broken.” The kintsugi artisan trains the eye to not just distinguish between various kinds of brokenness but also how to bring beauty out of them.

In a sermon message last month at the Redeemer City to City church plant in Tokyo, Grace City Church Tokyo, nihonga artist Makoto Fujimura spoke about God as the master ‘kintsugi’ artist who searches with a trained eye for the brokenness in our lives to consider how beauty can be brought out of it. In Japanese culture, God communicates the gospel in the language of brokenness. Fujimura talked about how there are many kinds of brokenness in our lives but many more ways that God can bring beauty out of it. The Lord God called to Adam and Eve in the garden, “Where are you?” (Genesis 3:9), two people trying to hide their brokenness and shame. God went directly to their brokenness to begin his work there. God crafts our stories in such a way that we will be more beautiful because of our broken pieces.

In the middle of the worship service, the lights and all the electricity in the building went out. The emergency loud speaker came on afterward to apologize with announcements (multiple times!) that were unnecessarily loud. We heard a baby screaming in the back and noise coming from the children’s program in the room next door. Fujimura referred to all of this with a smile on his face. “God uses the unexpected for His glory. God came unexpectedly to earth as a little baby in search of broken people in a broken world.”

Do you see the hope this gospel gives in the new year? God brings “newness” to our new year not through forgetting, a common party in December called bonenkai (literally “forgetting the year gathering”), but through transforming the old year into something new and beautiful. The new year will build upon the good and the 災 (sai) of all that has come before. We have hope because God will continue “making all things new” in 2019.

“Behold, I am doing a new thing;
Now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?” (Isaiah 43:9)

Turkey and the Kingdom of Heaven

Since I was little, I have always loved the smell of turkey cooking in the oven on Thanksgiving. At breakfast, I would ask my mom, “Can I have some turkey?” She would answer, “It’s not ready yet.” I would ask again at lunch time, “Can I have some turkey now?” Again she would respond, “It’s still not ready.” The smell of the turkey made me long for the turkey. My mouth watered for the turkey. I could not wait for that Thanksgiving meal that I knew was coming but was still being prepared.

Lately, my son Aidan has been playing the Prelude in C Major by J. S. Bach. It is one of the most famous pieces written for the piano, because it is profoundly beautiful. But it is also incredibly simple. If you stop to study the piece though, you find that there is a surprising amount of ugly dissonance. The broken chords cause pain to our ears, functioning like the smell of turkey baking in the oven and driving us to that resolution which Bach eventually gives. In the end, the journey of dissonance and pain contributes to the beauty of the piece. Without it, the final chord would lose all meaning and significance.

What is the role of art in mission? It shares the gospel truth that beauty will come out of pain and suffering. Art makes us yearn for resolution to the dissonance in our lives and assures us that one day we will indeed find it. Art gives us that mouth-watering sense of already tasting what is to come. Art makes us yearn for that perfect peace promised by the coming of the kingdom of heaven.

As you smell turkey baking this Thanksgiving, remember the ultimate banquet that is being prepared for you that will fulfill every desire. May our Thanksgiving feast and fun whet our appetites for the ultimate satisfaction of fellowship around God’s table.