Author: Higher Things

Rev. Bror Erickson

“Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” = Matthew 16:24 (ESV)

Another Stanley Spencer painting “Christ Carrying the Cross” echoes El Greco’s famous illustration by the same title, but with more narration as it shows Christ willfully, almost cheerfully carrying the cross through Spencer’s hometown of Cookham in place of Jerusalem as the people absent mindedly follow Christ by going about their own business of carrying their crosses of vocation. The carpenters carry their ladders go to work as Christ goes about his work.

When the Tate Museum applied the title “Christ Bearing His Cross” Stanley explained his displeasure with the title saying it conveys “A sense of suffering which was not my intention. I particularly wished to convey the relationship between the carpenters behind him carrying the ladders and Christ in front carrying the cross. Each doing their job of work and doing it just like workmen… Christ was not doing a job or his job, but the job.” (Source: gresham.ac.uk)

Perhaps this isn’t always what we think of when we think of picking up our crosses and following him. And yet there is in this a profound understanding of the meaning of Christ’s cross for the Christian life. It’s not about you and what you do for him, but about him and what he has done for you. Christians are often dissatisfied with this sort of thing. It belongs to the core of our sinful nature, the Old Adam within us that we want to make Christianity about us. For instance as Rachel Evans talks about what the Millennials want from the church, “We want to be challenged to live lives of holiness, not only when it comes to sex, but also when it comes to living simply, caring for the poor and oppressed, pursuing reconciliation, engaging in creation care and becoming peacemakers (Source: religion.blogs.cnn.com)

This, however, is not how the Christian becomes holy or lives a holy life. Rather it is Christ who sanctifies us, that is makes us holy, in the washing of the water with the word. (Eph. 5) Our holiness is not about a challenge, but the fruits of forgiveness, it is the new life that comes when we are resurrected with Christ to walk in the newness of life that comes in baptism. (Rom. 6:4) Then our crosses are not found in self chosen works of monasticism, self-denial, social activism or eco-tourism. No, our crosses are found in the midst of our vocations, doing the work God has called us to do in the midst of the communities in which he has placed us. Our work as fathers and mothers, as children, students, professors, carpenters and auto mechanics is the holy work God has given us to do, the crosses we bear in which there is no glory to be seen or beheld, the pain of the cross often nothing more than the mere tediousness of the ho hum work, and yet by virtue of Christ doing the job this work is blessed by God who works through our hands to take care of his creation often as hidden in these crosses as Christ himself is hidden behind the cross in this painting.

Of course, there are times in life when perhaps one is blessed to feel the pain of his cross more acutely than at other times. Jesus promises us that this world will give us tribulation as it gave him tribulation. “It is enough for the disciple to be like his teacher, and the servant like his master. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of his household. (Matthew 10:25 (ESV) Yet, there is no promise here that the tribulation a Christian experiences will be any different from that which the world will give to all, either. But at these times the Christian is given opportunity to take heart in Christ who has overcome the world, who carries the burden of the cross willingly and bids “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30 (ESV)) We don’t have to make life harder than it already is, in order to be good Christians. We only need to let Christ do the job.

Pastor Bror Erickson is pastor at Zion Lutheran Church, Farmington NM. 


Rev. Bror Erickson

“For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps.” – I Peter 2:21

Fernando Botero (1932-pesent) perhaps most famous for his paintings of half-naked and rotund women looking at themselves in the bathroom mirror, turns his attention, style and skill to more serious topics while wrestling with his own faith in “Via Crucis”, a series of 27 paintings and 34 drawings depicting the Stations of the Cross. In this particular station, “The Flogging of Christ”, Fernando depicts a Colombian police officer beating Jesus as he carries his cross.

“The most Colombian of Colombian artists,” Botero became the most beloved artist of the art world in the mid to late 20th century, and has been going strong throughout the 21st century as he has turned his attention to more serious subject matter. A Botero is instantly recognizable, and they are found everywhere. For instance, Botero’s fat squatty statues outside the Israel Museum invite pilgrims to crack a smile and enjoy life just blocks away from the Via Della Rosa, the actual site of Christ’s passion that inspired “Via Crucis”. Like encountering old friends, his fat and happy remakes of classical masterpieces greet you from the walls of the Fine Arts Museum in Houston. These are the paintings that cause the name of Botero to conjure up bold colors, and simple yet sophisticated caricatures of Latin American life. His love for life and Colombia, his hometowns of Medellin and Bogota bleed through his paint, allowing his style to transcend cultures and inspire a cosmopolitan patriotism.

This love for life, so often shown in the humor of earlier paintings, shows itself here in the humiliation of Christ being beaten by a police officer. Amidst the beautiful strangeness of proportion characteristic to Botero the details of a Latin Jesus comes to life in bright red blood, and a bold brown and thorny crown. The officer in green and a mustache reminiscent of Hitler, towers over Jesus ready to deliver another blow with his night stick. It’s a powerful presentation of the violence familiar to Fernando himself.

Botero’s hometown of Medellin gave birth to some of the most notorious criminals of the 20th century, men like Pablo Escobar who started the Medellin Cartel, women like Griseldo Blanco who terrorized the streets of Miami throughout the 80s. Columbia broke into civil war as the government tried to put an end to cocaine trafficking with the help of U. S. military leadership, and FARC Rebels tried to bring about the Cuban Revolution in South America. Though many of these threats have been put down to greater or lesser degrees the conflict continues in many areas. Thrown into the mix was the popularity of “Liberation Theology” among the poor farmhands in the rural areas. A theological system known now to be a KGB invention (Source: cruxnow.com), Latin American Liberation Theology sought to justify communist revolution. Police and government crackdown against the church and revolutionaries could often be overzealous, the people often caught up in the violence. Such alignment of the church with various political causes to the right and to the left often causes confusion among those who would believe. When Botero says he is “at times a believer, at times an agnostic” (Source: artitude.eu a person can sympathize with him the way he sympathizes here with victims of police brutality.

The police belong to the good order and authority that God has placed on earth to “punish those who do evil, and praise those who do good.” (1 Peter 2:14) These are the words of Peter, written at a time when persecution of the Bride of Christ was already known within the Roman Empire. At times the words of scripture concerning obedience to the civil government, and other authorities, indeed even to slave masters, strikes us today as naïve. Of course, Paul and Peter, the rest of the disciples who saw the flogging and crucifixion of Christ knew that government could overstep its bounds, that evil people could inhabit office and use it for evil ends, that the government sometimes also praised those who do evil, and punished those who did good. Paul himself once led the persecution with civil blessing until Christ chastised him for kicking against the goads. Goad being a term used for a stick used to prod cattle along in a stockyard. They were not naïve when it came to the corruption of power and authority, nor did they believe that government could not ever be resisted, as they themselves obeyed God rather than man. (Acts 5:28-29) And this is what Peter has in mind as he comforts his flock saying, “when you do good and suffer for it you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God. For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. 25 For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls. (1 Peter 2:20-25) For it is the Shepherd and Overseer of our souls who says to us, “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” (Matthew 5:11-12) For when they persecute you for his names sake, they kick against the goads of Christ their Lord and Savior who carried the cross also for them, and calls them to repentance.

Pastor Bror Erickson is pastor at Zion Lutheran Church, Farmington NM. 

Rev. Bror Erickson

“And he arose and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him” Luke 15:20 (ESV).

In this painting, The Prodigal Son (1924), Giorgio de Chirico revisits one of his favorite themes, a motif he first drew in 1917 as the “Great War” was coming to an end, and first painted in 1922. He would paint the motif several times again with near compulsiveness until his death in 1978. Only then would he be reunited with the father he lost as a child, even as the Father received him into the kingdom with His heavenly embrace.

Chirico gained early fame. It was his father, an engineer working on the railroads of Greece, who first taught him to draw before sending him to art school in Athens. Later, as a young man, Chirico would study art in Munich where he would soak up the ethos of Nietzche and Schopenhauer.

Existentialist philosophy emerged in his early metaphysical art that in turn would pave the way for Surrealist painters such as Salvador Dali and Max Ernst. From 1909 to 1918 he gained notoriety, mostly for empty town squares with distorted light and elongated shadows giving the vibe of an existential crisis, and capturing the sentiment of society caught up in the midst of World War I that claimed the lives of 16 million people.

This painting marked a transition for Chirico, who denounced modern art after the war, but found a return to classical techniques and themes to be difficult, especially as those he inspired with his early works became estranged from their muse. It’s a painting of transition that still carries themes of the proto-surrealism that he was known for in his early works. Yet here the embrace of the prodigal occupies the center of the canvas. Everything else fades off into a distant existential emptiness.

It’s a stunning portrayal of the beloved story. The son returns from his sordid sojourn in foreign lands. The life of debauchery, the inheritance squandered running from responsibility and family have reduced him to a mannequin-a shell of his former self-and everything he owns is carried in a hobo bag tied to a swineherd’s staff. But before he can repent, the cold image of his father, a stone statue worried about his image in the middle of the town square breaks loose from dignity, and free from his pedestal of honor gives him a dad’s embrace. It is an embrace that reflects the Father’s love for all His children as my friend Scott Keith says in his new book on fatherhood, Being Dad, which expounds upon the same parable:

“The love of a father is deep magic that can be sensed by all readers both Christian and non-Christian. The grace of an earthly father is a mere shadow or foggy picture of the grace of our Father in heaven. This story feels true because it is true. This tale tells everyone that the father’s love for his children, for us all, exists even though he is fully aware of all that we have done. This isn’t the story of a doting grandfather who doesn’t really know the details of the situation and just steps in with a smile saying, ‘I’m sure it will all work out in the end.’ We know that without the father stepping in and fixing it, it won’t work out in the end. This is the story of a father and his sons. The father knows of both our greed and our licentiousness. The Father knows of our pride and sanctimony. The father knows of our deep despair, our mistrust of him and our hopelessness apart from him. Yet the father loves us and shows us mercy, and in this tale, Christ tells us precisely that.” (Being Dad, Scott Keith, pg. 19)

Rev. Bror Erickson is pastor at Zion Lutheran Church, Farmington, New Mexico.