“Do You See This Woman?” – A New Painting

Do You See This Woman? oil painting on canvas, 24×36″

One of the things I love about the Jesus of the Bible is how He revolutionized the status of women. His every interaction with women had unexpectedly affirming aspects for the time in which He lived. Women seemed to feel free to approach Him. Female followers supported Him financially. Even non-Jewish women received blessing from Him. The resurrection of Jesus is arguably the capstone of His redemptive work. To me it is noteworthy that He first entrusted the news of this world-changing miracle to a small group of women, knowing their testimony would be doubted.

A friend recently commissioned me to do an oil painting based on a passage found in the 7^th chapter of the gospel of Luke. This passage describes one of Jesus’s affirming interactions with a woman in the face of religious self-righteousness.

The passage tells of a Pharisee issuing an invitation to Jesus, asking Him to come and dine with him at his house. This event was likely expected to feature a religious discussion around a meal. The invited men would recline around the table, while the uninvited villagers would be allowed to listen to the discussion from the perimeter of the room. Upon entering, each honored guest would be greeted with a kiss and have his feet washed. When Jesus enters Simon’s house, these customary gestures are not offered to Him. He quietly receives this insult and reclines at table.

The woman in the story is waiting for Jesus at the perimeter, holding an alabaster vial of perfume. She surely would’ve noticed the insult and she more than makes up for it, pouring out her love upon Jesus. She courageously approaches Him from behind, weeping. She kneels down and wets His feet with her tears. Then, breaking taboo, she lets down her hair in public and begins wiping His feet with her hair. She humbly kisses His feet repeatedly and anoints them with the perfume. The fragrance reaches everyone in the room.

It is an incredibly moving display, and Simon inwardly judges both the woman and Jesus for it. Jesus then speaks, asking Simon a question that illuminates exactly what is happening. And then, in what is my favorite part of the story, the narrative says, “…Turning toward the woman, He said to Simon, ‘Do you see this woman?…’” This is the moment depicted in my painting.

I love that it says, “turning toward the woman.” Surely up to this point she must have felt alone, embarrassed, outcast, and perhaps ashamed, to be doing these things in a Pharisee’s house as an uninvited guest. But now Jesus is facing her. Facing her, seeing her, He continues speaking to Simon:

…I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet,
but she has wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair.
You gave me no kiss;
but she, since the time I came in, has not ceased to kiss my feet.
You did not anoint my head with oil,
but she has anointed my feet with perfume.
For this reason I say to you, her sins, which are many, have been forgiven,
for she loved much; but he who is forgiven little, loves little.

Then He said to her, “Your sins have been forgiven.”

Those who were reclining at the table with Him began to say to themselves, “Who is this man who even forgives sins?”

And He said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”

The light in the painting helps to tell the story. The face of Jesus is suffused with light. The woman’s upturned face receives the Light, while Simon’s face remains in shadow.

Some of the cultural insights here are inspired by one of my primary spiritual mentors, Jonathan Williams. You can order his book, “The Women Jesus Loved,” here.

Loveland’s 2023 Sweetheart Festival Murals

That’s right, “murals,” as in TWO!

During this, our seventh year, festival organizers requested two murals because they wanted to expand the mural painting event. I planned the larger mural for our usual location at 4^th and Lincoln. (Although this venue really really for sure is going away soon!?)

The second mural venue is the east exterior wall of Burk’s Tavern, on the western-most block of downtown Loveland on 4^th. It’s a smaller wall and has a fixed mural size. My plan for this space is to feature a pithy love quote along with a portrait of the person who said it. This year’s quote comes from pop culture. More on that in a minute.

If you’ve been following this succession of murals since we first started in 2017, then you know that each year I have selected a well-known, iconic fine art painting. The chosen painting then has the dubious honor of getting parodied with a Valentine’s Day theme. I will admit that I am beginning to run out of universally recognizable paintings to parody. I do have a couple more in the queue.

I am not going to do Washington Crossing the Delaware. So don’t suggest it.

We had great weather this year and a record turnout! This year’s fine art parody mural is based on Norwegian artist Edvard Munch’s painting, entitled, The Scream. Our Loveland version imagines the weird central character as being in love and holding a valentine. I’ve entitled our version, The Squeal.

THE SQUEAL – Painted by Local Residents with Thanks to Edvard Munch, 1873.

The second mural, on Burks’ Tavern wall, will presumably stay up all year. For this mural, I thought it fitting to borrow a quote from everybody’s favorite quotable cult classic – the swashbuckling love story adventure, The Princess Bride.

“Death Cannot Stop True Love. All it Can Do is Delay it for a While” – Westley

Combined, the two murals gave festival-goers a total of 524, nine inch square tiles, to paint over the two day downtown festival.

This project was designed to bring something fun and free to Loveland’s Sweetheart Festival. Something creative and collaborative. Something that celebrates individuals in community. In a world where nasty forces seem to be working tirelessly to invent new ways to divide us, I think it is crucial that we continue to get to know our neighbors in person. Let’s build more bridges in 2023!

A special shout out to all the volunteers who helped me make this happen: Karen, Joel, Linda, the Mihalys, Cherie, and Mollie!
Thanks to the Trail Life boys for demo-ing, and to the guys who volunteered to prep Burk’s Tavern wall to receive the new mural!

Some favorite tiles. Visit downtown Loveland and explore these murals!

Loveland’s 2022 Community Mural

The 2022 Sweetheart Festival mural is based on Johannes Vermeer’s 1665 painting, “Girl with a Pearl Earring.”

On Valentine’s Day weekend in downtown Loveland, Colorado, some 300 local citizens helped create a new community mural. In what has become an annual tradition, each person painted a 9-inch square tile, (usually) following simple guidelines. Anyone able to hold a paintbrush was able to join in, regardless of age or artistic skill.

I have designed the mural-making process to be virtually foolproof. It’s better than paint-by-number because participants are able to creatively express themselves on their tiles. I love to see how people jump in – some restrained, some exuberant; some with a specific vision, some just playing with paint. This is now our sixth community-building-Sweetheart-Festival mural, and I love to see the hundreds of declarations of love that have gone up over the past few years.

This is my intention for this project: community building! I like to hope that in some small way this project is a counter force to the many polarizing forces in our world today.

I conceived the idea for these collaborative murals after the 2016 presidential election. It seemed to me at the time that our world had become dangerously polarized and tribal. At least in my small corner of the world I wanted to do something that would bring the hundreds of local Valentine festival-goers together for something free, fun, creative, and collaborative. As I’ve driven down 4^th Street and seen smiling pedestrians enjoying the finished mural throughout each year, I feel that we’ve hit the bull’s-eye.

Some of my favorite individual tiles!…

Unfortunately, six years later, things do not seem much improved on the culture war front. Art can only take us so far. Politicians don’t bring us together. When a presidential administration is aligned with one side or the other it only heightens the division. This past year confirmed that big tech can’t be trusted to be the arbiter of the truth. Nor can any one news source. There is misinformation about misinformation. Fact checkers need to be fact checked.

Trust in institutions seems to be in short supply, and understandably so.

In a climate where people conflate opinion and fact, and where common ground is difficult to find, common ground can only be part of the solution. We may not be able to find much of that. We must re-learn to live together peacefully in respectful disagreement. In my opinion, that can only happen if we talk to each other; if we get to know each other with the aim of understanding one another.

If you’ve had enough of hysterical polarization, would like to become part of the solution, but aren’t sure where to begin, I have a friendly suggestion. Join this group: BraverAngels.org.  Or at least check out one of their “Skills Trainings” e-courses. You can join BA for $1 dollar a month. I’ve been a member for well over a year now and hope to see it grow! You can also easily search out some past BA events on Youtube to get a feel for what a BA event looks like.

Grace and peace to you!
Scott Freeman

Check out my newest Children’s book, The Friendly City, to help the child in your life navigate a divided culture! You can preview all my books, page by page, on my Instagram.

A view of Loveland’s annual Sweetheart Festival, taken from our tile-painting tent. This year the festival was held at “the Foundry,” Loveland’s newest downtown public plaza.

What Does December 25th Have To Do With Jesus?

I think Christmas is perfectly placed on the calendar. Though for me, Christmas really is a season and not just a day. It’s Christmastime. Yet it’s a season that ends with a fabulous holiday, pregnant with meaning.

There’s a lot to love about Christmas. For one thing, I love the contrast with Easter. Christmas is a nighttime holiday, while Easter is a morning holiday. Christmas is observed just after the longest night of the year, celebrating the Light of the World entering the darkened condition of humanity. By contrast, Easter is observed just as the natural world is waking up to renewed life in spring, celebrating the dawning of spiritual rebirth and salvation for humanity.

It is this bringing of rebirth and life to humanity that was always the point of Christ’s coming, but at His birth, the point is still necessarily hidden and wrapped up in mystery. No one had an inkling of the changes that the infant Messiah would someday bring; of the unexpected way He would fulfill both the veiled foreshadowings and the explicit prophesies in the Torah and the prophets. The hard work of reconciling humankind to God was still before Him; the nature of His mission and kingdom still hidden; the full inclusion of all nations not yet understood. Human understanding was still darkened.

The Light had finally come! What would He reveal?

There is much about lighting up the darkness at Christmas: Candles lit. Fires burning. Lights strung. Stars appearing. There is beauty and meaning in lighting up the darkness at Christmastime. These lights symbolize the Light of the World and the light of His Love – the light of the Truth and the light of His Life. The apostle John writes that “God is light, and in Him there is no darkness.” In his gospel he writes of Jesus, saying, “in Him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend, or overcome, it” (NASB).

Light draws people in from out of the darkness. His light brings us together. John elaborates, “…if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin” (NASB). The light of His forgiveness burns away our need to stay isolated in darkness.

Much of the meaning of Christmas is about anticipation. We remember the anticipation of Israel longing to hear from her God again after 400 years of silence from her prophets. We remember the anticipation of that nation awaiting her promised Messiah, and the anticipation, though misguided, around what that Savior would do. We remember the anticipation of a young Jewish woman about to deliver her miraculously conceived firstborn. And then the scriptures speak of the anticipation that God Himself felt in restoring humanity to relational unity with Himself.

The humble arrival of Jesus in human flesh is a gift of love from our heavenly Father, leading to His gift of salvation. James, the brother of Jesus, wrote, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change” (ESV). How appropriate, then, that gift giving is a part of celebrating Christmas.

This brings us to the date in question. Why December 25^th? Every Christmas season, trolls come out to mock Christians for naively celebrating a “pagan holiday.” We “ignorantly” participate in supposedly pagan rituals, like decorating trees. “Skeptics” assert that the winter solstice was celebrated by pagans long before the birth of Jesus. Christmas is supposedly derived from the Roman holiday, Saturnalia, in honor of the agricultural god Saturn.

But this is like mocking a family for buying, renovating, and living in what was formerly a crack house. Who cares what once went on in the house when something better has replaced it? The fact is that for most Christians today, December 25^th is the celebration of the birth of Jesus. Practically speaking, it matters to no one what pagans may or may not have celebrated a few thousand years ago, or that a pope co-opted a popular winter festival to help get pagans on board with Christianity.

Most Christians are well aware that Jesus was not born on Dec 25^th and that no one knows the actual date of His birth. So if one must pick a date on which to celebrate the deeply profound first advent of Jesus, what better date than Dec 25^th, for all the reasons mentioned above? Here again there is a contrast with Easter. The resurrection of Jesus is explicitly tied to the spring feasts of Israel, particularly Passover. But the birth of Jesus has no such clear biblical link, so if one wants to celebrate His birth, why not infuse life and hope into the dead of winter?

Furthermore, if anyone cares to look, there is good evidence specifically connecting December 25^th to the first advent of Jesus. There is evidence in the field of modern astronomy that the magi made their famous visit to the child Jesus in Bethlehem on December 25^th. Of course, according to the scriptures, Jesus would have been a toddler by then, and living in a house rather than lying in a manger. Nonetheless, it’s an extraordinary coincidence that the magi likely brought gifts to Jesus on December 25^th, the same day we mark our modern celebration with gift giving.

It’s also significant that the magi were not Jewish. They are the first foreshadowing in the life of Jesus that the Jewish Messiah had come not only for Israel, but also for all nations. In fact, the magi may well have fit the definition of “pagan.” So much, then, for the argument that the church stole December 25th from paganism. One could just as likely argue that the winter solstice was waiting for Jesus to give it a deeper and better meaning than the pagan celebrations gave. After all, if the scriptures are true, then He is the Creator of the winter solstice.

Based on my many conversations with “skeptics,” I suspect that claims of the pagan roots of Christmas are part of the larger effort to de-legitimize Jesus and His Church. The idea is to show that there is nothing unique about Jesus; that Christianity is just one more version of the many man-made religions and invented gods that came before it. The claim is that early paganism contains scores of virgin birth myths, resurrection stories, and other similarities to the Jesus stories of the Bible.

But careful scholarship has shown those claims to be untrue. There is no one else like Jesus, and nothing else like the story of His virgin birth, or the story of His bodily resurrection – at least, nothing that pre-dates the gospel accounts. (Supposed pagan parallels include stories like the god Mithra, who was born from out of a rock; not quite the virgin birth depicted in the bible.)

As for Christmas, the celebration date may have been arbitrarily chosen, but that doesn’t make its roots pagan. The story of Jesus is explicitly rooted in the ancient Jewish scriptures, but its branches have spread around the world. I am always excited to join the worldwide celebration.
The Light has come! 

You can read about the astronomy surrounding Jesus’s birth and Dec 25^th, HERE and HERE.
To read my debate with a qualified Star-of-Bethlehem debunker, read the comment section HERE.

About the painting: This piece was a commission for Conception Abbey, a Benedictine monastery in northwest Missouri. The painting was designed to match the Beuronese style of a series of large murals encircling the interior of the basilica, (completed in the1890s.) I was commissioned to paint additional Christmas imagery in this style. I depicted the magi representing the gentile nations. The olive tree in the background is a reference to Romans ch 11 – Paul’s discourse on the “wild” gentile nations being grafted into the “cultivated” Jewish olive tree. I don’t particularly enjoy painting in this meticulous manner, but it was a fun project!

Building Community During a Pandemic

Loveland, Colorado’s newest community mural, located on 4th Street at Lincoln. Made up of 336 individual tiles.

One of my favorite hand-print tiles.

When Donald Trump was elected to the presidency in 2016 I heard numerous accounts of people weeping, going into depression, and cutting ties with friends and family who had voted for Trump. It was during this climate that I conceived of the idea of putting on a giant community art event that would involve hundreds of people coming together to create a unified statement.

Five monumental murals later we have a new president and the nation appears to me to be more divided than ever. Furthermore, any attempts at building community are made more challenging as we can’t see each other’s faces or be in close physical proximity to one another. Both people and events are now frequently cancelled.

In past years all the mural painting has been done over a 3 day period in the midst of Loveland’s annual Valentine’s Day street festival. It’s been fun, but often chaotic and cold!

This depiction of hops was painted by the Brew master at Grimm Brothers Brewhouse.

This year, though the street festival was cancelled, the city still wanted to celebrate the Valentine season by going forward with a new community mural. For subject matter in past years I had parodied a famous painting. This year the city requested that I base the mural on the US Postal Service’s new Forever Stamp.

This year the painting took place over a 3 week period inside the warmer and quieter Beet Center, the Loveland Museum-Gallery’s expanded space. In order to comply with state restrictions around COVID, we had people sign up for 20-minute increments and limit the number of people per room. While I missed the energy of the street festival, I have to admit I enjoyed the slower pace and I was actually able to enjoy extended conversations with several people.

But about this business of unifying the nation…

I’m happy to announce that everyone who participated in painting this year’s mural is now at peace with their neighbor, and has become committed to treating their political opponents with love and respect.

One of my favorites by a local artist friend…

Just kidding!

If only it were that easy. During an interview this year I was asked, “How have you seen art bring people together since the start of the pandemic? I replied:

Honestly, it’s been difficult bringing people together for any reason since the pandemic season started. I initially wondered if the pandemic might unite the country, but unfortunately it became politicized and has divided our nation even further. I think it’s important for human beings to continue to create, but the arts can only do so much. I think the only thing that will truly bring people together is if we as individuals do the hard work of getting to know our neighbor again, and seeking to understand those who view things differently than we do. I regularly engage in respectful dialogue with people “on the other side,” and it has been very healing. Politicians can’t fix this.

If that sounds like a buzzkill of an answer to you, I would plead to differ. I think it empowers the individual to care constructively, as opposed to hoping and waiting for politicians to get it right. We may not be like-minded in our opinions, but we can choose to be like-minded in approaching each other with understanding and respect as fellow human beings who bear the image of God.

In future posts I’ll share some of my adventures in reaching out to “the other side.” Until then, I would be very interested in hearing your thoughts as to what you believe has caused the polarization in our culture. Please share in the comments below.

I made this one!

Do you need a gift idea for a child in your life? My newest book, The Friendly City, is designed to be a fun tool to help kids navigate a culture that has slipped its moorings. Order your copy HERE.

Building Community Through Art

“THE KISS” – Loveland Version, 15 x 15 feet.

2020 is our fourth year to create a giant community art piece in downtown Loveland, Colorado. For the design each year I’ve spoofed a famous fine art painting, giving each one a Valentine’s Day twist and a nod to Loveland.

This year I chose Austrian painter, Gustav Klimt, and his iconic 1908 painting, The Kiss.

If you look closely you can see Dan Cupid aiming his arrow at the couple. Dan Cupid is the character who shows up in the special postmark each year for Loveland’s famous valentine re-mailing program. He’s kind of a Loveland mascot, at least around Valentine’s Day, so he made his way into the design this year.

Detail showing Dan Cupid

The painting of the mural takes place during Loveland’s annual Valentine’s Day Street festival. This year there were 400 tiles, each painted by festival-goers; young and old, skilled and unskilled, first-timers and returnees. I received many enthusiastic comments from folks who are thankful for this community project, letting me know that people value the experience. That’s worth a lot to me!

Four years ago, my motive for creating the mural event sprung from a perceived need and a desire to build community. After the 2016 election, so much of the country seemed so divided and angry, even in my hometown of Loveland.

Today, four years later, the climate doesn’t seem much better to me, except that I now hear more voices calling for listening to, and understanding, one another in respectful dialogue. (Click here to see a favorite example of mine). I believe those voices are correct. The unhealthy alternative of perpetual division is too disheartening to live with. What a dysfunctional mess to leave to our children.

I don’t see much hope that presidents and elected politicians are capable of bringing healing to our divided nation. It’s up to us to do that at a grass roots level. It’s up to us to restore the vanishing art of respectful disagreement. Let us connect with our neighbors and get to know them, especially those who may see things differently than we do.

Even though a community mural is not going to transform the social climate, I think it’s one small step in the right direction. Combined with many other small steps, perhaps we can eventually find that we have arrived at a more caring and unified place as a society.

Big thanks again to all of my amazing volunteers at Beggars’ Gate Church!
Thanks also to Loveland Downtown Partnership and the Loveland Chamber of Commerce for their support!

My valentine to my wife. (I’m too skinny to get a real tattoo).

 

A Painting: Bringing the Hidden Stuff to Light

“Transformation” by Scott Freeman, 22×28, latex paint on canvas

I haven’t done a great deal of worship painting, (defined as live painting during a worship service,) and when I have done so, I’m not sure that what I’ve painted has spoken to many people. But recently I did a worship painting that seemed to connect with several bros. After the service I had some great conversations, and several people wanted to purchase the painting.

I was a little embarrassed about the subject matter, due, I suppose, to my fine art schooling and the fact that Christian subculture can get pretty cheesy at times. But I do consciously aim to make work that exists in a place of tension between populism and elitism. This is possibly due to the fact that I had a thoroughly blue-collar upbringing, but then attended a private, elitist art college. I found that both had valuable things to offer.

On this night, I figured that making a painting featuring both a sword and a mask would render it hopelessly clichéd in the eyes any art snobs in the room, but I couldn’t think of a better way to communicate what I wanted to say. So I ignored all that and made the painting.

The Painting
I had some friends in mind as I made the painting – guys that are struggling to overcome various addictions, and for whom this struggle has been a protracted battle. As I’ve watched my friends I’ve been impressed by their humility; by their willingness to make themselves vulnerable and accountable to our church congregation of fellow travelers.

This has required them to remove their masks; to allow us into their lives to see them as they are in their failures, and allow us to accept them and care for them. But it’s difficult removing masks. It’s counter-intuitive. It requires a death to self, and that’s what the sword represents. It really is a battle. My friends are warriors.

As I was painting I noticed that the mask has the shape of a shield. It struck me that we may try to use masks as a shield; as a way to protect ourselves, and as something to hide behind. But a mask fails as a shield. A mask is too small, and we all know what’s behind the mask anyway – a broken person who needs connection with God and with other people. We intuitively know this because it’s true for us all.

So the figure in the painting is instead looking to the light of God; exposing himself to God; surrendering himself to God; receiving new life from God, resting in God’s grace. The mask is down. The armor we actually need is the spiritual armor described by the apostle Paul, including the shield of faith and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God (Eph 6:10-18).

Why do we pretend to have our poop in a group?
Church culture can tend to perpetuate mask-wearing as a way to hide our secret sins and imperfections. Maybe it’s because we celebrate the destination, and it’s easier to present the impression we have already arrived than it is to do the uncomfortable work of making the inward journey. Or maybe we feel we don’t have fellow travelers that we can trust. Maybe for a wounded person it feels safer to forego taking a relational risk. Maybe we just don’t know a better way.

But hiding our sins and imperfections is to misunderstand what Jesus envisioned a community of His followers to be. The church was intended to be a subculture of life, called out from a culture of death. Life as God defines it means walking in communion and love, and walking in freedom that comes from addressing our brokenness.

The process of coming to the Light so that the darkness in our hearts is exposed is a process we must all undertake if we are to live in the community of God’s Life. Entrenched lies and destructive patterns must be identified, named, confessed and brought to light, put to death, and then replaced with Truth. Otherwise, they will continue to inhibit the Spiritual healing and wholeness that God has in mind for us.

The hidden stuff has a way of not staying hidden anyway. If it remains present it will shape our identity and our behavior, even affecting those relationships around us as it tends to come out in hurtful or inappropriate ways.

Restoration and Transformation
We were made for wholeness, for freedom, and for loving communion with God and one another. He has created us to need Him, and to need community with one another; to know and to be known; to experience relational unity as human beings helping each other along in the process of being restored to wholeness. The shameful stuff, whatever it may be, has power over us as long as it remains hidden.

“…If we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness”
(1 John 1:7-9).

May we walk in the Light together.

Prints are available of this painting. Email me if you’re interested at scottnmollie@yahoo.com.

“Loveland Gothic” – A New Mural

The completed mural, 12×15 ft, painted by 320 local citizens, young and old.

For the past 3 years, I and a small army of volunteers have facilitated the creation of a community mural, painted by local festival-goers, during downtown Loveland’s annual Valentine’s Day festival.

Each year we’ve spoofed an iconic fine art painting, giving each painting a Valentiney twist. This year I chose an American artist, Grant Wood, using the occasion to celebrate sibling love. Many people assume that Wood’s original painting depicts a husband and wife, though this is probably not the case. Wood never clearly defined the relationship of the characters.

The point of the mural project is to bring the community together in creating something fun, creative, and monumental. Individuals are encouraged to express their individuality on their tiles, and those tiles then each become a part of the bigger picture – a metaphor for community.

Festival-goers do not know in advance what the bigger picture will be. This is the reason I have chosen fine art imagery – these images are already well loved by the public and are hopefully something of which no one would object to being a part.

Going forward, if we are able to continue this annual project, we may have to do a better job of communicating. This year a couple of people apparently took their tiles home with them! Also there was more confusion than usual as to what paint colors to use in a given area. My apologies to those of you whose tiles I had to alter in order to make the big picture work.

All in all, I think the mural came together nicely! Thanks to the Loveland Downtown Partnership and Chamber of Commerce for their support this year. Also thanks to all the volunteers at Beggars’ Gate church for braving the cold and making this happen again.

Detail showing the bear chainsaw sculpture and the Abraham Lincoln brooch.

The Visitation: A Picture of Trust

As we approach the Christmas season, I thought I would share with you a favorite post, The Visitation, from several years ago. I still find it encouraging, and I hope you will too. Also, I made the painting featured below into a Christmas card. Details at the end:

Sometimes I find it enriching to “copy” great paintings. I like doing this for a couple of reasons. First, re-tracing the stages of a great painting is a good way to learn about painting. It’s like thinking the thoughts of the painter after him/her. In the process one can sometimes understand why the original painter made certain decisions about color, composition, and subject matter.

But secondly, I view re-painting a great composition as similar to doing a musical cover of a great song. It’s not about making a literal copy, or even necessarily trying to improve upon the old composition. Sometimes it’s about making the song (or painting) come alive for a new generation, and honoring the greatness of the original. For me it says there is something beautiful or profound there that is worth looking at or listening to again.

Below is an early 16th century painting by Italian artist Mariotto Albertinelli. I think it’s a painting worth writing about during the Advent season. I’ve never seen this painting in person. I only ran across it in an old art book one day, and it stopped me cold. I’ll tell you why I was drawn to this painting…

…I was moved for a number of reasons. The main reason is the tender depiction of the relationship of these two pregnant women, each leaning in toward the other. I love how their hands are clasped near their wombs; how the older begins to embrace the younger. Most striking of all to me is the proximity of their faces to one another – almost touching, as if there really is no adequate physical way to express what they are feeling.

Even if you’re unfamiliar with the story that is depicted here, you may get the feeling that something momentous has happened, or is happening. You may feel that these women share some wonderful secret.

In fact, they do share a terrible and fantastic secret.

This is a depiction of what has come to be called The Visitation, recorded in the first chapter of the gospel of Luke. After learning that her elder kinswoman, Elizabeth, is pregnant, Mary goes to visit her in the hill country of Judah. Both women carry children miraculously conceived, and named by God Himself. Both pregnancies were preceded by secretive angelic visits, with messages so extraordinary that they strained belief. Even today, some two thousand years later, most people do not believe their story. Yet, enough of us do believe it that the story remains with us.

Elizabeth’s situation is a bundle of conundrums. She is infertile, past childbearing age, and childless – until now. At the time of Mary’s visit, Elizabeth is six months into her pregnancy. Of her coming child, John, the angel Gabriel had spoken these words:

“…he will be great before the Lord,…And he will turn many of the sons of Israel to the Lord their God, and he will go before him in the spirit and the power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children…” (Luke 1:15-17)

These words were a direct reference to the very last words written by the last Mosaic covenant prophet, Malachi, prophesying what would occur before the coming of the Messiah (Malachi 4:5). Now after 400 years of silence from God, the waiting is over, and Elizabeth’s child will be this Messiah’s forerunner. However, even knowing the prophecies, nothing would unfold as expected:

Elizabeth was the wife of a Jewish temple priest. Their child John would announce the Messiah, who would in turn make that Jewish Aaronic priesthood obsolete (Heb 8:1-13). He would do this, not because that system was wrong, but because the entire Mosaic system pointed to Him, and He would bring about something much better. In fact this Messiah would be the fulfillment of every Mosaic covenant feast and ritual, though no one could see it at the time.

Mary’s situation is even more impossible. In a culture where sexual infidelity is a punishable offense, she chooses to bear the stigma of an untimely pregnancy. But what can she say to people? God made me pregnant? Only an angelic visit to Joseph persuades him to stay with her.

And after that, what can he say to people? An angel told me in a dream that God made her pregnant? Right. Oh…and by the way, our baby is the Messiah that you and all of Israel have been expecting for centuries? There is really nothing to be done except to let the story unfold. Only trusting in the loving God who initiated all of these things makes sense.

So for now these two women have each other, both caught up in events too mysterious and too earthshaking to be understood at this point. They stand at a place of vivid tension between flesh and Spirit, faith and sight, darkness and light, and between this age and the one to come.

“The Visitation” – watercolor by Scott Freeman
based on a 16th c painting by Mariotto Albertinelli

For those interested, the original painting has been sold, but I do have prints available of the original. Prints are 6×8″ on archival watercolor paper, and come with a certificate of authenticity. Cost is $20.00, unframed, and includes shipping within the US. A nice gift for both art lovers and people of faith. To order, email me at scottnmollie@yahoo.com.

Also, I just made this painting into a Christmas card on my Zazzle site. I think there is still a “60% off sale on greeting cards” going on, if you hurry. CLICK HERE to order.

“Under the Surface” – A Painting

“Under the Surface” by Scott Freeman, 1×3 ft, latex paint on canvas.

A couple of weeks ago I was reading a passage from the gospel of Luke. Though I’d read it many times before, I felt as though God encouraged me with some new thoughts around the passage.

Luke 5:1-11 tells the story of Jesus calling His first disciples. He’s by a lake and the crowd is pressing in around Him. He sees a couple of boats lying on the shore. He gets into Simon’s boat and asks him to put out a little way from the shore. Then He sits down and begins teaching the people from the boat.

When Jesus had finished speaking, He says to Simon, “Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.”

Simon replies, “Master, we worked hard all night and caught nothing, but I will do as You say and let down the nets.”

It says they then enclosed so many fish that their nets began to break. They called their partners in the other boat to help, and filled both boats so full that they began to sink. Simon is amazed and falls at Jesus’s feet, confessing his unworthiness. Jesus tells him, “Do not fear, from now on you will be catching men.”

After getting to shore, Simon and his partners leave everything and follow Jesus.

What came to mind
After I read this I was struck with the thought of what must’ve been going on under the surface of the water while Jesus was teaching. As fantastical as it sounds, it must be that the fish in the lake were gathering around the boat where Jesus was sitting. Unseen and unsuspected by everyone above the surface, God was preparing to do something amazing.

Sometimes I feel as though I’ve “labored all night and caught nothing.” Simon and friends had labored all night, on the very same lake but without Jesus, and caught nothing. For myself, my takeaway is that I need to be with Jesus, abiding in Him, listening to Him, and being like Him. I want to hold Jesus up – not my hard work, not my personal awesomeness, not my politics, not even a religion called “Christianity,” but the person of Jesus.

Jesus, the person, said He would draw humanity to Himself. The apostles speak of God’s ultimate plan to unite things in heaven and on earth in Jesus (Eph 1:9,10; Col 1:19,20). We have each been given the unspeakable opportunity to begin walking in relational unity with Jesus right now, even in this broken age, as we look forward to seeing Him bring ultimate unity to completion in the age to come.

What matters most
Simon made no income the night before he met Jesus. Then Jesus, presumably a stranger to Simon, took up much of his morning, monopolizing his time and equipment. But Jesus paid him back, far beyond what Simon could’ve imagined. Ironically, Simon apparently then left his physical repayment lying on the beach in order to follow the transcendent call of Jesus:

…seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these [material] things will be added to you (Mt 6:33 ESV).

Much later, after the resurrection and departure of Jesus, the book of Acts describes how Simon, now called Peter, is very effectively engaged in His new occupation of “catching men.” The religious leaders are puzzled as to what to do with these fishermen:

Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished. And they recognized that they had been with Jesus. But seeing the man who was healed standing beside them, they had nothing to say in opposition (Acts 4:13,14 ESV).

May it become apparent that we, also, have been with Jesus.

The painting
I love the idea of God being at work under the surface. I was intrigued by the idea of an image depicting the crowd of people coming to Jesus on the lake shore, mirrored by the crowd of fish gathering around Jesus under the surface. The only way for me to see how it would look was to paint it.

I joined my wife and a couple of other artists, and made this painting during a worship event; the first Northern Colorado Worship and Prayer night of this new school year. These monthly worship nights are inter-church events, and everyone is welcome. You can follow this year’s schedule HERE. Live worship-painting is always a part of each event.

This painting has been sold. Thank you for your support!