Gospels in Art, Music and Literature, The Year C

David Stancliffe

• Publisher: SPCK Publishing
• Year: 2015
• eBook ISBN: 9780281069507
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Reference

For all who wish to reflect on the Gospels for each major Sunday and festival, this ebook offers extra dimensions of art, poetry, literary excerpts and music with a commentary by David Stancliffe. These extra resources can inspire and broaden the imagination and understanding.

1

Advent to Presentation: the Incarnation

The First Sunday of Advent

Christ in Majesty

(Santo Domingo, Soria)

Photo © David Stancliffe

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Luke 21.25–36

The signs of the end time

‘There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves. People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see “the Son of Man coming in a cloud” with power and great glory. Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.’

Then he told them a parable: ‘Look at the fig tree and all the trees; as soon as they sprout leaves you can see for yourselves and know that summer is already near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near. Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all things have taken place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.

‘Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life, and that day does not catch you unexpectedly, like a trap. For it will come upon all who live on the face of the whole earth. Be alert at all times, praying that you may have the strength to escape all these things that will take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.’

The reading in the Roman Catholic Lectionary is the same with a minor variation in length.

Other readings: Jeremiah 33.14–16; Psalm 25.1–9; 1 Thessalonians 3.9–13

Recommended music

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Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–91): Requiem – Dies Irae

Click on the link to hear the music (click off as soon as it ends). If you do not subscribe to Spotify, you will be asked, on your first visit, to sign in and choose a password for free but advertisements might pop up. Spotify subscribers will not see the adverts.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – Requiem in D minor, K. 626: Sequence No. 1: Dies Irae (Chorus)

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Dies irae! Dies illa

The day of wrath, that day

Solvet saeclum in favilla:

Will dissolve the world in ashes:

Teste David cum Sibylla!

As foretold by David and the sibyl!

Quantus tremor est futurus,

How much tremor there will be,

Quando iudex est venturus,

when the judge will come,

Cuncta stricte discussurus!

investigating everything strictly!

Reading from literature

Time

Meeting with Time, slack thing, said I,

Thy sithe is dull; whet it for shame.

No marvell Sir, he did replie,

If it at length deserve some blame:

But where one man would have me grinde it,

Twentie for one too sharp do finde it.

Perhaps some such of old did passe,

Who above all things lov’d this life:

To whom thy sithe a hatchet was,

Which now is but a pruning knife.

Christs coming hath made man thy debter,

Since by thy cutting he grows better.

And in his blessing thou art blest:

For where thou onely wert before

An executioner at best;

Thou art a gard’ner now, and more,

An usher to convey our souls

Beyond the utmost starres and poles.

And this is that makes life so long,

While it detains us from our God.

Ev’n pleasures here increase the wrong,

And length of dayes lengthen the rod.

Who wants the place, where God doth dwell,

Partakes already half of hell.

Of what strange length must that needs be,

Which ev’n eternitie excludes!

Thus farre Time heard me patiently:

Then chafing said, This man deludes:

What do I here before his doore?

He doth not crave lesse time, but more.

(George Herbert (1593–1633))

Reflection

For many people, the Dies Irae is part of the dark world of All Souls Day. The scurrying strings of Mozart’s opening bars and the punch of the choir’s shouts warn us of the terrible chasm opening before us at the Day of Judgement; we know that Mozart wrote these bars just before death claimed him. But the Dies Irae was originally a sequence for Advent, and the ‘coming’ to which Advent refers was the coming of the King, the Messiah the world awaited, not just in the coming of the Christ-child at the festival of Christmas, but also at the end of time.

This dual sense of coming pervades the readings of the day, and focuses our minds on the ambivalence surrounding time. ‘Now is the time to awake out of sleep’, says St Paul in the letter to the Romans, and Advent is full of warnings to be ready. Ready for the King, as the tympanum at Soria readies those who enter the church and reminds us that, in many old lectionaries, the Gospel for Advent Sunday was the triumphal entry into Jerusalem.

Does old Father Time with his scythe cut us down to size, or prune away fruitless growth to help the stock bear fruit? Are we alert to these ambiguities around the time of God’s coming, so that we are ready to say yes when he comes to us?

The Second Sunday of Advent

John the Baptist Entering the Wilderness by Giovanni di Paolo

(National Gallery, London)

© Fine Art Images/Fine Art Images

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Luke 3.1–6

John’s proclamation in the wilderness

In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, during the high-priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah,

‘The voice of one crying out in the wilderness:

“Prepare the way of the Lord,

make his paths straight.

Every valley shall be filled,

and every mountain and hill shall be made low,

and the crooked shall be made straight,

and the rough ways made smooth;

and all flesh shall see the sal...

Table of contents

• Cover page
• About the author
• Title page
• Imprint
• Table of contents
• Acknowledgements
• How to use this book
• 1. Advent to Presentation: the Incarnation
• 2. Sundays before Lent – Ordinary Time
• 3. Ash Wednesday to Pentecost: the paschal mystery
• 4. Sundays after Trinity – Sundays of the year – Ordinary Time