7-15-24<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My old and dear friend Mark Dittmar shares wonderful, brief but profound spiritual thoughts every day through e-mail blasts he calls \u201cNuggets.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Recently one of his messages spoke to me more than usual, and on several levels. His title was a question \u2013 \u201cHow Much Is a Picture Worth?\u201d and the old saying was turned around:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
An artist and a writer were arguing about whose work was more significant. \u201cWell,\u201d said the artist smugly, \u201cone picture is worth a thousand words.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHey, that\u2019s good. Who wrote that?\u201d countered the writer.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n As someone who is a writer and an artist (come to think of it, so is Mark) I appreciated the points of view. Throughout most of human history, works of art and narratives were inextricably related. The creative expressions had virtually common functions. From cave paintings through scrolls and tapestries, paintings and stained-glass windows, pictures told stories. In the same fashion, as writing became codified, alphabets and books revealed themselves through more than letters and words: illuminated manuscripts; decorative scrolls; fabulous works like The Book of Kells.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Words and pictures \u2013 narratives and images \u2013 underwent a Great Divorce with the invention of the printing press. Almost overnight, words were\u201cliberated.\u201d Books comprised of only printed type were the norm; and artists were seduced, in a manner of speaking, to be \u201cnon-representational,\u201d no longer obliged to tell stories or depict scenes with narrative import.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But at the turn of the 20th<\/sup> century there was reconciliation of sorts. Stories and graphics, aided by technology and ingenuity and commercialism, discovered each other again in movies, comics, animation, and other plastic arts and expressions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Again, it could be stated, or argued: \u201cA picture is worth a thousand words.\u201d I think it is creative delight that the proposition is an insoluble mystery. But one manifestation I have not yet mentioned is the age-old literary form of the fable\u2026 myths\u2026 epic poems and sagas\u2026 what storytellers and troubadours have done. That is, melding different artistic forms of expression.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jesus called them \u201cparables.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Post-modernists think they have invented the \u201cPower of Story,\u201d but they merely have rediscovered, or try to, the mode of \u201cpainting word pictures.\u201d He did not say anything to them without using a parable <\/em>(Mark 4:34). Jesus, maybe more than Aesop or Confucius, dealt in word-pictures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mark \u2013 my friend, not the ancient Apostle \u2013 made reference to a painting that is making the rounds of the Internet. It illustrates a familiar parable, a well-known story: Jesus\u2019s description of the Lost Sheep.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If a shepherd has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray? And if he finds it, truly I tell you, he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine that never went astray <\/em>(Matthew 8:12,13).<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n The parable presents a picture partly because it poses a moral dilemma; at least a \u201cpractical\u201d challenge. Would you jeopardize the whole flock to search for one sheep? Would the owner of the flock approve? Did the lost sheep deserve its fate by straying from the flock? These are legitimate questions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2026 unless you are that lost sheep.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The Savior of our souls is willing \u2013 He was<\/em> willing; we have the record of it \u2013 to sacrifice all, even His own life, so the lost sheep might be saved. The point of the parable, in fact the point of view of God\u2019s plan of salvation, is that He cares for us. <\/em>He seeks us <\/em>out. I believe that if the entirety of the human race had been sinless except for one person \u2013 let\u2019s say you<\/em> \u2013 Jesus would still have gone to the cross.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Speaking of the cross, we know that Jesus was beaten and whipped and nailed to that cross. But, in truth (imagine this as a picture) He virtually climbed and scrambled up the cross, and invited those spikes\u2026 so willing was He to die for you and me, taking our punishment upon Himself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the same way, the painting that\u2019s going around the Internet really brought tears to my eyes. It depicts the sheep not merely lost but stuck in mud and muck, struggling. And it depicts the Good Shepherd. He is not viewing the distressed sheep from afar, or calling its name, or tip-toeing in its direction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n No, the Good Shepherd is running, trudging, muddy Himself, desperate to save the Lost Sheep. Picture the scene.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One more artistic expression to add to the miracle of creativity. This parable, this word-picture, this painting, has a holy counterpart in many hymns and Gospel songs. We have \u201csermons in song,\u201d just as pictures can tell stories. One that moves me the most is \u201cThe Ninety and Nine.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cLord, Thou hast here Thy ninety and nine; Are they not enough for Thee?\u201d But the Shepherd made answer: \u201cThis of Mine Has wandered away from Me. And although the road be rough and steep, I go to the desert to find My sheep.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n And all through the mountains, thunder-riv\u2019n, And up from the rocky steep, There arose a glad cry to the gate of Heav\u2019n, \u201cRejoice! I have found My sheep!\u201d And the angels echoed around the throne, <\/em>\u201cRejoice, for the Lord brings back His own!\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n What a picture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n + + +<\/p>\n\n\n\n