Art And All That, Part IV

Allow me to admit right up front in this post that I am a Westerner.  I am Western by birth and culture.  I’m partial to Western music and Western language.  Having said that, you can perhaps guess the corollary:  I am not Eastern.  Not by a long shot.  So sometimes I have trouble understanding the progression of thoughts of someone who is Eastern.

That is why I must admit that though I have read it 3 times, I have yet to get all of what Makoto Fujimura is trying to say in his article in the most recent Tabletalk magazine.  Nevertheless, in The Beautiful Tears I find a principle that helps to support the “why” of true Art and the importance of sacrifice in producing true Art.  Mr. Fujimura is a very fine Christian "artist, writer and catalyst" as his website states.  Certainly the article we are about to examine is an inspiring example of the art of writing, and I hope it will be a catalyst to your thinking, as well.

Before I begin delving into the article though, I’d like to tell a short story.  Recently God enabled me to acquire my Bachelor of Arts degree in Music after three years of intense schedules, neglected family, and hard work.  During those years I was privileged to hear the testimony of one of the professors.  I will never forget the part of the story in which he tells how he came to play the flute.  His main instrument was the clarinet…and he was already quite expert at that instrument.  But he decided he wanted to play the flute, also.  So he did his research, packed his bags, and moved to be near the greatest flute teacher he could find.

Then he called the teacher.  This instructor asked a few questions, and upon learning that my professor had no experience with flute whatsoever, he told him that he would not take him as a student.  My professor questioned him as to what it would take for the instructor to accept him as a student, and was told to “spend 10,000 hours practicing, then call me back.”

Did you get that number?  Let me spell it in italics for you:  

T-E-N  T-H-O-U-S-A-N-D  HOURS.

In what area of your life have you spent 10,000 hours of training? Be honest, now...

My professor, being the kind of person he is, simply began practicing.  He marked off every hour of practice on his apartment wall until he had racked up 10,000 hours.

Then he called the famous teacher back.

Of course he got the lessons.  And he’s a fabulous flute player—as fabulous as he is a clarinet player, and saxophone player.

I think the lesson that my professor learned was the necessity of extravagant sacrifice in the production of true Art.

Mr. Fujimura gives us a lesson on the extravagant sacrifice necessary by beginning with the story surrounding the shortest verse in the Bible.

Jesus and the disciples are ministering across the Jordan, near the place John the Baptizer preached.  Jesus receives word that his good friend Lazarus is ill, yet the Lord does not go to him.  Long-story-short, Lazarus ends up dying, and Jesus finally decides to go to him, even though He knows it means his own death will follow shortly afterward.  When Jesus reaches Bethany, the village where Lazarus and his sisters Martha and Mary live, he is met by first Martha, then Mary.  Both are grief stricken.  And it is at this point that Jesus does something different than he’s ever done before.

He weeps.

From The Beautiful Tears:

Why did Jesus weep?  He delayed coming to Bethany “so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.”(John 11:4), and, when He arrived, informed Martha that He is “the resurrection and the life”(v. 25).  If He came to Bethany to show His power, the fact that He is indeed the Messiah with the power to resurrect the dead, why did He not simply wave His “magic wand” to “solve the problem” of the death and illness of Lazarus?  There would have been an immediate celebration, and all the tears would have been unnecessary.  Tears are useless, wasteful, if you possess the power to cause miracles.

So, why did Jesus weep?  And furthermore, what do His tears have to do with Art?  Let’s follow the story on into the next week of Jesus’ life.  After Lazarus is raised, the Pharisees are seeking to kill Jesus.  He slips away to a little village called Ephraim for a few days rest, and then returns to Bethany to have dinner with Lazarus, Martha and Mary.  Lazarus, Jesus, and the guys were all sitting around the table having a meal when Mary

Barged into a closed room of disciples, crushing open her alabaster jar of nard, worth a year’s wages, that she was to keep for her wedding.  She intuited in Jesus’ tears that every miracle of Jesus drew Him a step closer to His sacrificial death.  She had to respond with a direct, intuitive, but also intentional act of devotion…Jesus’ tears led to Mary’s act of sacrifice, of nard being spread in a closed room in Bethany, where a transgression by a woman opened up a new paradigm the aroma of Christ, of the reality of the gospel breathing into our broken world, filling the cracks of suffering.

Art, like Jesus’ tears and Mary’s nard, spreads in our lives, providing useless beauty for those willing to ponder.  Many consider the arts to be the “extra” of our lives, an embellishment that is mere leisure…What many consider extra, and even wasteful, may come to define our humanity….Every act of creativity is, directly or indirectly, an intuitive response to offer to God what He has given to us.

But what about faux art?  What about that which is not, by our definition, True Art?

“We twist this intuition and may create something transgressive and injurious, but this creative impulse originates from the Creator.  Jesus wept.”

Maybe you’re still asking yourself “what’s the point? I enjoy art, sure, but how is it helpful to the gospel?  Isn’t it a waste of time we could be spending witnessing?”  Mr. Fujimura continues:

Judas was livid at Mary’s act, and argued that the nard could have been sold and the money given to the poor (Mark 14:5).  Pragmatism, legalism and greed cannot comprehend…beauty.  The opposite of beauty is not ugliness; the opposite of beauty is legalism….Legalism takes away life by forbidding the nard to be spilled…

As I have stated before, I believe that Art is 1) powerful, 2) important to God, and 3) demands great sacrifice.  As a Christian, the greatest sacrifice I can imagine is that of Jesus’ willing death to pay the price for my sin.  The article continues:

Christ is the great Artist.  Maybe what He saw in Mary was a little artist, emulating and mirroring His great sacrifice….Jesus told the disciples that what Mary had done would be proclaimed “whenever the gospel is told.”  Perhaps we need to ponder the logical consequence to this extraordinary affirmation:  Is our work for the gospel saturated with the aroma of Mary’s nard?  What is our beautiful, extravagant offering that exposes Judas, an offering prepared for the cosmic wedding to come?

What we deemed a waste, Jesus called the most necessary.  Jesus wept.

What we deemed a waste…

And with that thought, I leave you for today to your meditation upon Art and all that.