Thank you, Angels!

Close up of the Guardian Angel on reclaimed wood,  by JoAnne Silvia

I’ve been thinking about angels lately. About how the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary, a young virgin who was engaged to be married. He started out by telling her she was favored. “The Lord is with you, ” he said.

Mary was startled and confused. Who wouldn’t be?

So, Gabriel tried to comfort her before he delivered the big news:

“Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.”   Luke 1:30-33 NIV

Can you imagine how Mary felt? How Joseph felt? It’s a good thing an angel came to Joseph in a dream and told him, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.” Matt 1:20 NIV

The angels watched over Mary and Joseph and guided them on their difficult journey, giving them strength to persevere.

Close up of Joseph and Mary in same painting as above by JoAnne Silvia

We don’t usually get angels talking to us, telling us not to be afraid. Or maybe we do. Maybe the urges we get to do something different or try a new path are coming from God’s messengers, but all our technology and distractions make it harder to recognize divine nudges. That doesn’t mean they’re not nudging and trying to protect us, often shaking their heads.

I know angels watched over me in the late 70s when my parents prayed for me constantly  Here’s an excerpt from Trust The Timing:

I still officially lived with my parents, but stayed at Edward’s apartment for days at a time. It was an unstable relationship with petty arguments and periodic break ups. During the break ups, I drove my ‘69 Dodge Dart the hour south to Wilmington to visit Terry and Sally or Caroline. They were all living there in port city/college town at one time or another during the late 70s. Those were some of my wildest weekends leaving me with not-so-fond memories of heaving over somebody’s toilet at two in the morning or wondering if I should be a little more selective about who I ended up in bed with. Yet, there was an element of relative safety being with my high school girlfriends who would have my back if things got too far out of control. Not to say that I was always safe, but thankfully, there was no permanent damage. The angels must have been run ragged.

Thanks again, angels!

Fast forward to this century and I get the nudge: “I’m supposed to be painting angels,” a thought that came to me several years ago. When I started to actually paint angels, which was the least I could do, the angels danced.

Angel in a Green Dress is on the opposite side of the reclaimed wood I used to paint the Guardian Angel and Joseph and Mary above.

Maybe when my high school sweetheart decided to pick that particular June day in 2011 to look for me on Facebook, after not hearing from in 39 years, maybe an angel nudged him along, because it was time.

Maybe angels are nudging me to write this blog post.

But enough thinking! Sometimes thinking too much might distract us from feeling spiritual nudges. So here’s a video that makes me giggle. I hope you enjoy it.

The kids read the story and the grownups act it out.

The Trial and the Crucifixion

This week, I’m revisiting the movie, Jesus Christ Superstar, a journey which started   here.

Today is the most difficult part of the journey for me. Though Jesus and his friends suffered the most, it appears to have also been difficult for Pilate’s wife. It’s interesting to note her expression, assuming she is the woman standing behind and to the left of Pilate in the trial scene below. Consider this brief mention in Matthew 27:19:

“While he (Pilate) was sitting on the judgment seat, his wife sent word to him, “Have nothing to do with that innocent man, for today I have suffered a great deal because of a dream about him.”

I wonder about this woman and her dream. Was she a supporter of Jesus? There is much speculation about Pontius Pilate’s wife.

 

 

As this is “Good Friday”, (Holy Friday still makes more sense to me) I felt compelled to include a crucifixion scene. The scene from Jesus Christ Superstar doesn’t quite work for me. So I looked for something including Mary, the Mother if Jesus, in addition to Mary Magdalene. I must have remembered the following scene from The Passion of the Christ. It’s a powerful movie and much more  realistic than Superstar.

WARNING: The following scene is very hard to watch. It made me sob, again. You are under NO obligation to watch it, of course, and might not want to. Trust your own good judgement on whether to watch it or not.

So why did I watch it? Initially out of curiosity. I watched it again, knowing it would be hard, maybe because I wanted to know what a real crucifixion would be like. I find value in that awareness.

If you are able, here is the scene from The Passion of the Christ:

It’s hard to imagine it possible for any man (or woman) to survive so long under these conditions, especially after being severely flogged, but then Jesus was not just any man.

May the peace of God, which passes all understanding, comfort us all.

May we rejoice in knowing that this is not the end of the story.