Contemporary Art

In our Worship class, we've been talking and reading about Ancient-Future aspects of Christianity. The Ancient-Futureness of Christianity is evident foremost in our faith. With our religious roots stretching back milennia, we are unified with our brothers and sisters in the faith through the Holy Spirit who has preserved God's true Word over time. The observance of the church calendar also has this effect. By worshipping according to a set schedule each year, we are involving ourselves in both global and temporal unity with God's people. The standardization of the church calendar meant that Christians were able to have a sense of fellowship though they were separated geographically. We benefit from this as Christians who are living generation upon generation after our early brothers and sisters because we can know that we are stepping into a very wide stream that is powered by reverence for and awe of God's character. This indeed sounds catholic--and it is, in the sense that the worship of our God is universal, spanning both earth and space. The Future aspect of our faith, in part, is that our worship--our reverence and awe of the Lord--is now powering this mighty stream so our future brothers and sisters who are yet to be born, but whom God has chosen for himself from before the foundations of the world (Eph. 1:4), can step into the great story that God is continuing in us and on through us. This is one small though significant way in which we are a part of the Father's answer to his Son's prayer in John 17:20-23:

"My prayer is not for them (his disciples) alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me."

As Paul says in Ephesians 4:4-5, "There is one body and one Spirit--just as you were called to one hope when you were called--one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all." What a wonder that very God, Holy Spirit, dwells in us. This is reflective of the way that the Father is in the Son and the Son is in the Father. This is the same Holy Spirit who dwelt in Jesus, and dwelt in our ancient brothers and sisters, dwells in our present brothers and sisters, and will dwell in our future brothers and sisters. Though sin strives to divide us, God in his Son has defeated sin with its consequences and has sent us his Spirit so that we cannot be divided, we are eternally fitting for God's kingdom. Our unifying participation in Ancient forms of worship points us to the Future when all divisions and sins will be entirely eradicated and Jesus' sinless prayer will be perfectly answered. In this way, God's work in his people is perpetually and relentlessly contemporary art with both Ancient and Future characteristics.