To incarnate something is to take an idea and give it flesh. Ideas have the option of being nice and neat, but often flesh is just the opposite. To seamlessly weld these two together is no small task. The difficulty of bringing them together may explain why some early Christian leaders referred to the incarnation of God in Christ as a mystery. Living out spiritual truth in our physical world, or incarnational Christianity, is a mystery that demands the modern church’s attention.
Rembrandt van Rijn not only produced masterful post-renaissance art, he also provided an example of incarnational Christianity in his famous painting, The Prodigal Son. The painting’s lighting gives insight into its meaning. Notice that the light falls on two characters who are off-center. These two characters represent the prodigal son and his forgiving father. This lighting technique not only draws the viewer’s attention to the main characters in the portrait, it also demonstrates God’s blessing. The forgiving father and returning son bask in the light of God’s blessing. The unforgiving brother, on the other hand, stands behind them in darkness. Also notice how the characters’ clothes are not from the biblical-era. Instead, they are from the post-renaissance period, the same era as their painter. Here Rembrandt takes the truths of scripture and contextualizes them in his contemporary world. He embodies ideas in a visual painting.
Part of what makes Rembrandt’s art so powerful is how he mixes the sacred and the secular. Rembrandt’s decision to take biblical stories and contextualize them in the 17th century world makes his art unique. His art combines the reality of flawed humanity with the perfection of scripture. This use of flawed humans was unique because Rembrandt’s contemporaries often portrayed humans as if they were Greek gods. Though Rembrandt’s personal character was lacking, his art represents truth lived out in the flesh. Rembrandt’s less than ideal life still impacted his world. He impacted his world by symbolically combining the beautiful truths of scripture with the less than beautiful realities of daily life. For him, sacred and secular are not distinct from each other. Instead, when a sacred story and secular characters meet, they create a masterpiece.
Our lives are not ideal, and all too often they lack the peace and light-filled scenes of current popular artist Thomas Kincade. Don’t let that description cause undue dismay, because the Church is called to Rembrandt style life-portraits. We have to combine the frailty and commonness of our daily living with the amazingly uncommon claims of God’s Word. When we live out these claims, our common forms are bathed in the light of God’s approval. That light will draw the world’s attention, even if we don’t look like celebrities (the modern equivalent of Greek gods). When we live out sacred stories in our secular lives, our lives become masterpieces – art by The Master.
