Rev. Jerry Eve
Spending almost all our time at home over the last few weeks, I’ve begun to notice things I’d formerly have overlooked. And to appreciate some of the artefacts we have. We’ve a number of pictures in the manse, for example, and ordinarily I don’t think I give them a second glance. But I’ve been finding myself in front of some of them, and really enjoying the likes, for example, of this one here. (On video Clip)
It’s by John Gemmel, who lives in Busby, and is a High School art teacher; but he’s also an artist, and a few years ago John invited Michelle and myself to an exhibition of his work being held in The Mackintosh Church in Maryhill. Originally commissioned by the Free Church of Scotland who held their first service in the building in 1899, it’s home nowadays to the Charles Rennie Mackintosh Society.
If you’ve not been then, once we’re able to, I would thoroughly recommend you go. As well as an opportunity to see the place, we thoroughly enjoyed John’s art, and were absolutely thrilled a little time afterwards when John, for a significant birthday, made Michelle a gift of this work of art by him. It’s a fine example of just how talented John is.
One of just 5 prints John made, and titled San Sofia, it comprises three photographs John took himself when, a number of years ago, he visited Istanbul. The photographs were all taken within the building itself, and I’ve never discussed this with John, but I’d be very surprised if he wasn’t thinking of this as a typical triptych a Church might use as an altarpiece.
I personally think it’s absolutely brilliant. The ‘Shrine of the Holy Wisdom of God’, for almost a millennium, was the largest church building in the world. It was built in 537 AD, and although it’s been a museum since 1935, as well as a Greek Orthodox Cathedral, it’s also been an Ottoman Imperial Mosque.
It’s survived numerous earthquakes and fires, as well as the Fall of Constantinople, and what John has done, I think – for those walls must have so many stories to tell – is to take these photographs, and then use them to make us, as viewers, think about the Christian doctrine of the Trinity.
So that, in the first panel we have a depiction of God, the Father; in the second God the Son, and in the third God the Holy Spirit.
The first panel – and it’s only the way the stonework has aged over the centuries that makes this possible – has shapes which are like designs made by an imaginary Creator God. And so we have suns, stars, planets and satellites, as well as cells, one with a nucleus. These fish symbols reminding me of those for infinity; there’s a key, and also pi: 3.142.
The second panel puts me in mind of nothing other than Jesus who, with his arms outstretched isn’t just making the shape of the Christian cross in doing so, but is reaching out to surround all people with his love.
And then in the third panel we have these great metal bars. There’s a old doorway visible. What intrigues me most the way the bars don’t quite meet the rings. My interpretation? That our humanity only get us so far, the difference in length (in order to be able to reach those rings, so that the door might be opened for us to enter life) necessarily being made up by the Holy Ghost. What’s nice about this panel? That there’s movement evident in the stonework that’s been worn away. For ours is an active faith.
Let us pray:
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,
the love of God, and
the fellowship of the Holy Spirit
be with us all, forever more, Amen.