There are some moments of life that are forever engraved on our hearts and in our memories. Somehow a place or a person or a smell or an atmosphere has been captured and recreated in our heads in a way that we can visit again and again.
That at least is my experience. There are certain artists who in their handling of light and colour convey a sense of eternity, a moment in time captured forever in paint, and Vermeer is the master of this art.
‘The Little street’ c1657 – 1661 is a time capsule in which Vermeer has distilled the essence of life in Delft. In our minds, we can almost walk into the scene and peer into the house. In fact, that is what Vermeer was doing, as it is thought that the house depicted was opposite his own, and he is painting from his studio on the top floor.
It reminds me of a Chilean artist who captures the street life of Valparaiso in bold woodcuts. They too recreate a moment of time but seem to contain eternity at their core. At the bottom of each woodcut in this series he writes ‘Como si la vida fuera a durar para siempre’ - as if life were to last forever.
George Herbert, 1658 – 1633, an Anglican clergyman, talks about glimpsing ‘High heaven …through a stable door… and calls me through the voices of the poor. Herbert is speaking of the humble God we know in Jesus Christ, a God whose glory is hidden in the ordinary and everyday.
Vermeer captures the same quality of ‘Heaven in ordinary’ a sense of the eternal in an earthly home. ‘The Little street’ is an elegy for a moment which—unless Vermeer had captured it—would have slipped away forever: the women busy with their chores, the children entranced by their game, the clouds filtering the sunlight, two doors and one window open, and air wafting through the house.
It also reminds me of another George Herbert poem, ‘the elixir’ which we sing in Church as ‘Teach me, my Lord and King’. It has that memorable line:
‘A servant with this clause
makes drudgery divine:
Who sweeps a room as for Thy laws,
makes that and th’ action fine’.
The drudgery of the housework that we see the two women engaged in is transformed into a sacred moment. The ‘Little Street’ captures quiet, contemplative moments of a day, and although there is no religious imagery we too are quietened and calmed as if in meditation or even worship.
You may well ask what on earth has this to do with the wedding at Cana? The story is a familiar one and has even become a byword for turning the ordinary, water, into something special, wine, but there is a disturbing episode in the story that never fails to make me stop and try to imagine what is going on.
Whatever may have been the cause of the shortage of wine, Mary the mother of Jesus feels responsible and goes to Jesus with a plea for help. This gives rise to a strange exchange between them. Jesus answers her with a rebuke!
“Woman, why do you involve me?”... “My time has not yet come” John 1:4
Jesus, who Mary knows can help, wants to remain in the shadows rather than perform a miracle that would draw attention to himself.
“This is not the time” he says to reveal who he is. That time will come, a day when the world will see what the glory of God looks like but it is not now.
Silence: When God hides and we confront this silence we must first remember that Jesus himself came up against the silence of God, his Father. In the garden of Gethsemane, he prayed:
“If it is Thy will let this cup pass from me”. Luke 22: 42.
At the centre of our Christian lives, we will discover the silence of God, but the silence is not a rebuke but an answer. The response of Jesus in the Garden was:
“Not my will, but yours be done” Luke 22: 42.
Prayer:
This was also the response of Mary. Mary gives us the perfect model for our prayers. In response to the apparent refusal of Jesus, she teaches us what it means to trust in God
‘His mother said to the servants “do whatever he tells you” John 2: 5.
There will be many times in our lives when we are asked to trust God in the silence.
Glory:
So what was God doing on this occasion? The answer comes right at the end of the story.
‘This was the first of his miraculous signs ... He thus revealed his glory.’ John 2: 11.
Jesus reveals himself now, though in a hidden way, through the ordinary stuff of life. Wine at a wedding becomes a sign of God’s Kingdom transforming the ordinary into the Eternal.
The moment when all seemed lost, as at the Wedding in Cana, is in fact the moment when God reveals His Glory. The first of Jesus' miracles points to the Cross, the ultimate disaster when all really did seem lost. The Cross experience lies at the centre of our Christian experience. It is usually in times and places like loss or disaster that we often find God opening our eyes.
It is often in the humble and ordinary that God’s glory is revealed.
The Best:
Mary’s prayer is answered, but not in the way she expected. That is usually true of every experience of God, revealed in the unexpected places and people we meet each day. The silence of God takes us to that place where we like Mary and the disciples learn to wait on Jesus to see what he will do.
Rev. Simon Brignall
We pray today for those preparing for an operation and those recovering from one.
Prayer for Ukraine
God of peace and justice
we pray for the people of Ukraine today,
and the laying down of weapons.
we pray for all those who fear for tomorrow,
that your spirit of comfort would draw near to them.
We pray for those with power over war and peace,
for wisdom, discernment, and compassion to guide their decisions
Above all, we pray for all your precious children at risk and in fear,
That you would hold and protect them.
We pray in the name of Jesus, the Prince of Peace.
Amen
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Best wishes
Rev Simon Brignall
I am contactable from Thursday to Sunday.