You Will Be Holy Spirit–Baptized Witnesses

The Apostles Speaking in Tongues Lit by Their Own Lamps, Nicolas Pope, 1996. Terracotta, metal, wick, paraffin, and flame, Approx. 12.5 x 3 meters. Installations at the Tate Gallery, Salisbury Cathedral, and other locations.

“O God Beyond All Praising” from the album Resting: A Memorial. Composed by Michael Perry (lyrics),Gustav Holst (music). Performed by The Herbster Family.

Poetry:

“Thou Art Coming”
by Frances Ridley Havergal

Thou art coming, O my Savior,
Thou art coming, O my King,
In Thy beauty all resplendent,
In Thy glory all transcendent;
Well may we rejoice and sing.

Coming! in the opening east
Herald brightness slowly swells;
Coming! O my glorious Priest,
Hear we not Thy golden bells?

Thou art coming, Thou art coming;
We shall meet Thee on Thy way,
We shall see Thee, we shall know Thee,
We shall bless Thee, we shall show Thee
All our hearts could ever say:

What an anthem that will be,
Ringing out our love to Thee,
Pouring out our rapture sweet
At Thine own all glorious feet.

Thou art coming; at Thy table
We are witnesses for this;
While remembering hearts Thou meetest
In communion clearest, sweetest,
Earnest of our coming bliss.

Showing not Thy death alone,
And Thy love exceeding great;
But Thy coming and Thy throne,
All for which we long and wait.

Thou art coming, we are waiting
With a hope that cannot fail,
Asking not the day or hour,
Resting on Thy Word of power,
Anchored safe within the veil.

Time appointed may be long,
But the vision must be sure;
Certainty shall make us strong,
Joyful patience can endure.

O the joy to see Thee reigning,
Thee, my own beloved Lord!
Every tongue Thy Name confessing,
Worship, honor, glory, blessing
Brought to Thee with glad accord.

Thee, my Master and my Friend,
Vindicated and enthroned;
Unto earth’s remotest end
Glorified, adored, and owned!

YOU WILL BE HOLY SPIRIT BAPTIZED WITNESSES

Unbeknownst to him at the time, artist Nicholas Pope contracted multiple rare encephalitic viruses during a trip to Africa in 1982. These went undiagnosed for years, leading to severe damage to his body, seriously impacting his daily life, and ultimately requiring years of rehabilitation. It was during this long, slow, painful recovery process that he began to tentatively, in short bursts, make sculptures again. Though they were small, the gestures were monumental. In the face of devastating chronic illness, returning to a practice of creativity, cultivating beauty, and exploring new aesthetic terrain requires a great deal of hope. Hope that this precious energy being expended would be worth the cost. Hope that his life, and his work, would not be defined by the damages caused by his illness. Hope for the future in general.

Perhaps it is no surprise, then, that these small steps of hope ultimately led to the monumental set of sculptures we see today, The Apostles Speaking in Tongues Lit by Their Own Lamps. Amidst his recovery, working very slowly, he built the form of each apostle. One by one, he meditated on the biblical accounts of each apostle to imagine the nature of his personality, his soul, and ultimately to each’s unique experience of being plucked from ordinary lives to follow the Son of God, culminating in the gift of anointment with the Spirit. This, after bearing witness to the glory of the resurrected Jesus ascending into Heaven. What an act of mercy for Christ to give comfort and hope to the apostles—hope to us all—by promising the Spirit in his moment of departure.

The forms of the apostles are very evidently humble, earthen vessels, hand-hewn and clunky. Yet each is given a glowing golden halo, wax, and a wick, to be lit and to light the way for worshippers to see themselves in these abstract forms: frail and made of dust, but capable of lighting the world with the gift of the Spirit. The Spirit, whose coming the Apostles certainly could not fully comprehend in the moment of promise is recorded in Acts 1. But the Spirit did come, lighting the way for them and then expanding exponentially through time, to our moment. We continue to exist between the already and the not yet, the promise of the return not fully realized. We live in awareness of the frailty of our bodies, the weakness of our minds, the faltering of our souls. But we remain illuminated by the hope and joy given freely through the Spirit, just as the apostles, and even our smallest acts of hope accumulate into a monumental testament to the grace of God. This grace gives hope in a hopeless world, a light in the darkness, healing from disease, life from death.

No matter how limited our time or our bodies, we can steward that time and energy toward hope of an infinite future, free of these sometimes-debilitating limits, accumulating small acts of hope into monuments of faith. We remain in a state of hope, imagining, as the artist does, the day of glory. Frances Ridley Havergal’s own hymn imagines this return also. On this final day of the Lent Project, we look back with eternal gratitude for the sacrifice of Jesus, and look forward to the return of the King of Kings, we can use Havergal’s words as a closing prayer:

Thou art coming, we are waiting
With a hope that cannot fail,
Asking not the day or hour,
Resting on Thy Word of power,
Anchored safe within the veil.

Time appointed may be long,
But the vision must be sure;
Certainty shall make us strong,
Joyful patience can endure.

O the joy to see Thee reigning,
Thee, my own beloved Lord!
Every tongue Thy Name confessing,
Worship, honor, glory, blessing
Brought to Thee with glad accord.

Thee, my Master and my Friend,
Vindicated and enthroned;
Unto earth’s remotest end
Glorified, adored, and owned!

Luke Aleckson, M.F.A.
Professor, Department of Art
Executive Director, Center for Christianity, Culture & the Arts
Biola University

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