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| Rublev's Icon featured in The Pursuing God by Joshua Ryan Butler |
God doesn't create us because he needs us; he creates us because he wants us. God is not just a being; God is Being, the ground of our existence. The Trinity creates the world in divine freedom, not to fill a need within but from an overflow of divine life, light, and love. God is not trying to get something from us; God is giving God to us. Divine love gives birth to creation. In the words of C.S. Lewis, "in God there is no hunger that needs to be filled, only plenteousness that desires to give." We were created by the spreading goodness of God, and exist for this goodness — to live and subsist enfolded within the overwhelming, enveloping love of God. God is generous goodness. + Joshua Ryan Butler, The Pursuing God
In light of wonder and abundance being themes I think God has wanted me to focus on in 2022, I received a beautiful invitation in a time of prayer with others among Emmaus City Church to return this week to one of my favorite books of the past decade, The Pursuing God by Joshua Ryan Butler.
Both of Butler's books, The Skeletons in God's Closet and The Pursuing God, are in my Top 20 books that I've read in the past 10 years, and today I wanted to share his reflection on Rublev's icon, an image of invitation that has shaped the holy imagination of Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant followers of Jesus for centuries. If you've never "read" a visual icon before, some things to notice before reading Butler's verbal reflection are:
the colors,
the posture of the figures,
the walking staffs,
the mountain, the tree, and the home,
and the chalice.
But before I share this excerpt from The Pursuing God, here is a brief word from Butler for those who are unfamiliar with the history of icons and/or concerned about them in some form or fashion:
A word about icons: some people worry about "worshipping" them, but icons don't depict God directly. They depict scenes and characters from Scripture and are intended to be viewed more like a window than a painting, meant not so much to be looked at, but through, using color, symbolism, and imagery to give us a glimpse into the story of the gospel and the heart of God. Especially in times when most people were illiterate, icons were able to communicate truths visually about God on a broad and popular level that was easy to understand and remember.
Rublev's Icon | A Colorful Window into the Heart of God, the Trinity
Rublev's icon comes from a scene in Genesis 18, where Abraham shares a meal with three angelic visitors. In the passage, we eventually learn that Abraham is actually having a meal with God, and these visitors give him the promise of a son through whom God will save the world.
Rublev depicts this meal scene, and uses it as a window into the life of the Trinity. Let's start with a look at their colors.
1) The Spirit (on the right) is clothed in blue like the skies above and green like the grass below. The significance? The Spirit moves through heaven and earth, sustaining all things — the atmosphere we breathe and the ground beneath our feet — and bringing life to the world. All things hold together in the Spirit; were God's presence to completely depart, creation would fall apart.
2) The Son (in the middle) wears reddish brown like earthen clay, and blue like the heights of the sky we look up to. This speaks to Jesus bearing flesh and bone, being fully united with our humanity and the earth from which we are made (the red), yet fully divine, bearing all the transcendence of heaven above (the blue). Jesus unites divinity and humanity in his very person, reconciling heaven and earth. And Jesus wears a gold sash over his shoulder, sign of his royal authority that reminds us, "the government will be upon His shoulder." The Son of heaven is the King of earth, the desire of the nations, and the hope of the world.
3) The Father (on the left) appears to wear all colors. The garment's fabric seems almost transparent, changing with the light. A patch of blue underneath reminds us of his transcendent divinity as our heavenly Father, yet we are struck more by the radiance of his clothing. God is beyond description, yet fills the universe through his Son and Spirit, fulfilling all things in himself.
4) Finally, notice the radiance around their faces and how everything that touches them is gold: their seats, wings, and chalice. God's presence communicates value. All things are made precious, perfect, and holy in their midst. It is not that the Trinity has valuable things; rather, things become valuable in their midst.
The Father, Son, and Spirit shine brightly in their light, life, and love, bathing all who soak in their presence with the radiance of their glorious goodness.
Rublev's Icon | A Posture of Holy Love
Notice their posture. This is perhaps the most significant feature of the icon. Each person is bent outward away from himself, his gaze arched toward the others in love. The position of their hands, the openness of their bodies, the look on their faces, all communicate a giving outward and receiving from others.
The Father, Son, and Spirit are not grasping for power and attention from one another, but rather giving glory and attention to each other. This speaks to a major theme in Jesus' teaching: that the Father seeks to glorify the Son, the Son seeks to glorify the Father, and the Spirit brings glory to them both. Rather than seeking to build their own platform against one another, they lift up one another. In Jesus' longest recorded prayer (John 17), the main theme is the Father, Son, and Spirit glorifying one another in the love they've had from before the creation of the world.
How are the Father, Son, and Spirit one God? The church has used a fancy Greek word, perichoresis, to explore this. It means "mutual indwelling" and comes from the image of a circle dance — combining the words peri ("around") and chorein ("make room for") — think of three dances moving "around" one another and "making room for" one another. In their rapid, harmonious movement, it can be hard to tell where one stops and the other begins.
The Father, Son, and Spirit mutually indwell one another. Jesus declares, "I am in the Father and the Father is in me" (John 14:10-11); the Father actually indwells Jesus' identity, and vice versa. Their identities are intertwined, overflowing into one another. Jesus even goes so far as the say, "If you've seen me, you've seen the Father (John 14:9)." We not only look at Jesus, but through Jesus, to encounter the heart of the Father. Jesus is like a powerful icon through whom we see the face of God.
The Father, Son, and the Spirit define themselves in relation to one another. Without the Son, the Father would not be a father. Without the Father, the Son would not be a son. Without them both, the Spirit would not be their spirit. The Father, Son, and Spirit are God. As you look at the actions of Jesus, you're actually seeing the Father's movement in his world, in the power of their Spirit. As if this indwelling couldn't get pushed any further, Jesus tops the cake, saying, "I and the Father are one" (John 10:30). The Father and Son are, in their Spirit, an external communion of holy love. They are bound up in, with, and for one another. God is inherently relational.
Rublev's Icon | Walking Staffs, a Mountain, Tree, and Home
God enters the journey with us.
Each of three figures in Rublev's icon carries a walking staff, a sign that God travels down our dusty roads to find us and bring us home. What does this journey home look like? In the background landscape, behind the Father, Son, and Spirit, are a mountain, a tree, and a house. Each depicts a part of our journey into the heart of God.
The mountain is behind the Spirit. The Spirit of God finds us in the rocky, distant places, and guides us along paths that may be steep and difficult, but ultimately brings us through these treacherous trails to a high place, the "mountaintop experience," where heaven and earth meet. As the Spirit guides us up the trail, the mountain is arched toward Jesus: the Spirit's goal is to lead us to Jesus.
Jesus sits before a tree, which spreads its shade to offer rest and refreshment from the heat of the sun and the difficult journey. We are reminded of the Tree of Life in Eden, where we were created to receive life in union with God, and of the cross, where Jesus transforms our death-dealing curse on that forsaken tree into life-giving power through his resurrection, reestablishing the Tree of Life and breathing the winds of Eden back into creation. Jesus is the Tree of Life who replants the garden of God. The tree is also, like the mountain, bent to the left, toward that Father: Jesus brings us home to the Father.
Notice how the Father's house has a tower, rising high above everything else, giving the Father a sovereign view of the whole land below. Its door and upper window are open, facing outward toward the world. In the words of one observer, our Father's home is "the goal of our journey, the beginning and end of our lives ... Its door is always open, it has a tower, and its window is always open so that the Father can incessantly scan the roads for a glimpse of a returning prodigal."
Our heavenly Father's posture is one of open embrace, inviting us into life with him. The Father pursues us through his Son, in their Spirit, with the goal to bring us home.
Rublev's Icon | Through the Son, In the Spirit, a Personal Union
The icon is meant to be read from left to right: from the Father, through the Son, to the Spirit. The early church held that God always acts through his Son and in his Spirit. Irenaeus, one of the earliest church fathers, described Jesus and the Holy Ghost as the "two hands" of God, always present in all his works. So, for example, at creation God spoke the world into existence through his Word (saying, "Let there be!") and in his Spirit ("hovering over the waters").
Jesus is this Word through whom the universe was spoken into existence, the very Voice of God, and the Holy Spirit is this Spirit in whom the world has come to be, the very Breath of God, now indwelling our hearts. Similarly, throughout the Old Testament, the "word of the LORD" and "Spirit of God" come to prophets, priests, and kings, bringing God's action to bear in the world. The church has used a Latin phrase for this: opera ad extra indivisa. It means all of God's actions in the world, or operations on the outside (opera ad extra) of his life as God, are works of the Father, Son, and Spirit together, undivided or indivisible (indivisa) as the whole Trinity. So, for example, the Father does not create the world alone, or the Son redeem by himself, or the Spirit sanctify as a solo project.
The whole Trinity, all three persons, are involved together in everything they do. This means when Jesus dives into our world, the whole Trinity is involved. Jesus is sent by the Father, as the "Word become flesh" in "the power of the Spirit." Jesus arrives not as a new thing, but as the eternal Son of God to do a new thing. Jesus doesn't just point us to the Father; he is the action of the Father in our world. The Father is acting through his Son and in his Spirit for the salvation of the world. Together, they're taking on the sin, destruction, and decay we've unleashed in order to restore their masterpiece. The cross doesn't happen to the Trinity; the Trinity happens to the cross. The cross is a triune act.
Rublev's Icon | The Chalice of the Eucharist
At the center of Rublev's icon, on the table, is a chalice. It is a picture of Christ's sacrifice for us, the Eucharist of his body broken and blood shed to bring us home. Inside the chalice is a slain animal. In the Abraham story of Genesis 18, a "choice, tender calf" was chosen for the meal. In the gospel, Jesus is "the Lamb, who was slain," elected from before creation to atone for sin and restore us to the table.
The chalice belongs not only to Jesus, however, but to the Trinity as a whole. The cup stands at the center of their table, inviting us into their fellowship. The chalice embodies the Father's sacrificial self-giving, in and through his Son and Spirit, to bring us into communion with the very life of God.
The table upon which the chalice sits is actually an altar. If you look at the base of the altar, you will see a little square opening. This is the space where, in the Russian Orthodox tradition, pictures of the saints are kept. The significance? We are welcomed to the meal, invited through Christ's sacrifice into fellowship with God.
Notice how the Father, Son, and Spirit create space for us to enter. If you think of the icon as a clock, they are at the 9:00, 12:00, and 3:00 positions. But space is opened up in the 6:00 position, at the front of the icon, inviting us as the viewer to enter the circle of divine hospitality and join in the feast. God wants to do life with us. We are invited to enter the life of God. In Christ, Peter tells us, we become "participants of the divine nature" (2 Peter 1:3-4). This doesn't mean we become God — we are still creatures, not Creator. But it does mean we participate as creatures in the very life of our Creator: the Spirit of God dwells inside us, binding us in union with Christ, and bringing us through Christ into the embrace of the Father. The Spirit surrounds and indwells us as the bride, lifting the veil before our eyes so that we see Christ, our Groom, revealed before us, and through our union with Christ, we enter the household of the Father, being surrounded and indwelt by the very life of God.
This is our salvation: to be indwelt by God within us (the Spirit), united to God before us (the Son), and embraced within the life of God surrounding us (the Father). Our salvation is none other than the very life of God.
+ Joshua Ryan Butler, Chapter 25: Communion of Love and Chapter 26: The Journey Home in The Pursuing God, excerpts from pgs. 186-196
Here are links to other recent City Notes (CN) books:
A Time To Heal (Shalom); Red Skies; Story of God in a Sanitation Truck; The Artistry of What's Next; Days of Song on Spot of Scorched Earth; Seeds of Hope in the Rain & the Dark; The Church is the Most Corrupt Institution on Earth; The Seamless Life; A Good Calling; Inisheer Island; Wrestling with God in Doubt; Taste Grace in World of Seculosity; I've Seen What Hope Can Do; Ubuntu and the Family of God; Baptism as the Way of Life; Childlike Wonder; Listening to God's Voice; The Cross and Peacemaking Presence; Being with God; Pray As You Can; Knowing and Naming True Friends
With presence, peace, and many prayerful blessings,
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