I didn’t go to church on Good Friday, for a few reasons, despite my pastors saying we are not to “skip right to the party.” Instead, Friday evening I ended up at the IMA to see Thornton Dial’s work.
Good timing. It was an appropriate Good Friday experience. They are dark, those hard truths. I think on another day I would have rushed through the exhibit, or would have been a little more uncomfortable. But on Good Friday I could accept it easier. It is a day when we are supposed to feel the gravity of sin and death. And there is a lot of it represented in his art. The slave trade. September 11th. The war in Iraq. Racism. Structural inequities. And a lot more racism. One after another, each complex piece was social commentary about injustice of some kind.
I don’t know what Mr. Dial’s spiritual beliefs are, but I had to process the material in light of the resurrection.
Sunday morning the stone is rolled away and the tome is empty. It means our sins are forgiven, but what else? I believe it means the kingdom of God is at hand, that there are thin places where heaven and earth intersect, that glimpses of heaven come when we do justice.
Dial says "All truth is hard truth. We’re in the darkness now, and we got to accept the hard truth to bring on the light. You can hide the truth, but you can’t get rid of it. When truth come out in the light, we get the beauty of the world."
If we believe Jesus is risen, we have to engage with hard truth. No use sweeping in under the rug (though that is what we’re trained to do). We have to bring it into the open, engage it, listen to it, see it in art, hear it in stories, see it on the face of a friend. But then…then we get to bear witness to hope, and say “another world is possible.” We get to do His work and watch for redemption.
I'm not sure what that looks like for me right now. But I am looking forward to finding out.
