The Beauty of Jesus

Recently, Christy took her kids to the Art Museum to see the Rembrandt collection. That jogged a desire in my own heart to take in the exhibit, too. Several years ago, a friend and her husband had treated Andy and me to a trip to the Art Museum to see another exhibit (I think it was Monet). So I called her again to see if she wanted to go with us to see Rembrandt. She did and was available yesterday, our day off. So off we went.

It was a beautiful day with sunny, blue skies and fluffy white clouds. There was a stiff breeze but the air temperature was very comfortable – a perfect fall day.

We had a nice view of the city from the top of the Art Museum stairs.

Unfortunately, we were not allowed to take pictures inside the art museum. It was a very interesting exhibit from the standpoint that Rembrandt was one of the first artists who portrayed Jesus as a more human, approachable person.

This was a break from nearly 15 centuries of artists painting Jesus as a distant godlike figure with a halo around his head. Rembrandt loved painting biblical stories and made several sketches of Jesus with Mary and Martha, Jesus with the 2 disciples he met on the road to Emmaus, Jesus healing and preaching and the Prodigal Son. I really like his portrayal of the Prodigal Son although we did not see that one displayed yesterday. The other one I really liked that was displayed was just a sketch of Jesus with Mary and Martha. It was interesting because Rembrandt captured what Jesus was trying to communicate by his interaction with the two women. Mary is depicted as sitting in the light and reading the Word, while Martha is portrayed as a dark blob. Her heart is dark because she is fretting and busy with worldly cares instead of delighting in Jesus’ presence.

Rembrandt has many sketches and paintings that he did of the face of Christ. He used a Jewish man as his model to bring a more realistic face to Jesus. I appreciate his effort to make Jesus more approachable and look more like a real person, rather than a high and distant diety. I have to confess, though, that in my own mind, I do not picture Jesus as looking like he portrayed him. We each have our own definition of beauty and what is good looking. Not that Jesus is necessarily handsome, but there is no doubt that we are drawn to him.

Beauty means different things to different people. I am always amused to hear new parents talk about how beautiful their baby is. Every parent thinks their baby is the prettiest baby there ever was. Those we love are beautiful to us. And that goes for the way we view our friends, as well as Jesus.

It's not necessarily his physical appearance that we are drawn to, but his character of love, kindness, gentleness, compassion, forgiveness and acceptance - what we know of him.

He is beautiful to me because I love him. In fact we sang a song to that effect on Sunday.

Beautiful One by Tim Hughes

Wonderful so wonderful is Your unfailing love
Your cross is spoken mercy over me
No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no heart can fully know
How glorious, how beautiful You are

Chorus:
Beautiful one I love
Beautiful one I adore
Beautiful one my soul must sing

Powerful so powerful Your glory fills the skies
Your mighty works displayed for all to see
The beauty of Your majesty awakes my heart to sing
How marvelous, how wonderful You are

Chorus

You opened my eyes to Your wonders of anew
You captured my heart with this love
‘Cause nothing on earth is as beautiful as You Jesus
My soul, My soul must sing
Beautiful one

2 Corinthians 4:6: For God, who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.

Beautiful Fall Days

After so many days of rain and dreariness, it was nice to finally see the sun (although it's gone again now). And what could be better than gardening on nice autumn days? So Dawn and I planned to use Andy's truck on Saturday to load up with bushes and perennials to do some planting. Dawn was making a new garden at the back of her house and I was just going along to add support, offer advice and suggestions and provide the truck. Well, I ended up buying some things, too. It's very hard to resist when you're at the nursery. It's like being in a candy store to a sugar-aholic. I guess that makes me a bush-aholic or a plant-aholic!

For a long time I've thought I would like some mountain laurel bushes in my gardens. They remind me of the mountains in Pa and I have happy memories of walking in those mountains with my Grandpa. And we also have mountain laurel right here in Mt. Laurel, so how appropriate that I have some of those pretty bushes in my own gardens. I bought 3 bushes and planted them in shade under a huge maple tree. Then I couldn't resist a winterberry bush I saw. I had seen some in a neighborhood park just a few days before. They were very attractive and eye-catching. So when I saw them at the nursery, I had to have one.

Here's my new garden (the white flowers in front of the mountain laurels are white phlox perennials):I've been keeping busy - not just with outdoor work. Last Tuesday, I washed all the windows in our house, inside and outside. Fortunately, we have double hung windows, so I don't have to go outside. But they are very difficult to work and I always need Andy to open them up for me. It doesn't take that long when there are 2 of us working together. I can't get over, though, how a little house like ours has so many windows! But they sure sparkle now - a job well done.

Some of my busyness comes from being with people, developing and maintaining relationships. All our church wives/women went out to eat on Monday evening. What a delightful evening spent with dear friends/co-workers. Most of our time at church is spent with other people, so to be able to have an evening together was a special treat.

On Thursday, I had a lunch appointment with a friend, then left work early to babysit Kira while Dawn had another doctor appointment. Kira was awake by the time I got there so we had a lot of time to play and be together.

Andy and I are facilitating an older singles group (singles in their 30's, 40's & 50s) from church. We meet every other Sunday evening at our house. This past Sunday was a game night. It was such a fun evening with lots of laughs and getting to know each other better. It was extra fun for me, because of 3 games I played, I won 2 of them! Someone brought a Wii game and we played the bowling game. We had played a couple of months ago and I did amazingly well considering that I really stink at real bowling. The funny thing was that Andy who is so good at real bowling, did not do well on the Wii version. Well, this time I outdid myself. I got a spare or strike in every frame of the game with a total score of 167! I can hardly believe it still. But you can imagine how that added to the fun of the evening for me to do so well and Andy to be shocked that I did that well, even beating him soundly! I have to admit it was very satisfying.

The other game we played was LRC using m&m's. I had never heard of that game, but it was a lot of fun. Everyone enjoyed the evening.

Yesterday was Katy's 1st birthday. Andy and I left work early and drove up to spend the afternoon with Amy and the kids. It was a very fun afternoon. Andy played in the sandbox with the kids.Katy opened her present and tried on her coat.We walked to the park and played till the mosquitos drove us back home.I had brought marinated salmon for the grill, potato casserole and pumpkin cupcakes for dinner. We thought we wouldn't see Ricky because he would be working late, but he surprised us by getting home while we were eating.