Lent 2021 Vita Christi, Monday 8th March
Sicut Cervus
[slide 1 when waiting]
Welcome to this second in the series of our Lent reflections.
[slide 2].
Last week we heard Lindsay talking about the nativity; this week I’m talking about the baptism, and in succeeding weeks about the temptation, transfiguration and finally in Holy Week, Crucifixion
[slide 3]
Psalm 42 begins:
Like as the hart desireth the water-brooks *
so longeth my soul after thee, O God.
(or, in Latin, sicut cervus).
Water, is, of course, one of those things without which we cannot live, and, in some ways, is the most wondrous of all of the elements around us. It is the only substance that can exist in our normal lives in its solid, liquid and gaseous forms.
Too much, and too little water are equally destructive.
[slide 4]
We’ve seen in the floods of recent years how much damage is easily wrought when there is too much water.
[slide 5]
In countries like Ethiopia, too little rain results in widespread famine, and death.
[slide 6]
The power of water can over time, make every valley to be exalted, and every mountain and hill made low; the crooked made straight [slide 7] and the rough places plain. Wash in it, as the psalmist says, and we shall be whiter than snow; we are invited to drink of the life-giving water.
Like as the hart desireth the water-brooks
so longeth my soul after thee, O God.
Water is also present at the greatest moments of history - when God’s purpose and plan appears to change direction.
[slide 8]
At the beginning of creation: darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters; dividing the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.
[slide 9]
Noah; Moses whose initial salvation was out of the waters of the Nile; he parted the red sea; and smiting the rock in the desert gave water to the Hebrews to drink.
Water, if not the agent of change in salvation history, is at the very least a witness or perhaps even the symbol and sign of that change.
Like as the hart desireth the water-brooks
so longeth my soul after thee, O God.
[slide 10]
The image that we are looking at tonight has within it one of the challenges for any artist. How does one depict flowing water and the act of Baptism? None of the artists attempts have really been successful.
[slide 11] Even the great Piero della Francesca didn’t really try. He instead depicts John holding a shell over Jesus’ head, [slide 12] from which a stream of water flows. In this case, not just a random stream but one which is invisibly connected to the dove, the symbol of the Holy Spirit hovering just above Christ’s head, and, further out and beyond the frame of the picture God the father.
[slide 13] There is here both a horizontal and vertical axis to the picture as well as a series of diminishing circles and interlocking triangles as these geometric analyses of the picture show. The circles representing the Godhead in its unity; the triangles representing the trinity; and at the very centre, as the right hand image makes clear, the star of David with Christ at its centre.
[slide 14]It’s intriguing to note that the Jordan is dry before Jesus, but flowing afterwards – it’s tempting to wonder whether this is to suggest that living waters flow directly from Christ.
Piero della Francesca makes some important theological points through geometry in his depiction of the Baptism of Christ.
[slide 15]
Like as the hart desireth the water-brooks
so longeth my soul after thee, O God.
[slide 16]
We are, though, concentrating on another image, this from the manuscript we’re looking at over Lent.
We have here three figures; those of John the Baptist on the left; Christ at the centre; and an attending angel on the right, helpfully holding dry clothes of lapis lazuli blue for Jesus to wear after the baptism.
[slide 17]
We might refer back to last week’s talk by Lindsay, and our discussion about clothing. Here, Jesus is to be clothed in the same colour of cloth as he was at the nativity, the colour of the sacred bed upon which Mary lies; and the colour of the pillars which support the house.
[slide 18]
However, I digress. At the very top of the picture one can see the Trinity clearly depicted. The Holy Ghost, again in the form of a dove, this time a slightly more realistic one than that of Piero della Francesca, on a trajectory which will take it straight to the very centre of Jesus’ face. And we have the face of God – possibly here depicted as moving upon the face of the waters – with the scroll bearing the legend of the words related in Matthew’s Gospel (3.17) “hic est filius mei, dilectus” – “this is my Son, with whom I am well pleased”
Like as the hart desireth the water-brooks
so longeth my soul after thee, O God.
[Slide 19]
In two weeks’ time, James will share his thoughts on the transfiguration. I don’t want to trespass on what he will say, but there is a connection here. For the transfiguration is deeply connected to the Baptism. Both are where God, Jesus and people meet, and both have the ministry of Jesus affirmed. More importantly though, both are as much to do with impending death and eventual glory as about anything else.
It has been a sadness this last year that we haven’t been able to officiate at as many baptisms as we would usually do. It has meant that the declaration “In baptism, God calls us out of darkness into his marvellous light. To follow Christ means dying to sin and rising to new life with him” has not really been proclaimed as often as we might wish.
There are echoes in the baptism service of the words at our Ashing – “remember that thou art dust, and to dust you shall return; turn away from sin and be faithful to Christ”. The inevitable progression of birth, life and death.
Like as the hart desireth the water-brooks
so longeth my soul after thee, O God.
[slide 20]
In the early house churches, we’re led to believe that there was a very tangible linking of baptism with death. It is said – though on what contemporary evidence I’m not certain – that early baptistries were in the form of a sarcophagus into which the catechumen was immersed and arose out of the grave newly reborn. (As an aside, the earliest liturgical text, the Didache (c100AD), implies that baptism takes place in the bath house. The earliest extant sarcophagus fonts seem to be from the 15th Century) The imagery of this is still visible on the streets of Rome, where it is possible to see sarcophagi repurposed to be bearers of living water as fountains. This particularly fine example is to be found at the Flavian Amphitheatre (oh, all right, the Colosseum). Pop your head into almost any courtyard in Rome and you might well find one.
[slide 21]
There is only one ancient Roman fountain that might have been recognisable to St Paul still extant. It now stands, no longer a fountain, in the Cortile della Pigna, the Courtyard of the pinecone, in the Vatican museum. I suspect that most tourists pass it by without even a first glance. It is, though, one of the most fascinating survivals, for it stood for centuries as the fountain in the courtyard of the old St Peters, until moved in 1608 to its present position. In the courtyard of the church it greeted countless pilgrims on their way to the shrine of St Peter, dripping water, fed by the springs of the Vatican hill. in which they would ritually wash before entering the church.
The two peacocks either side were its companions from Old St Peters, and possibly before. In the ancient world, peacocks were one of the symbols of the goddess Hera. As with so many other ancient symbols they were repurposed and reinterpreted for the age of Christ. It was believed that the flesh of peacocks did not decay (perhaps here some observational and empirical evidence might have been sought) and they were therefore a symbol of immortality. Together with the ever flowing water from the pine cone, they assured the pilgrim of the ceaseless and eternal promises of God, revealed through water and the spirit.
Like as the hart desireth the water-brooks
so longeth my soul after thee, O God.
Our image, though, is not obviously linked with death, but, I’d like to suggest, subtly is.
[slide 22]
On this slide you can see two images side by side. That on the left the image that we’re contemplating; that on the right is a near contemporary image from the Bible of the Hague.
In our image, the waters of baptism are depicted as almost clothing Jesus, wrapping him around as he will eventually be wrapped in the grave clothes of the tomb. This is not an earthly wrapping, but a heavenly one.
The picture on the right though shows the escape of Moses and the Israelites through the parting the red sea. We see Moses, pointing the way with his staff, and behind him the waters have engulfed the host of Egypt in water. As we will be reminded at the Easter Vigil, through the song of Moses and Miriam, “I will sing to the Lord who has triumphed gloriously, the horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea” [Exodus 15.1b]
In a parallel to the baptism, the green waters are not waters of life for the Egyptians, but waters of death. The contrast with Christ who is emerging from the water as though from the graveclothes reminds us of the power of God to see through his salvation promises.
[slide 23]
Before I finish, I would like to draw your attention to one final part of the image, that of the angel holding the dry cloak for Jesus to wear after the baptism. There are echoes here of the angels who greet the disciples at the tomb. There are also echoes of another part of the liturgy of baptism that we rarely hear in this parish.
There is provision in the service for the newly baptised to be reclothed, with the words: “You have been clothed with Christ. As many as are baptized into Christ have put on Christ.” They’re more commonly used where full immersion is used – not an excess the Holland Park Benefice can be recently accused of – but sometimes babies are wrapped in a white cloak in a similar symbolism. We are invited to put on Christ, to enfold ourselves in him, and rise to new life with Christ. Perhaps this isn’t a bad ambition for us and for this Benefice this Lent and Easter.
[slide 24]
Finally, when I first planned this talk, it was intended to be accompanied by music. The copyright constraints of YouTube would leave us with little left, and so I make some suggestions here of music that you might wish to listen to as you continue to reflect on these images, and particularly this one of baptism.
Music suggestions
• Sicut Cervus by Giovani Pierluigi da Palestrina
• Depiction of Chaos from Hayden’s Creation
(Haydn* - Helen Donath • Robert Tear • José van Dam - Rafael Frühbeck De Burgos – Die Schöpfung)
• An Wasserflüssen Babylon, BWV 653 by JS Bach
• By the rivers of Babylon, Boney M
• Like as the hart by Herbert Howells
• Five [Negro] Spirituals from a Child of our Time by Michael Tippett
• Windmills of your mind by Dusty Springfield
Images:
The image of the hart is from the apse of the Basilica of San Clemente in Rome
The image of the floods is from the BBC, showing the 2017 floods in Todmorden, Yorkshire
The image of the drought is from Ethiopia
The image of the Newlands Valley in the Lake District is ©Drew Buckley Photography https://drewbuckleyphotography.com/product/newlands-valley/
The icon of creation is from pemptousia.com
The image of Noah releasing the dove is from the Basilica of San Marco in Venice
The image of the finding of Moses is by Orazio Gentileschi in the National Gallery, London
The image of Moses striking the Rock is by Francesco Ubertini Bacchiacca in the National Galleries, Scotland
The image of the Baptism of Christ by Pierro Della Francesca is in the National Gallery, London
The geometric analyses of the painting are uncredited
The image of the fountain at the Colosseum is from https://dcphotoartist.com/2015/11/03/the-colosseum-rome/
The image of Moses crossing the Red Sea is from The Bible of the Hague https://www.facsimiles.com/facsimiles/illustrated-bible-of-the-hague#:~:text=The%20so-called%20Illustrated%20Bible%20of%20The%20Hague%20is,of%20France%2C%20but%20exhibits%20clear%20Byzantine%20influences%20nonetheless.
The Cortile della pigna is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fontana_della_Pigna#/media/File:Cortile_della_Pigna_pine_cone_2.jpg
