Art in Scripture: Be Anxious for NothingSýnishorn

Death and the Miser, c.1494
HIERONYMUS BOSCH
Oil on panel, 93 x 31 cm, National Gallery of Art, Washington DC; Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1952.5.33, Photo: Courtesy of National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Opening Prayer:

O LORD, as we spend time with art and Scripture today, stir within us those longings which tie us to our awaited togetherness with You.

Open our minds to the evidence of our souls’ longings for You, that we may more deeply rejoice in the ultimate satisfaction You will be to these questions, curiosities, and desires.

Guide our eyes to connections between our hearts and minds and those of your children who penned Scripture millennia ago: the questions we ponder, confidence for which we grasp, and beauty we crave.

Thoughts for Reflection:

The painting to conclude our progression through Luke 12 falls into quite a different category of feelings than the others. The pile of salt points toward God’s abundance. The butterflies zoom in on God’s immense care for wildlife and even greater care for humanity. The expansive garden takes a step back, exhibiting the array of beauty that God chose to include in this world.

Death and the Miser holds no such loveliness. This painting, however, gets to the heart of Jesus’s conclusive message: “Provide yourselves with moneybags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” (Luke 12:33b-34, ESV). This challenge to be generous comes not for the sake of earning His appreciation or being a good person but, rather, for the sake of positioning their hearts in trustworthy investments, “[f]or where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”

Bosch paints a chilling portrait of the deep human fear that one would reach the end of one’s life with nothing and no one. To this fear, Jesus urges His followers to get involved in the eternal story and work of God that will not be shaken by earthly disasters or even by death. There is risk in this world. There are thieves that break in and steal. There are natural occurrences large and small that ruin cherished possessions. God knows how the human heart follows these things, and in the interest of the hearts of His kids, He urges us to live out practices that break down these uncertain storage spaces for our hearts. His arms are safe. His kingdom is eternal. We can join in that eternal story right now, investing time and energy and love into that which is promised.

As you finish the section of Luke 12 through which we have been reading, think about those fears universal to humanity - the ones we have right now, the ones painted by Bosch in 1494, and the ones Jesus rallied His followers to live against on the days when He walked the earth. Notice Jesus’s language of “Father” as He concludes His encouragement…the distinctly loving aspect of God’s character He accentuates. Then to conclude, we will look back to an Old Testament passage to rest in the scope of God’s unchanging heart toward His people, the same at the beginning and in the days of Jesus and today. Every ounce of His care for our needs, for beauty, for our hearts, has always been and always will be.

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