Bible CAMP: MAYHEM Requiem

[bxr 2,575]

Neither here nor there fwiw share for the sake of thread synchrony, but just a rewind remind crate dig revival of the Robert Wilson collaboration … (on account of today‘s Memorial Feast of St. John the Baptist‘s Passion)—‘tis the reason for the season (within a capacity )!

A QUICK SUMMARY

The Louvre Museum invited Robert Wilson to create a solo exhibition that would include pieces from the artist’s personal collection, performances, and new video portraiture.

Lumen Arts reached out to Lady Gaga and invited her to sit for a series of video portraits. We met in Los Angeles and New York to work on preliminary creative. Filmed in London. Premiered at the Louvre Museum in Paris.

 

Spoiler

 

Spoiler

The Head of John the Baptist is a 1507 oil on poplar board painting by Andrea Solari, probably commissioned by cardinal Georges d'Amboise.

Signed and dated at bottom right, the image depicts the severed head of John the Baptist on a charger plate in which is a reflection, probably of Solari himself.

The frame bears a seemingly original Latin inscription evoking John the Baptist. It is now in the Louvre in Paris, to which it was given by Eugène Lecomte in 1868. From 4 December 2012 to 11 March 2013 it was part of the temporary exhibition "Renaissance" at Louvre-Lens under catalogue number 25.

TiL: John the Baptist is the only saint whose nativity and martyrdom are both celebrated by the Church

The beheading of John the Baptist, also known as the decollation of Saint John the Baptist or the beheading of the Forerunner, is a biblical event commemorated as a holy day by various Christian churches. According to the New Testament, Herod Antipas, ruler of Galilee under the Roman Empire, had imprisoned John the Baptist because he had publicly reproved Herod for divorcing his first wife and unlawfully taking his sister-in-law (his brother's wife) Herodias as his second wife. He then ordered him to be killed by beheading, which occurred at a hilltop overlooking the Dead Sea at Machaerus in modern-day Jordan.

Mark 6:17-29

Herod was the one who had John the Baptist arrested and bound in prison
on account of Herodias,
the wife of his brother Philip, whom he had married.
John had said to Herod,
"It is not lawful for you to have your brother's wife."
Herodias harbored a grudge against him
and wanted to kill him but was unable to do so.
Herod feared John, knowing him to be a righteous and holy man,
and kept him in custody.
When he heard him speak he was very much perplexed,
yet he liked to listen to him.
[ … ]

Spoiler

She had an opportunity one day when Herod, on his birthday,
gave a banquet for his courtiers,
his military officers, and the leading men of Galilee.
Herodias' own daughter came in
and performed a dance that delighted Herod and his guests.
The king said to the girl,
"Ask of me whatever you wish and I will grant it to you."
He even swore many things to her,
"I will grant you whatever you ask of me,
even to half of my kingdom."
She went out and said to her mother,
"What shall I ask for?"
She replied, "The head of John the Baptist."
The girl hurried back to the king's presence and made her request,
"I want you to give me at once
on a platter the head of John the Baptist."
The king was deeply distressed,
but because of his oaths and the guests
he did not wish to break his word to her.
So he promptly dispatched an executioner with orders
to bring back his head.
He went off and beheaded him in the prison.
He brought in the head on a platter and gave it to the girl.
The girl in turn gave it to her mother.
When his disciples heard about it,
they came and took his body and laid it in a tomb.

As a non-Biblical source, Jewish historian Josephusalso recounts that Herod had John imprisoned and killed due to "the great influence John had over the people", which might persuade John "to raise a rebellion". Josephus also writes that many of the Jews believed that Herod's later military disaster was God's punishment for his treatment of John.

“The message of the cross if foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” (1 Cor 1:18). To be in God’s hands, to be praised and approved by Christ, to be respected by all—even by the one who arrested and imprisoned you—and yet to be so apparently abandoned by God. This seems to be the fate of St John the Baptist. He was left to sit in a prison cell, and then to be beheaded because of the impulsiveness of a king, the malice of a mother, and the caprice of a daughter. It seems like such an unheroic, anticlimactic, abrupt end for him whom our Lord praised as the greatest among the sons of women.

This must be the foolishness of the cross and the weakness of God at work together.

Spoiler

We have to consider this carefully, we who are also friends of the bridegroom. How does Christ save? Not always by rescue. He fortifies the human heart to surrender, to lay down its life freely. No greater love exists than that a man lay down his life for his friends. And the power that makes that surrender possible is the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord, from whom, in spirit, St John was never separated.

The opening prayer for the memorial of the Passion of St John the Baptist asks God for this grace: “Grant that we, too, may fight hard,” in other words, Grant that we might fight valiantly for Christ as did the holy Baptist. Each of us is up against something that requires us to “fight hard,” from ordinary human weakness to temptations to sin. We know that the victory belongs to Christ, but we also have this lingering fear: I know that I can, but I’m afraid that I won’t. I know that I can do all things in Him who strengthens me, but I’m afraid that I will back out and not fight hard.

In the Gospel of St John’s beheading, we can picture everything. There are some unique elements: the movements of a dance and the sounds of the music that accompanied it. Food is being served to many. There is a lot of drinking, a lot of foolish conversation, sinful propositions, swearing, laughter. This is a crowd of people who are not fighting hard to do anything good. We find ourselves in the midst of all types of self-indulgence: gluttony, lust, drunkenness. Then behind the scenes there is anger, retaliation, manipulation, fear, human respect. It is the ugly portrait of unredeemed humanity.

But there is one man in this Herodian palace who wants nothing to do with the celebration and the sins that it occasions. Herod’s banquet is not the wedding supper of the Lamb, and yet for one man it is. For one man alone it is the passage from bondage to freedom. It is his Passover meal.

There is one man here who believes in Jesus Christ. He believes so wholeheartedly in Christ that he is waiting in prison, prepared to give his life for Him at a moment’s notice. He is sober, self-controlled, alone, praying incessantly. While hundreds of people enjoy themselves above him—eating, drinking, laughing, singing, and dancing—St John the Baptist sits in chains.

This was a grand birthday party, and so we can expect that St John heard the sounds of the celebration echoing throughout the palace, echoing off of the walls of his dungeon cell. He is praying and at the same time the air about him is filled with the smells of food and the perfumes of the guests. He can hear the music, the men hollering, peals of laughter.

When we are at our best, when are fighting hard within ourselves for Christ, when we are doing battle against our own enemies, when we remember or imagine the attractions of the world, and yet are clinging to Christ within, then this is who we are in this Gospel scene. We are like St John the Baptist. And this is what our opening prayer is asking for.

In his lonely prison cell, St John the Baptist quietly trusts in the Lamb of God—who is physically absent, yet mystically present to him in power. The Baptist does not believe for a minute in the boisterous sounds of false human happiness bombarding him from all sides. Quietly, hiddenly, he trusts in the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. He trusts in the same divine Lamb who takes away our fears to do battle and enables us to fight hard for Him, and with Him, to overcome the world.

 

Edited 6 hours ago by bxr