Contemplations on the Gospel
“[McPhee] was pressing on me…with such questions as ‘So you think you’re going to have guts and palate forever in a world where there’ll be no eating?’ when Ransom suddenly burst out with great excitement, “Oh, don’t you see…there’s a difference between a trans-sensuous life and a non-sensuous life?” (A conversation on the nature of paradise in C.S. Lewis’ book “Perelandra”)
What is sculpture? According to Dictionary.com, it is “stone, bronze, wood, or any other hard material fashioned into a three-dimensional figure.” According to the modernist painter Barnett Newman, “Sculpture is what you bump into when you back up to see a painting.” Makoto Fujimura, a Christian Japanese contemporary artist, suggests sculpture affirms and celebrates the physical while also showing its eternal significance. It tells of the “gospel of incarnation” by fusing spirit and mattter, heaven and earth, whispering of God becoming flesh, giving incalculable worth and meaning to this physical world.
How can sculpture such as “To Fix the Image in Memory XIII,” (Vija Celmins, 1977-82) consisting of one rock and one identical image made of bronze, display worth of this magnitude? Replicating the smallest detail of this ordinary rock, the sculptor helps us “fix the image” and understand its value through her incredible amount of care and time. “Back Yard” (Liza Lou, 1995-99) is a life-size picnic scene that took three full years to make, assembled with millions of glass beads, forming all the details down to the clothes-line, laundry, and more than 250,000 blades of grass. She transforms this ordinary scene into a “heavenly” one of joy and dazzling color, expressing the importance of matter in her own way.
Adding plants to sculpture seems to make the meaning more profound. “Everything that Rises Must Converge” (Sarah Sze, 1999), part of an exhibit we saw at the Contemporary Museum of Art (MOT) in Tokyo, consists of ordinary objects like lamps, ladders, Ziploc containers, and bottle caps strung together along with wires and lights, stretching all the way up to a power outlet on the second floor. Plastic plants randomly appear here and there throughout the work, but right next to the outlet sits a single living potted plant, the “true” plant, if you will, from which the exhibit emanates and receives its “life.” As a Christian, this plant speaks to me of the fullness of life that all matter will one day possess.
Aren’t plants themselves a kind of sculpture? Walking around Santa Fe, New Mexico, the third largest collection of art galleries in the world, we saw many artists use real seeds to represent potential for life. The most powerful use of plants I ever saw was “The End of the Twentieth Century” (Joseph Beuys, 1983-5), part of Tate Moderns’ permanent collection in London. Consisting of enormous horizontal columns of basalt, it had the look of a ruined ancient city. In each column, a hole had been drilled and filled with dirt (not pictured here). One of these holes contained a sprouting plant, symbolizing life bursting forth in the midst of ruins. From a Christian perspective, we know that from this broken world, life will come with such vibrancy that all life as we know it will be essentially dead in comparison, like that plant compared to that rock.
In sculpture, artists flesh out the relationship between the physical and the “trans-physical” (see above Perelandra quote), the imminent and the transcendent, the temporal and the eternal. They increase our passion for seeing the reality of heaven, where things are more solid, not less, and the smallest rock is of infinite worth. Through sculpture, we can glimpse heaven “through a glass darkly,” the glorious completed state of life and fullness God will one day bring to all of creation. How can we not be in “wonder-full” awe anticipating such a world?
Joel and Monica Klepac and their children Abram and Simeon moved to Galati, Romania in 2000 to serve Christ among the poor, especially children. Joel studied fine art at Asbury College and now shows oil paintings in the local art guild gallery, group shows at the contemporary art museum, and community center classrooms. They work through the mission agency Word Made Flesh. Joel uses his skills as an artist to work with and “flesh out” the gospel with children at risk and street children in Romania. You can see some of their collaborative art at 
Tim and Rhianna Mills, and their children Emmalynn, Asa and Julian, support church planting in Bangkok, Thailand through Mission to the World. Tim, a visual artist and musician, utilizes the arts to bring people into contact with Christianity and the church community. He is also working with Thai Christians to develop outreach in and through the creative realm. The following are some videos showing their efforts so far of 
Scott & Lindsay Nimmon and their daughter, Madeline, are helping to revitalize a church in downtown Dublin, Ireland through Mission to the world using their skills in photography. Click 
Berenice Rarig has been working in Perth, Australia, since 1990 through Mission to the World, the mission sending agency of the Presbyterian Church of America, to reach Australians through the arts. She is married to Steve Rarig, a Presbyterian pastor and missionary. Berenice uses the tremendous popularity of art to engage people with the message of the gospel through such diverse materials as silk, chicken bones, and quall eggs. People who ordinarily have no interest in Christianity are drawn to the God of the Bible through her works. Click 
