Dear Friends,
A few weeks ago, my wife Helen and I enjoyed a real treat. We took an audio tour of paintings at the National Gallery in London. The tour was entitled ‘The Life of Christ’ and the first painting was of The Annunciation, by Carlo Crivelli, painted in 1486. It depicts the scene from Luke chapter 1, where the angel Gabriel announces to Mary that she will give birth to a son and give him the name Jesus, and that he will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High (see Luke 1:26-38).
The painting is highly stylised, typical of its time (and not really to my taste if I’m honest!). A golden beam descends from a hole in the clouds down to Mary’s head, conveniently finding its way through a portal in the building. The beam carries a dove, representing the Holy Spirit, whom Gabriel promises will come upon Mary in power.
What the audio guide brought out for me, which I would never have seen for myself, is that the buildings in the painting are those of the town of Ascoli in Italy, and the clothes are those of the artist’s own day. This painting, like so many, is a sermon! It’s saying, “This is for you, today.” Have you, I wonder, seen that in the Christmas story? It’s for us, now, that God became man, “for us and for our salvation”. It’s not for other people only. It’s not for other times only. It’s for us, it’s for now – and it’s for real!
Chris Hobbs,
Vicar.