Already. Not Yet.
Over the last few weeks, through the Lenten season, I have been reminded — joyfully and achingly — of redemption’s already and not yet.
The “already” is breathtaking. Marriages are starting, friends are beginning new ventures, siblings are finding success in their callings. Mary Bell is finally going to Japan. Our small group is growing with newly arrived and newly announced infant additions.
But, the “not-yet” is heartbreaking. Friends have revealed ongoing health struggles and emotional aches. Two days after her baptism, Amelia, a little baby from our church here, was diagnosed with leukemia. Yesterday, Caldwell, one of Paige’s roommates was in a serious car accident and is now in the ICU. Their hurt is real and they, and their families, need your prayers.
Art people talk a lot about the “abject.” Julia Kristeva, in “Approaching Abjection” writes that the abject is the cast aside and the wretched that stands just outside the order that we know. According to Kristeva, since the abject exists along the edges of our comfort, when we are confronted by its reality we are challenged; it “beseeches a discharge, a convulsion, a crying out.”
I find myself returning to Kiki Smith’s 2002 sculpture Untitled: a crouched figure with the long, stretched out arms, broken in its beseeching. The figure is stripped bare with visionless eyes and cold skin. For the unbeliever, the work stops at the reminder of human fragility. For the Christian, our theology of the not-yet allows us to face the already without denial or fear. Instead, we recognize the damage and the creation’s cries as the devastation wrought by sin. But hurt so great demands a greater Savior, a greater redemption, a greater future than we can imagine.
And this is why I study contemporary art; the broken bodies become my acts of worship. While believing the resurrection hope, Untitled ensures that I never forget the visceral and enduring ache of sin.
Meredith said:
on April 13, 2007 at 5:41 am
Excellent thoughts. I love that sculpture.