Patrick Comerford
On the sixth day of Christmas my true love sent to me … ‘six geese a-laying, five golden rings, four colly birds, three French hens, two turtle doves, and a partridge in a pear tree’.
This is the sixth day of Christmas, and the Hanukkah holiday continues today.
Before today begins, however, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:
1, today’s Gospel reading;
2, a short reflection;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;
4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.
Luke 2: 41-52 (NRSVA):
36 There was also a prophet, Anna the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was of a great age, having lived with her husband for seven years after her marriage, 37 then as a widow to the age of eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshipped there with fasting and prayer night and day. 38 At that moment she came, and began to praise God and to speak about the child to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.
39 When they had finished everything required by the law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth. 40 The child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favour of God was upon him.
Today’s Reflection:
The Christian interpretation of the song ‘The 12 Days of Christmas’ often sees the six geese a-laying as figurative representations of the six days of Creation (see Genesis 1).
The Gospel reading yesterday, for the First Sunday Christmas (Luke 2: 41-52), jumped from the story of Jesus’ birth in a stable in Bethlehem on Christmas Day to the story of the teenage Christ who is lost in the Temple on this first Sunday after Christmas.
It may have left some people wondering what happened to the intervening years, between the story of the stable and Jesus at the age of 12?
Saint Luke gives no account of the exile in Egypt or Herod’s slaughter of the innocent children. Instead, after the circumcision and naming of Jesus eight days after his birth and his presentation in the Temple at 40 days, we are told Mary and Joseph returned with him to Galilee and their own town of Nazareth, and that ‘the child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favour of God was upon him.’ The translation in the Authorised or King James Version says ‘the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom: and the grace of God was upon him.’
Very little is told about the childhood of Jesus, between his birth and the beginning of his public ministry, apart from the meeting in the Temple with Simeon and Anna and the 12-year-old being lost in the Temple.
Between the two Temple incidents, he spent the years of his childhood and youth growing, learning and developing. Nothing in Scripture suggests his divine nature disqualified him from the human experiences of learning and development.
The infinite, eternal God took on human flesh. This is the miracle of Christmas, the Incarnation. The Second Person of the Trinity, uncreated, without beginning and without end, at a particular time and place in history came into this world just like one of us, needing to grow, learn develop, for Jesus Christ was truly God and truly human.
As a normal child, he learned to walk and talk, probably learned several languages, including Aramaic, Hebrew and Greek, and perhaps a little Latin, hung around with the local children, learned the building and carpentry trades from Joseph, and probably went fishing too, went to the synagogue on Friday nights and on Saturdays, studied Scripture, learned how to pray and celebrated high days and holy days.
The stories of Christ as an apprentice in the workshop of Joseph the carpenter are popular and pious, but are not found in any Gospel narrative (see Luke 2: 39-40). But these ‘hidden years’ inspired Pre-Raphaelite artists and stained-glass artists in the 19th century, including John Everett Millais, William Holman Hunt and Nathaniel Westlake.
Sir John Everett Millais (1829-1869) was one of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, which was founded at his parents’ house in London. He completed his painting ‘Christ in the House of His Parents’ (1849-1850) in 1850. It is a work in oil on canvas, measures 86.4 cm × 139.7 cm and is in the Tate Britain in London.
Millais created controversy when this painting was first exhibited in 1850. But it brought the previously obscure Pre-Raphaelites to public attention and was a major contributor to the debate about Realism in the arts.
By the late 1850s, Millais was moving away from the Pre-Raphaelite style. His later works were enormously successful, making him one of the wealthiest artists of his day. His ‘Christ in the House of His Parents’ depicts the Holy Family in Saint Joseph’s carpentry workshop. The painting was controversial when it was first exhibited, prompting many negative reviews.
The realistic depiction of a carpentry workshop, especially the dirt and detritus on the floor, down to the details of Saint Joseph’s dirty fingernails, stirred criticism. Charles Dickens accused Millais of portraying the Virgin Mary as an alcoholic who looks ‘… so hideous in her ugliness that … she would stand out from the rest of the company as a Monster, in the vilest cabaret in France, or the lowest gin-shop in England.’
Dickens said the young Christ looks like a ‘hideous, wry-necked, blubbering, red-haired boy in a night-gown who seems to have received a poke playing in an adjacent gutter.’
Other critics also objected to the portrayal of Christ, one complaining that it was ‘painful’ to see ‘the youthful Saviour’ depicted as ‘a red-headed Jew boy.’ Others still suggested that the characters displayed signs of rickets and other disease associated with slum conditions.
Saint Joseph is making a door, which is laid on his carpentry work-table. Christ has cut his hand on an exposed nail, leading to a sign of the stigmata, prefiguring the crucifixion. As Saint Anne removes the nail with a pair of pincers, his concerned mother, the Virgin Mary, offers her cheek for a kiss while Saint Joseph examines his wounded hand.
The young Saint John the Baptist is bringing in water to wash the wound, and so prefigures his later baptism of Christ. An assistant of Saint Joseph, representing potential future Apostles, is watching all that is going on.
In the background we can see many objects that hep to further point up the theological significance of the subject. A ladder, referring to Jacob’s ladder and the ladder used to take Christ down from the cross, is leaning against the back wall. A dove, representing the Holy Spirit rests on it. Other carpentry implements refer to the Holy Trinity.
The sheep in the fold in the background represent Christ’s future followers, who know Christ as the Good Shepherd.
The painting was exhibited at the Royal Academy, with a companion piece by Millais’s colleague, William Holman Hunt, ‘A Converted British Family sheltering a Christian Missionary from the persecution of the Druids.’
John Ruskin supported Millais in letter to the press and in his lecture ‘Pre-Raphaelitsm,’ although he personally disliked the painting. Its use of Symbolic Realism led to a wider movement in which typology was combined with detailed observation.
Because of the controversy, Queen Victoria asked for the painting to be taken to Buckingham Palace so that she could view it in private. We do not know whether she was amused, but Millais said he hoped the painting ‘would not have a bad effect on her mind.’
The critical reception of the painting brought prompt attention to the Pre-Raphaelite movement and stimulated a debate about the relationship between modernity, realism and mediaevalism in the arts.
William Holman Hunt (1827-1910) was another founding member of the Pre-Raphaelite movement. His ‘The Shadow of Death’ is painted in oil on canvas, measures 214.2 cm × 168.2 cm, and is in the Manchester City Art Gallery.
Holman Hunt was born in Cheapside, London, on 2 April 1827, and died in Kensington on 7 September 1910. He concentrated on history and religious painting, and his best-known works include ‘The Light of the World,’ ‘The Finding of the Saviour in the Temple,’ ‘The Shadow of Death,’ and ‘The Scapegoat.’
He worked on ‘The Shadow of Death’ from 1870 to 1873, during his second visit to Jerusalem and the Holy Land. He painted it as he sat on the roof of his house in Jerusalem, and the work was completed it in 1873.
The artist shows Christ as a young man working as a carpenter in Saint Joseph’s workshop in Nazareth. The youthful Christ is stretching his arms after sawing wood. The shadow of his outstretched arms falls on a wooden spar on which carpentry tools hang, creating a shadow of death that prefigures the crucifixion. His mother, the Virgin Mary, looks up at the cross-shaped shadow, having been searching in a box where she keeps the gifts from the Magi.
Hunt’s depiction of Christ as a muscular hard-working craftsman was also probably influenced by Thomas Carlyle, who emphasised the spiritual value of honest labour and who earlier criticised Holman Hunt’s earlier depiction of Christ in ‘The Light of the World’ as ‘papistical’ because it showed Christ in regal clothing.
The portrayal of the Virgin Mary, who has carefully saved the Magi’s gifts, depicts the working class values of thrift, financial responsibility and honesty.
The first painting went on display in 1874, the year after its completion. It went on show in Dublin and Belfast in 1875. It was a popular success, especially among the working class, and was widely reproduced as an engraving. The profits from the prints paid for its donation to the city of Manchester in 1883, and it is now held by Manchester City Art Gallery.
Hunt also painted a smaller version in 1873. It was sold for £1.8 million in 1994, which at the time was the highest price paid for a Pre-Raphaelite painting.
Today’s Prayers (Monday 30 December 2024):
The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church’, the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘We Believe, We Belong: Nicene Creed’. This theme was introduced yesterday by Dr Paulo Ueti, Theological Advisor and Regional Manager for Latin America and the Caribbean, USPG.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (Monday 30 December 2024) invites us to pray:
We pray for a Church that embraces diversity in all its forms. Help us recognise the beauty in differing expressions of faith and remain united in Christ without suppressing the unique voices within your Church.
The Collect:
Almighty God,
who wonderfully created us in your own image
and yet more wonderfully restored us
through your Son Jesus Christ:
grant that, as he came to share in our humanity,
so we may share the life of his divinity;
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
The Post-Communion Prayer:
Heavenly Father,
whose blessed Son shared at Nazareth the life of an earthly home:
help your Church to live as one family,
united in love and obedience,
and bring us all at last to our home in heaven;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Additional Collect:
God in Trinity,
eternal unity of perfect love:
gather the nations to be one family,
and draw us into your holy life
through the birth of Emmanuel,
our Lord Jesus Christ.
Yesterday’s Reflection
Continued Tomorrow
Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org
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