Triggering the apocalypse or sharing a message of beauty and truth

What commissioned works of art can tell us about the Great Commission

Way back in the 1490s, a man of many talents was commissioned by the French ambassador in the Holy See to sculpt one of his most well known works, the Pietà. Upon its completion, one of the artist’s contemporaries wrote, “It is certainly a miracle that a formless block of stone could ever have been reduced to a perfection that nature is scarcely able to create in the flesh.”

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By Stanislav Traykov - Image: Michelangelo’s Pieta

For great work to become a fait accompli, it often requires a commission from men and women with means, and it’s why posterity can enjoy and appreciate some of the world’s most famous works of art, Michelangelo’s included.

{Aside: Imagine having your art or your work described as a miracle!}

I’ve been thinking about the word commission. As a writer it is a welcome thought: to be sought out by someone who appreciates what you do, to partner in a new work, to bring into a reality an aesthetic dream, and to not have to expend all the energy on ends to figure out how they will meet.

At UnveilTV, we’re in the midst of some interesting commissioned work, feature content unlike anything we’ve ever produced. It’s exciting to get a gig. Then starts the hard creative work.

Another commission

The commission of the artist is a nice metaphor for a commission of another kind: the individual’s invitation into the work that will accomplish God’s ultimate dream. In Mark 16:15 Christ invites all who follow him into commissioned work: “Go into all the world and proclaim the good news to the whole creation.”

Some take the words more seriously than others. Certainly it might seem less romantic or significant than the commission of artistic work to some. The call also seems surprisingly democratic, so universal. “Everyone is asked to go? Not just an elite few with a particular skill set?”

As I’ve looked at this passage which many Christians, myself included, are over-familiar with, a passage some say is only a footnote in an abruptly ended book that doesn’t really belong in the original text, I’m interested in a twice repeated phrase: “they would not believe.”

Jesus appears resurrected—in the flesh—to people who knew him from Adam. They saw him share the good news in real life, in their real time. And they didn’t believe.

Mary Magdalene, saw the Lord in the garden and the two men traveling the road to Emmaus had personal encounters with Christ, but their accounts didn’t assuage the despair of disciples lost to the darkness of fear, hopelessness, and grief. These people who watched or heard of his public execution, who grieved his death, who were told their friend was alive by three witnesses, did not recognize the Second Adam when he stood before them, risen.

It took time, is what I mean to say. And who can blame them? How could such a miracle take place in the flesh?

The first ever believers had to be told the good news three times. They had the advantage of being raised in a faith tradition expecting a Messiah and the advantage of being taught and prepared by that Messiah for the very truth that would transform their world and ours.

But they didn’t believe. {What a relief.}

“Later he appeared to the eleven themselves as they were sitting at the table; and he upbraided them for their lack of faith and stubbornness, because they had not believed those who saw him after he had risen” (Mark 16: 14).

Right after he rebuked them, he commissioned them.

Note the context of this famous commissioned work. It’s encouraging that Christ doesn’t belabour the point. He confronts the disciples’ unbelief, but doesn’t get hung up on it, and then calls them into the life-changing, life-long work of sharing the good news.

Just go

The question isn’t about whether we are to go into all the world or not. Nor is it so much about how, or where, or what responding to the call to go looks like. It does, raise a question about what our expectations about going are, though.

We don’t go because we will trigger the apocalypse or to meet quotas of some unspoken cosmic body count. We go because we obey. And we go because we know and believe the good news:

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we’re free, we’re alive, the future is open and Christ makes it so.

Sobered by such words, like master artists, skilled in our craft, may we offer the world a message that is steeped in the beauty and clarity of the truth so posterity can enjoy and appreciate the most famous work, the most astonishing fait accompli of all.

True to the metaphor, our patron has the means to ensure he meets his part of the contract for the commissioned work. If we resolve to go, then we must complete our end of the deal: everywhere the good news. Everywhere a message of beauty and truth.

Thank God Christ appears to us more than once, and gives ample opportunity to those who will believe.

If you plan to go, prepare to go more than once.

1. Vasari said this of the sculpture, which now lives at St. Peter’s Basilica.

2. “The one who believes and is baptized will be saved; but the one who does not believe will be condemned” (Mark 16:16).