Episode Transcript
PRAYER OF CONSECRATION
Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.
Abba, I belong to you.
I lift up my heart to you.
I set my mind on you.
I fix my eyes on you.
I offer my body to you as a living sacrifice.
Today, I receive afresh in my inmost being the transforming gift of your Son, our Lord, Jesus Christ.
Praying in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen.
Exodus 31:1–6
Then the Lord said to Moses, “See, I have chosen Bezalel son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, and I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with wisdom, with understanding, with knowledge and with all kinds of skills—to make artistic designs for work in gold, silver and bronze, to cut and set stones, to work in wood, and to engage in all kinds of crafts. Moreover, I have appointed Oholiab son of Ahisamak, of the tribe of Dan, to help him. Also I have given ability to all the skilled workers to make everything I have commanded you:”
CONSIDER THIS
Bezalel
I may be out of turn here, but I don't recall any place in the Bible thus far where we see words like this:
I have filled him with the Spirit of God
Bezalel, son of Uri, son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah.
It looks like the first person whom the Completely-Other, Uncreated, I-AM-THAT-I-AM, Holy and Living God has determined to fill with the Spirit of God is not a prophet or preacher, a priest or a teacher, a king or military leader, a shepherd, farmer, or fisherman, but . . . wait for it . . . an artist.
I want you to grasp the full effect of this:
I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with wisdom, with understanding, with knowledge and with all kinds of skills
We are in the middle of the wilderness now. Before us is our first building project. It is not a courthouse, nor a Manna-Mart Super Center, nor a sandal-repair shop, but a tabernacle with a sophisticated set of instructions on making everything from exquisite curtains to priestly apparel. And the first person on the call list is an artist. The job description—straight from heaven:
—to make artistic designs for work in gold, silver and bronze,
—to cut and set stones,
—to work in wood, and
—to engage in all kinds of crafts.
This is brilliant. God calls an artist. And lest we miss the significance of that little word we so often see translated to English as "See," if it even gets translated at all—the better rendering is "Behold."
[Behold], I have chosen Bezalel . . .
Behold. To behold is to see beyond sight. Me thinks of beholding as a participation in divine perceptivity.
This same little Hebrew word appears first in Genesis 1—no less than eight times, the last of which says:
And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. (Gen. 1:31 ESV)
God creates, and God beholds. As divine image-bearers, we do the same. It's what we were made for.
This is precisely what artists do. Artists have a sense of vision beyond eyesight. They see what can't be seen, and they bring it into visibility through acts of creation so we can see it too. They behold, and in creating something for us to see, they train us to behold—to see beyond our limited sight.
Behold—the first art project in the kingdom of God is an installation of creativity that will point us not to the artist, nor to the art, but to God himself. This is the divine calling of a holy artist—to forge and fashion the vision of "on earth as it is in heaven" through every medium imaginable by all manner of creative work. I think I may have stumbled onto a definition of worship from the back side.
What if all work were approached in this same way? When work is done as worship—which is to say, from a place of beholding—it causes all work to rise to the level of art. It becomes a thing to "behold," which points us to the God of glory. There is a word for this kind of awakening: renaissance.
There's a bit of an art meets tabernacle (a.k.a. Seed House) meets small-town Arkansas unfolding in my village; a rural renaissance of sorts. My son David, whom I believe to be one of the Bezalels of our time, has joined me in Gillett. We are starting to tell the story here. He's even working on an exodus work of art we will be sharing on the site soon. It will be something to behold!
THE PRAYER FOR DELIVERANCE
Lord Jesus, you are my Deliverer.
I receive your deliverance from my failure to notice. I'm moving so fast and often so consumed by my own concerns I fail to notice the signs of your glory. I receive your deliverance into a new and fresh capacity to behold, to see what you are seeing.
And forgive me for dismissing the artists. Forgive us as your church for pushing the artists and their art to the margins. We pray for and anticipatorily receive a new generation of Bezalels—of all ages. Fill them with the Spirit of God, with wisdom, with understanding, with knowledge, and with all kinds of skills—to create and to make things which cause us to behold you.
It will be for your glory, for others' gain, and for my good.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost.
As it was in the beginning is now and ever shall be. World without end, amen! Amen!
