A call for Adventist artists to stay the course.
If a miracle is a surprising, unique event, the truth of which causes us to wonder, and whose effect is permanent, positive change, then every work of art is a miracle.
What surprises us about miracles and causes us to wonder is summarised in the attitude of those who asked 2000 years ago, “Can anything good come from Nazareth?” (John 1:46, NLT). No one expected anything from Nazareth because Nazareth is us. The question is really asking, “Can our humanity produce anything worthwhile, something true, something that causes us to wonder, something with permanently positive consequences?”
And the surprising answer is, “Yes.”
We—Nazareth—have produced one, and only one, surprising, unique, wonderful truth-event in history. The miracle that is Jesus Christ came from us—as much as from heaven. He is the Son of Man as much as He is the Son of God. And every work of art that came before and comes after Him is a miracle, too—a dull reflection of that Work of Art, yes, but one that, like John the Baptist, “testif[ies] to the truth” (John 18:37, NLT) in its uniqueness, its wonder and its positive impact.
The truth of God may be found in biology, chemistry, geology, mathematics, physics, psychology and sociology. It may also be found in a cantata, a cartoon, a colour, a film, a play, a poem and a shape. Whatever the medium, the artist is called to represent truth because “His word burns in my heart like a fire” (Jeremiah 20:9, NLT) and we cannot hold it back.
My advice to my fellow Seventh-day Adventist artists: stay the course. Your art is always prophetic. It teaches us something by posing an unexpected vision from the unknown world of your imagination. “Now I will prophesy again,” says Isaiah. “I will tell you the future before it happens.”
That holds true for miracles, and for art.
Dr Robert Wolfgramm
Robert received the Gabe Reynaud Award
at the Manifest Creative Arts Festival in 2012.
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