Wednesday, May 4, 2016

Rublev Icon


I want you to share with you an icon of the Holy Trinity painted by Andrei Rublev in 1425. Artists always painted the last supper with peculiar seating arrangements.  Leonardo da Vinci oddly (if you think about it) put Jesus and all the disciples along the same one side of a long table, not just so we could study their faces and gestures, but so we might acknowledge a place for ourselves across the table from our Lord, from the saints of old. Rublev depicts Father, Son, and Spirit as angels occupying three sides of a table, with the fourth side open, inviting the viewer to join them.

            Henri Nouwen reflects that this icon  

is painted not as a lovely decoration for a convent church, but as a holy place to enter and stay within. As we place ourselves in front of the icon in prayer, we come to experience a gentle invitation to participate in the intimate conversation that is taking place among the three divine angels and to join them around the table.[1]   

            This is my destiny, my identity, my hope – and it is your destiny, and that of the person next to you, and that of the garbage collector and the neighbor who annoys you, that of your ex, that of the foreigner, the stranger, the homeless, the rich and powerful. There are no mere mortals. Every person’s past and future are defined entirely by this holy invitation to share in, by their secure place at the table of this trinity of enveloping, tender love.

            Furthermore, Nouwen believes the Rublev icon was painted during a time of political turmoil and hatred, a striking stroke of hope in troubled time. Is this not our most desperate desire? That our only hope during harsh times is being drawn into that holy circle of love? This is glory, knowing there is a place in God’s own heart, for me. This is my desire, my joy, my reality, my truth.

            Moreover, this is unity. In a world of strife, in a place where there is no peace, we try to resolve conflicts by applying force, by truces, by policing one another – when true unity is always offered to us in the remarkable home that is ours with Father, Son, and Holy Spirit painted so peacefully by Rublev.  Jürgen Moltmann put it like this:   

Through their tenderly intimate inclination towards one another, the three Persons show the profound unity joining them, in which they are one. The chalice on the table points to the surrender of the Son on Golgotha. Just as the chalice stands at the centre of the table round which the three Persons are sitting, so the cross of the Son stands from eternity in the centre of the Trinity. Anyone who grasps the truth of this picture understands that it is only in the unity with one another which springs from the self-giving of the Son “for many” that men and women are in conformity with the triune God.[2]  

            Our glory is our belonging in the loving life of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Our glory implies unity, and our unity is our glory.  Yet, we are not good at unity, even in church. We see division. We are not one.



[1] (Henri Nouwen, Behold the Beauty of the Lord: Praying with Icons [Notre Dame: Ave Maria Press, 1987], p. 20.)
[2] (Jürgen Moltmann, The Trinity and the Kingdom: The Doctrine of God [Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993], p. xvi.)

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