Lion & Lamb
Canvas: 20” x 24”
Date: September 15th, 2019
Cost: $1,200
Artist Statement
I got inspired quickly when I heard The Lion & The Lamb by Leeland:
“Our God is the lion, the lion of Judah. He's roaring with power and fighting our battles.”
I imagined a lion on the attack but kept messing it up. My oldest daughter said at one point it looked like the grim reaper! (Well, hey…I had never painted a Lion before!) After I walked my youngest daughter to Sunday school, I took a minute to look up images of lions roaring and…BAM! The lion appeared on the canvas! Then, I remembered Lucy, from the C.S. Lewis book The Lion, The Witch & the Wardrobe. Who gets scared when finding out Aslan is a lion and asks, “Is he safe?” Then she’s told, “Aslan, safe? No, but he is good.” So, I added a figure of a child embracing the lion. Interestingly, my oldest daughter mistook the child figure for a large wound in the ribs of the lion. And yet, doesn’t this perfectly portray the mystery of the cross? First, the Lion is pierced for our transgressions. Seeing him wounded on our behalf pierces our heart opening us to receive him. Our wound becomes his and his wound becomes ours in a fellowship of suffering.
The song also says:
“Our God is the lamb, the lamb that was slain. For the sins of the world, his blood breaks the chains.”
As I painted, Doug Glynn, pastor at Hope Covenant Church, taught from the parable of the shepherd who leaves the 99 to pursue and suffer for his one lost lamb, but instead, religious people judge his lost lamb. Doug talked about Jesus getting angry and ROARING at the religious—“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the door of the kingdom of Heaven in people’s faces, you yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to.” (Matt. 23:13) Jesus loves and welcomes ALL—the lamb who is gay, lesbian, transgender, incarcerated—EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. But psychology (and experience) tells me that no matter what I do, my mind will always judge others and rank myself inside a complex-biological-dominance-hierarchy. So how do I truly love? The answer is…I can’t, “…there is no one who does good, not even one.” (Rom. 3:12) Only JESUS can love people, only JESUS can live the Christian life. In fact, he is the only one that ever has, or ever will! He invites you to give up trying and start trusting—to come and die—to believe HE will do it! Hold tight to the Lion and HIS love—fierce agape love—will roar out of you scaring the judgment out of the religious while at the same time beckon each of us ‘lambs’ home!!