Art to Heart Call to Worship

Salomon van Ruysdael: View of Deventer seen from the Northwest

©2002 by Jeff Dugan

Once upon a time, landscape paintings looked like this.  But in the seventeenth century, during Holland’s “Golden Age,” Dutch painters created a new way of portraying their environment.

Do you notice the striking difference in this new type of landscape painting?  The most obvious difference, of course, is that this painting is all about the sky, and the land in this landscape is mostly just punctuation. 

What could motivate an artist to so dramatically transform landscape painting that the land occupies only about a quarter of the canvas?  Part of it is probably that Holland is flat, so the sky often dominates the scenery.  But it’s also possible that such a view is the artist’s expression of faith in the power of limitless freedom to overcome that in our lives which otherwise seems small, dreary, and bound by gravity.  Perhaps it is a testament of faith in the ability of the spiritual to triumph over the material.

Can you see the world this way?  Today, as we worship, we hope to see our eternal God filling our lives as full of His Spirit as this painting is with the sky.  We hope to see His power made real in the world around us.  We hope to see His will done here on earth, as it is in heaven.

(Alternatively, you may wish to conclude by replacing the final paragraph with the  following)

Worship Leader:  Can you see the world this way?  Today as we worship, we hope to see our eternal God filling our lives as full of His Spirit as this painting is with the sky.

People:  Today we hope to see His power made real in the world around us.

Leader:  Can you see the world this way?

People:  Today we hope to see His will done here on earth, as it is in heaven.