©2002 by Jeff Dugan
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You’ve probably heard artists talk about how important it is to have good light. And a lot of artists are revered for how skillfully they portray the effects of light as it falls on the objects they choose for their subjects. J. M. W. Turner is also admired for the luxurious shimmering effects he creates with light as it reflects off of buildings, trees, and water.
But he’s distinctive among painters of light because of his penchant for scenes that face directly into the sun. Where other painters enjoyed working with light and the way it caresses objects, Turner was in love with the light itself, and its source. With each successive year in his career, Turner seemed to pack more and more dazzling sunshine into his paintings, as if he simply couldn’t get enough of it.
It’s the kind of obsession we see in Psalm 119, whose author composed the Bible’s longest, most complex, and most poetically elegant psalm as an elaborate love song to God’s law. For him, the law was so far from being a restrictive burden that he actually saw it as the source of freedom and life. If he had been a painter, he probably would have painted like Turner, because it is this author who tells God that “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.”
In this painting, the Carthaginian Empire is beset by many of the problems we face today; the problems all the world suffers from relying on the wisdom of mankind rather than the word of the Lord. But Turner’s brilliant, inescapable light-filled painting reminds us that even in the darkest days in man’s world, the Word of God continues to shine, and the darkness cannot overcome it.
Leader: Blessed are they whose ways are blameless.*
Congregation: Praise be to you O Lord, teach me your decrees.*
Leader: Blessed are they who walk according to the law of the Lord.
Congregation: How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth.
Leader: Blessed are they who keep his statutes.*
Congregation: I will always obey your law, for ever and ever.*
Leader: Blessed are they who seek him with all their heart.
Congregation: Oh, how I love your law! I meditate on it all day long.*
Leader: Blessed are they who walk according to the law of the Lord.*
* Ps. 119: 1, 12, 1, 103, 2, 44, 2, 97, 1
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