Weekly Lenten Art March 22 | lafayette-christian

Epilogue
by T. Denise Anderson
Inspired by John 8:2-11
14”x18” Acrylic on canvas

Artist's Statement

I often wonder about the backstory of the woman from John 8:2-11. What were her circumstances? How did they “catch” her in the act of adultery? In flagrante delicto?18 Was it less graphic than that? Was she allowed to explain herself? Did she protest? If she was about to be stoned, what happened to the person with whom she was
accused? Was this a loving relationship? Was it even consensual?

Whatever her story, the Pharisees bring her to Jesus expecting him to uphold the law’s punitive prescription. Jesus knows it’s a trap. If he concurs with the law, he initiates and must bear witness to an act of extreme brutality that would traumatize anyone who had to watch. If he counters the law, he’s a heretic and should probably be stoned himself. But he outsmarts them and turns their self- righteousness and rage back onto them.

In what should have been the end of her life’s story, this woman now finds herself standing. Whole. Alive. Freed to a new future. And through it all, Jesus is just drawing on the ground—like you do!

I wanted to show this woman standing in her wholeness, right after the crowds have dispersed and right before Jesus rises to meet her as an equal. She’s backlit in a way that suggests the sun has set, indicating the end of a saga. What will she do at the end of a nightmare with a new life ahead of her? What decisions do we face at the dawn of a second chance?

—Rev. T. Denise Anderson

There Is Good
by Hannah Garrity
Inspired by Matthew 23:23
18”x18” Hand-dyed and collaged newspaper with
paper lace overlay

Artist's Statement

In this series of scriptures, gathered crowds drew my attention. Jesus always drew a crowd, but so did the voices of hate in his time. In our current historic moment, this dichotomy of crowds for justice and crowds for injustice confounds me. Are all crowds worthy of joining? In the background of this piece, I dyed and collaged together torn newspaper, representing the fabric of the world, to portray the cacophony of crowds gathering. What is drawing them in? Is everything that compels us to gather right and good? No.

The clarity comes in this scripture: “For you tithe mint, dill, and cumin and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith” (Matthew 23:23). Most especially, in the context of Jesus denouncing the scribes and Pharisees, the crucial point is that gathering to enact justice is good and gathering to enact injustice is not.

The crowd depicted in this artwork is inspired by the 100,000 who gathered strong in Budapest, Hungary, in June, 2025. The Hungarian parliament had outlawed Pride as part of a larger systemic effort to take away the rights of the LGBTQIA+ community in Hungary, and a “wider effort to curb democratic freedoms ahead of a hotly contested national election next year.” In the four corners of the artwork, symbols of justice, mercy, and faithfulness echo the clarity of Jesus. Gathering for justice is the work of the gospel.

—Hannah Garrity

Messianic Secret
by T. Denise Anderson
Inspired by John 2:1-11

14"x18" Acrylic on canvas

Artist's Statement

The Wedding at Cana is my favorite text because there is a lot of humor in it. There’s humor in a mother approaching her son and telling him to do something without ever actually telling him to do it. There’s his pouty resistance to his mother’s non-demand while she completely ignores him and paints him in a corner. There is humor in a raucous wedding reception where the people are so “lit” that the wine has run out. And, for me, it’s particularly humorous that there’s this huge, beautiful secret of which only a few people are aware.

Those people include Jesus’ mother and the select servants who help him pull off the miracle that
inaugurates his ministry. Servants are normally meant to be inconspicuous, so I wanted to focus on the servant who goes to the chief steward5 with a cup full of what, as far as he’s concerned, is water.

If Jesus—whose ministry has not started, so there haven’t been any wonders associated with him
yet—tells you to fill jars with water and draw from the jar to give to the chief steward, what is going
through your mind at that moment? I invite the viewer to focus on this servant and all his curiosity
and expectation, and think of a time when you were surprised by something God did. What actions
preceded the miracle? Did it make sense? What did you know, and what was hidden from you? What
“secrets” might God be keeping from you now as God works clandestinely on your behalf?

—Rev. T. Denise Anderson