Invading The Darkness
Title: Invading the Darkness
Canvas: 20 x 24”
Date: December 9th, 2018
“The hopes and fears of all the years are met in Thee tonight.” —O Little Town of Bethlehem
Doug gave the sermon this Sunday. He contrasted the loving and traditional, Silent-Night-side of Christmas with the Revelation-12-side where a red dragon is trying to devour the baby Messiah. A war had been going on for a very long time. Humankind had been attacked and blinded by the Devil. Then Christmas came, and the greatest rescue mission of all time was on! Father God sent Jesus as a baby to grow up and fight for us--to die for us. This was the price of establishing peace between God and humankind; peace between people; and peace inside our minds. Doug wanted to show that Christmas was an act of war against the Devil and his forces, and simultaneously an act of love toward each of us.
My first idea for this painting was special forces commandos rappelling down into a dungeon to rescue two prisoners of war. But five minutes into the painting I stopped. It just did not capture the full message. So, I flipped the canvas over to start again, then suddenly I saw a shape of a dove flying. So I made Jesus into a kind of Commando-Dove blasting the forces of darkness away which are visible as tiny silhouettes at the top of the painting. The faces of the children looking up from below now represent the Dove’s lost chicks. He appears with explosive force, like a Supernova-Star in the night sky. Even though this painting was a mess at the beginning, the inspiration for the final concept arose from that very mess—just like in the human story. God invades our mess and rises up from within it to create a beautiful masterpiece!