Eyes on Jesus

Christopher Clack and Jonathan Evens feature in a new Dutch book entitled Jezus voor ogen (Eyes on Jesus) with visual meditations and word and image Bible studies for Lent. The visual meditations have all featured previously on the ArtWay website and include the meditation which Jonathan Evens wrote on Christopher Clack's Descent II.

Marleen Hengelaar-Rookmaaker, who edited the book, writes:

"For us this book is a milestone that marks what ArtWay has been given to accomplish in the past two years. The book will hopefully function as a springboard to a new and broader audience, so that the website and its resources will be used by even more people and churches. We hope that an English version will be published next year.

In Jezus voor ogen the focus is on Jesus. While working on the book it struck me that images of Jesus can start to function as ‘models’ to us. In the book I expressed this as follows:

‘Jesus hangs on the cross as the image of the ideal human being. This is how humans are meant to be: full of love, obedient to the Father, willing to serve and suffer, resisting temptations, putting others above oneself. If we are honest, this is not really our idea of an ultimate hero. For this very reason it is of such great importance to keep on feeding ourselves with this and other images of Jesus. For deep inside of us live all kinds of other ideal images that drive us and that we bow to time and again, because they are our idols. Our ideal picture of our successful self: the slim figure, the imposing house, the fat car, the ideal partner, the golden job, the huge happiness. Christian art can replace these with new ideal images that can help us to become people of unified character: people whose inside corresponds with their outside, whose deeds rhyme with their words – people for whom Jesus on the cross is a source of inspiration for who they want to become and be.’"