These days my paintings are birthed out of concepts. Even though they originate with ideas, sometimes I am pleasantly surprised by an element of the art I create. This painting called Eat Freely, was one of those creations.
I love trees and although I have painted them for years, my connection of trees to The Cross and to the person of Jesus Christ has grown tremendously. In the garden The Tree of Life lived. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. The Tree of Life in the garden points to Christ. Adam and Eve had the freedom to eat from this tree and have eternal life. When we choose Christ, we eat of His flesh and we have eternal life.
Jesus humbled Himself and came into our mess, in a fleshly body. He came to earth out of His great love for us. 1 John 4:2 says, “Jesus Christ came in the flesh.” 1 John 4:15,16 says: Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.
When we confess that Jesus came in the flesh, God abides in us! God will birth His love through us.
In the Byzantine era, deity was denoted by a pronounced halo. Previously as I’ve painted the Tree of Life to symbolize choosing life—that is choosing Christ—I’ve introduced a gold halo around it. Painted for the Seventh Annual What's So Good About Good Friday Art Show, I had the idea to create a halo by painting an outer ring of gold leaves. Then I had an unusual urge to paint the background pink! Why pink I wondered? I don’t often paint with pink. I knew it wasn’t an artistic choice; for example, a dark blue would have “popped” the gold, but light pink would not. As I meditated on this, the thought “Jesus Christ came in the flesh.” Flesh. Pink. True, Jesus most likely would have been an olive-skinned man, but the pink was certainly about His connection to flesh. Jesus Christ came in the flesh to give me life: He came to give you life. This painting ties the Tree of Life to Christ who came in the flesh.