Sometimes a Light Surprises: The Treasured Gift of a Troubled Soul

Art is not birthed in a vacuum, nor is it produced solely from a life of blissful devotion and ongoing prayer and song. Art is often brought forth from hardship and struggle, turmoil and tears. There is something about a troubled soul that taps into both the reality of our fallen condition and the hope of something greater than ourselves. Such is the life of William Cowper, the troubled but gifted artist whose hymns have been sung in many different languages for more than two centuries.

William Cowper was born on November 26, 1731, in England. His father was a pastor, and his mother died when he was 6 years old. For most of his life Cowper was plagued with a dark depression. At the age of 31 he tried three times to take his own life and was soon admitted to St. Albans Insane Asylum for recovery. Ironically, that is where Cowper came to faith. Using the lyrics from his hymn "Sometimes a Light Surprises," I'd like to discuss a few themes that flow out of the life of William Cowper and artists in general.

Art and Creativity Bring Us Life

Sometimes a light surprises the Christian while he sings; it is the Lord who rises with healing in his wings.

Virtually my entire life has centered on playing the guitar and making music. When I was 25 I experienced a severe injury severing nerves, tendons, and an artery in the palm of my right hand. On my way into surgery all I wanted to know was, "Will I ever be able to play the guitar again?" From the beginning the guitar took hold of me more than I took hold of it. Making music has been a source of life to me through all of the various seasons I have endured. My wife, Allison, often tells people, "If my husband isn't creating, he's not living."   Keep Reading >>>

Fear and the Last Judgment

In the excerpt below, Peter Hitchins (Christopher’s brother) explains how God used an artistic interpretation of the Last Judgment to bring him to faith. It’s worth reading on a number of levels: as an example of the power of art to prod and provoke, as a sober warning to the ungodly, and as a story of converting grace.

What I can recall, very sharply indeed, is a visit to the Hotel-Dieu in Beaune, a town my girlfriend and I had gone to mainly in search of the fine food and wines of Burgundy. But we were educated travelers and strayed, guidebook in hand, into the ancient hospital. And there, worth the journey according to the Green Michelin guide, was Rogier van der Weyden’s fifteenth-century polyptych The Last Judgment. Keep Reading>>>

Art, Nakedness, and Redemption

Where God displays His redemptive activity in contexts of extra-marital nakedness He clothes His people. Ezekiel 16 exemplifies this pattern in Scripture: God graciously redeems and clothes His bride, covering her nakedness and making her beautiful.  Her God-given covering is not a denial of beauty, but rather a redemptive rescue and restoration to appropriate, glorious, public beauty, after she had been an object of abandoned, uncovered shame. The bride, however, turns to play the whore, prostituting herself, taking off her beautiful clothes, giving her naked beauty, now rebel, distorted and cheap, to any passer-by. Her disrobing outside of marriage is an outward expression of her inner rejection of God's redemption. She calls men to join her in violating God's perfect law. 

The disrobing, redemption-rejecting woman of Ezekiel stands in stark contrast to the bride of the Song of Solomon, whose nakedness is truly beautiful. It is reserved for her husband, given to him alone--a "step that does not establish deep intimacy, but one which presupposes it." [3]  Even in the literary description of the marital sweetness and joy of the inspired Song a poetic modesty remains. [4]  There is also a glorious foreshadowing here of the relationship of Christ and His Bride, the church, who is clothed as well--by His redemption. Read the whole article HERE