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Visual Aids Help Us 

Focus on God

How do you learn? Are you aural (through listening) dominant? Are you visual (seeing things) dominant? Educators are now discovering that we all are dominated by a certain way of learning. And there is much work to teach us how to translate our education into our style of learning. Some of us learn better through pictures than we do through listening. Some of us do better through activities with our hands than through watching.

The point I am making is that for the early church, most of whom could not read, the primary form of learning and remembering during worship was through iconography. Iconography is the pictorial or symbolical representation of Christian ideas, persons and history. And Christians have never held that icons were God. Icons are a way to help people to ‘get spiritual.’

Icons simply point us toward God and God toward us. Icons simply remind us of what we are to be concentrating on during our contemplation/meditation time. I recommend you visit the site that gave us St. Mark on the left of the Home Page. Simply click on the icon to see Anne Pinkerton Davidson’s work.

Use the icon to focus on the story it represents. Some Evangelicals drive around with the Fish on the back of their cars. That is an iconographic representation of the Greek acronym for "Jesus Christ Son of God". And those letters spell "ICHTHUS" pronounced "ikthoos". And ichthus is the same word for "fish." If those kind folks would take the fish off of their cars and put it in their prayer space in their homes, they could concentrate on it and meditate on it to help them focus during prayers.

It is just an incredible thought that God spoke and physical matter was brought to form out of nothing. (Read Genesis 1). The operative word in the creation passages is "said". "God said, let there be....and there was...."

So it is with the world and God’s creation. God is not in a tree. God is not in dirt. But God is spirit and can use those things to communicate his grace to us through them, if he wants. And the direction God keeps going is away from himself. And by way of an explanation about pictures, I will explain how God reaches out to you through icons.

Every picture has a focal point. When someone paints a picture, there is a spot on the canvas to which everyone’s eye is drawn. And the things around that focal point naturally draw the eye toward the focal point. Yet, you could look long and hard at a Christian icon all day and not find the focal point in the picture.

Icons are made so that they convey God’s grace. The focal point of an icon is not in the picture. The focal point of an icon is you, the viewer. The whole point is that God is reaching out to you through the message of the icon. And the icon is a vehicle through which God is speaking.

Back in the olden days, there were plenty of icons in churches because they told a story to people who could not read. And so, all the clauses of the Nicene creed are depicted in the twenty two illustrations of F. Bloesalug’s Credo de Sienne (1985). These pictures depict the Creation, the Trinity, the Father as maker of heaven and earth, Jesus Christ ascended at the ‘right hand of God’ and more.

The point of an icon is to focus on you. You are to see the story of the icon and be touched by the grace it represents. The Crucifix is the greatest of all icons. The Crucifix reminds us of the scripture in Galatians 3.10-14 and continues proclaiming the Lord’s death until he comes (1 Cor. 11.26). To purchase a Crucifix, click here.

The process through which we use an icon during prayer time is to know what it depicts and meditate on that. Use the Crucifix for starters.

The Crucifix reminds us that the death of Christ paid for our sins. We know he suffered like we suffer by looking at the Crucifix. The idea of his sacrifice for us comes home when we realize that in the Crucifixion, Jesus died from having his arms stretched to the point that he could not breath. It was death by suffocation. And he was slowly being suffocated for three hours.

Now, knowing this, we focus on the Crucifix like a pregnant woman focuses on a point in the room using  natural childbirth methods. During this meditation, we may hear Christ saying to us, "I did this for you. I did this for you." And we realize what kind of a sacrifice was made for us and we enter into a communion with the Savior of the Universe at a deeper spiritual level.

At this time, we then begin to pray thanks for his offering for us. We begin to pray glory to God for his willingness to take us who have sin in through him who knew no sin.

This is why it is important for people who worship where there is a Crucifix to get there early and meditate.

Dig Deeper

There are certain symbols that tell us what is going on in an icon. For example, if there is a man with keys in his hands, then it is St. Peter. This a picture of what Jesus said in Matthew 16.19.

And so it goes with icons, scripture, scripture everywhere.  For evangelicals and charismatics, the key is interpreting the scene on the icon and then finding out that it is all scripture.  The icon on this page (below) depicts several scriptural scenes.  The most prominent is the falling of the Holy Spirit upon the church at Pentecost.

Here are some other keys to reading icons:

Halo - there will be a halo around everyone who was and is holy in an icon. An halo with what would be a cross on it is the halo around Jesus Christ. An halo with line coming from it are streams of light and represent the Father in heaven, usually. Usually the beams are grouped in threes for "Father, Son, and Holy Spirit."

Circles - Circle represents completion and eternity. There is no beginning nor end to a circle. Also, all things which are contained in a circle are complete and need nothing else.

Rays of Light - usually depict the glory of God. Jesus Christ will have rays coming from his halo at times, but remember the halo of Christ has a cross impressed on it.

Dove - the Holy Spirit. Usually descending upon people at Baptism and on Jesus at his Baptism as described in the Gospels.  The Holy Spirit is the central figure in the icon to your right.  Click on the icon to see a bigger picture.

Eight - there are sometimes windows with eight sides, eight panels, eight whatever. Eight is the symbol for the eight people saved through water on the Ark, the eighth day when Jesus rose from the dead. Sometimes eight is paired with six. The sixth is Friday when he was crucified and the eighth is the New Day of Easter and Resurrection.

Angels - iconography of the medieval times loved angels. And when you see angels blowing trumpets, then you can be pretty sure that this the Judgment Day when Christians go to heaven.

Twelve Men - twelve men are usually the apostles of Jesus Christ. And each one may have something about them that is in the icon. The "evangelists" or the writers of the Gospel are each depicted as having something about them that is in their icon. St. Mark’s Icon on the home page is holding a pen and writing. It reminds us of the gift of the Gospel.  It is copyrighted 1993 by Anne Pinkerton-Davidson