Concordia Seminary Newsroom
Our Eyes Fixed on Jesus in Worship
When you come into church on Sunday morning and sit down, where do your eyes go? What catches your visual attention? Every church has its prime visual center, which stands out and draws your eyes. Throughout its history, the church has known how important and powerful this is for its worship life. When you go into the great cathedrals and churches of Europe and stand in those naves, looking forward toward the sanctuary, you will see quite quickly what center point of theology and faith is being preached there. That visual center often is pushed forward at the viewer by the other features of the church’s architecture — archways, lighting, recesses or steps that lead one’s gaze to the object, place or image which they frame. In most cases, this visual center will be the altar and its ornamentation. Or it may be the picture stained glass window set into the wall behind the altar or other image above the altar.
What we look at forms us spiritually
For Christians whose senses have been trained to this kind of environment, it is natural, even perhaps automatic, that we look at the visual center point and think about it, that is, meditate on it. Often, we are not aware of doing this or aware of how that visual focus is impacting us, teaching us and even inspiring us.
In the pre-modern period, during the centuries before most people were able to read, these images told the faith story. Instead of reading words, people saw and interpreted these pictures. This dynamic was used as a strategy for teaching and forming people in the faith. In some churches in Europe, you can still see how this was done, using elaborate hinged altar pictures that reversed and folded back to show different pictures at different times of the year: Jesus’ crucifixion, the Nativity, the Ascension, etc. People fixed their eyes on these paintings and learned about Jesus and His ministry. They were very detailed, incorporating characters from Bible stories, sparking the worshippers’ imaginations and helping them put together their own understanding of the Christian faith and their relationship with God.
This worked for good and for ill. During the Middle Ages, for example, the Roman church wanted its adherents to focus on the impending last judgement of Christ, as a way to influence people toward repentance so they could be ready to meet the returning Lord and Judge. Many altarpieces depicted this scene from Matt. 25:31-46, in which Christ separates “the sheep from the goats.” On one side of the picture was the blessed heavenly realms set aside for the faithful believers, but on the other side, where people really fixed their eyes, the picture showed souls in terror, being dragged away by devils into hell and its torments. This produced a climate of spiritual fear and dread for many Christians and a constant questioning about the final destiny of their souls as they searched for salvation and peace of heart. That is how powerful the visual can be in our worship. Where you fix your eyes really matters.
In our own Lutheran tradition, this “fixing of our eyes” on Jesus has been and still is a very important emphasis. During the Reformation, Luther worked with the royal court painter in Wittenberg, Lucas Cranach, to encourage people to fix their eyes and hearts back on Jesus as their true Savior and Lord. After Cranach’s death, his son, Lucas Cranach the Younger, took over this work. Cranach the Elder is sometimes numbered as one of the “Wittenberg Reformers” because he created the pictures that illustrated over and again the centrality of Jesus as the author and perfector of our faith, the Redeemer who alone can save and transform our lives, through His death and resurrection.
Lucas Cranach, fixing our eyes on Jesus
The Wittenberg altarpiece in the Wittenberg City Church in Germany is the most famous example of this. It comprises four pictures, which each have their own complex and rich meaning. However, the picture that binds all the others together theologically is the small painting at the bottom, the “predella.” At the center of this picture is Jesus crucified. The billowing cloth flapping around Him is symbolic of the grave clothes in which He will be wrapped as He lies in the tomb, and which He will shed from His body again in His resurrection. Jesus spreads out His arms on the cross, pointing, it would seem, to the other pictures above that show scenes from the life of the church — the celebration of the Sacraments, and confession and absolution. In this predella, the image of Jesus functions as the altar crucifix and stands behind the altar Bible, symbolizing that Jesus is the center and heart of Scripture. In the picture itself, Luther appears off to the right in his pulpit, with one hand on the Bible and the other extended to point at Christ’s cross, as he preaches. The congregation, as they listen to Luther, are themselves turned toward the cross. The central message for the viewer sitting in this church is unmistakable — fix your eyes on Jesus, the One who died and rose for you!
The other famous Cranach altar painting that fixes our eyes and our hearts on Jesus is the Weimar altarpiece, painted by Lucas Cranach the Younger. This amazing picture dominates the interior of the Church of St. Peter and St. Paul in Weimar, Germany. It is full of meaning and biblical narrative.
In the foreground, John the Baptist points to the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world, and Christ is pictured conquering death in His resurrection. In the center, again, we have Jesus, lifted up on the cross. A thin stream of redeeming blood flows down from Christ’s side onto the head of Lucas Cranach the Elder, pictured at the foot of the cross between John the Baptist and Luther. The Bible held by Luther is open to John 3:14-15 (ESV): “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.” This makes a lot of sense when the viewer notices in the background of this painting the depiction of Israel in the desert from Num. 21:4-15, with the bronze serpent lifted up so that all who had been bitten by the venomous snakes could look at it and be healed. Again, the viewer’s eye is fixed on Jesus, as the central figure in the whole Bible, both Old and New Testaments, and the central figure in the individual believer’s life.
Where do you fix your eyes?
Here at Concordia Seminary, each day we walk into our beautiful chapel for morning worship and meet Jesus in His resurrected glory, looking down from the large stained glass window above the altar. The light pours through this image and the worshipper’s eyes are drawn to it. We are reminded of His living presence among us, His power to overcome sin and death, and His victory over all the things that can burden and distract us from our studies.
As you come into your own home church on Sunday morning and sit down, where do your eyes go? Maybe your church follows the “Cranach lead” and has above or on the altar a depiction of Jesus. Maybe the central visual focus is the crucifix, with Jesus giving His life for your salvation. Maybe there are symbols that speak eloquently of Jesus’ ministry to the world. It is good to stop and notice where your eyes are fixed, because that is what will lead your mind and heart into worship as you hear, speak and sing the Word of God and praise the name of Jesus. Let us always look toward Jesus, “the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God” (Heb. 12:2 ESV).