The Art of the Luminous Mysteries: The Sermon on the Mount
The Third Luminous Mystery is the Proclamation of the Kingdom of God, which spans the period of time from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount until the Transfiguration. During those years, the Lord “went about all Galilee, teaching…and preaching the gospel of the Kingdom and healing every disease and every infirmity among the people” (Mt. 4:23). He taught in parables and gave instruction on how to live; He healed physical ailments and deformities; He healed spiritual infirmities by casting out demons and forgiving sins. Because of these multiple layers of Jesus’ proclamation of the Kingdom, we need to reflect on multiple artworks, which will identify particular elements of the proclamation.
We can begin by meditating on the event by which Jesus initiated His proclamation of the Kingdom, the Sermon on the Mount. Carl Heinrich Bloch was a renowned Danish artist of the nineteenth century. Near the end of his noteworthy career, in 1877, he painted Sermon on the Mount, which stands among the most identifiable and memorable pieces in the full history of Christian art. The elements of this painting allow us to prepare for the astonishing miracles that He would perform, and to bask more fully in the light that He brought to the world.
Jesus Christ himself is the visual center of the painting. A viewer’s eyes immediately notice a few important details. Jesus is dressed in red. This bold color can symbolize passion, love, and fire. In Bloch’s work, it could be significant of all of these, and it probably indicates the via crucis, the road to His sacrificial death, that began as soon as He began teaching and performing miracles. This detail also reminds viewers that discipleship is a personal commitment that requires passion, love, fire (a sign of the Holy Spirit), and, yes, a via crucis of our own (see Lk. 9:23).
