Advent: Psalm 40, Psalm of the Incarnation

Week two in the Advent series -- Psalm 40, the Psalm of Christ's Incarnation. 

This digital collage is an interpretation of verses 1b-2 corresponding to my church's sermon series through four psalms during the Advent season.

    "He inclined to me and heard my cry.
  He drew me up from the pit of destruction,
    out of the miry bog,
and set my feet upon a rock,
    making my steps secure."

Psalm 40:1b-2

Josh Kruger's sermon on this Psalm can be heard here.

Stephanie Shanks wrote a beautiful description of her project to facilitate the making of artwork in anticipation of Christmas during the Advent season. 

"What if art was just a way of turning prayers inside out, to be seen and shared? The Advent Art Project is a collection of “visible prayers” gathered from the church and displayed on the walls of our building to encourage each other and prepare our hearts for Christmas."
-Stephanie Shanks

Prayers turned inside out. Love that. So perfectly stated.

Read the full blog post here.

Advent: Psalm 2, The Psalm of the King

Between working on commission pieces clients will be giving as Christmas gifts (hence the lack of artwork on the blog) I started a series of digital collages inspired by the Advent sermon series at my church.

Back in 2008 I illustrated Psalm 139 by means of digital collage and have been wanting to create more ever since. See a selection of the collages here: Psalm 139


The first sermon of the series was a beautiful exposition of Psalm 2: Christ, as King over the nations of the earth. Listen to the sermon here.

Below are my interpretations of the Psalm, with the key text of the Psalm included in the collage.

Why do the nations rage

and the peoples plot in vain?

The kings of the earth set themselves,

and the rulers take counsel together,

against the Lord and against his Anointed... 
Then he will speak to them in his wrath,  
and terrify them in his fury...

 Psalm 2:1-2 and 5

I will make the nations your heritage,

and the ends of the earth your possession.

Psalm 2:8