Agony and Ecstacy
This is the sermon I preached this past Sunday, 11/13 at St. Timothy and St. Mark Lutheran Churches. The gospel text was Luke 21:5-19 . A while back, Ray and I watched the movie "The Agony and the Ecstasy." It is the story of Michelangelo and the conflicts and joys he experienced as he painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. To begin with, Michelangelo felt ill equipped for the task for which Pope Julius had commissioned him. He was a sculptor, not a painter. Additionally, during his work on the chapel, Michelangelo experienced significant barriers to his artistic inspiration from society, his family, the Pope, and the Church leadership of the day. To produce the marvelous frescoes on the chapel's ceiling, he worked day and night for four years on top of scaffolding lying on his back! What a feat! In order to produce the wonderfully, amazing work of art, Michelangelo had to endure agony before experiencing the ecstasy of the finished work. Ho...