Good Friday: Walking on Water, 2006 by Maggi Hambling
John 618-20
We all know that life is not always plain sailing. As individuals and as global citizens, storms rock our metaphorical boat; we experience insecurity and sometimes feel that we are in severe danger of being swamped.
Being a follower of Jesus did not feel like a safety jacket for the disciples, even during his earthly life; and when experiencing the full drama of a storm on the lake, they were terrified that the wind and waves would overwhelm them. Most of us in Britain, living on an island surrounded by sea, learn as we grow up that the sea is not to be trifled with. It is beautiful, it is dramatic and it is majestic, but it definitely contains inherent dangers.
As the disciples cried out in fear, they became conscious of the approaching presence of Jesus – a privilege we are not likely to encounter very often. It may well be impossible, as we face our own storms, to detect any help or comfort, and it is often only when looking back on our dramas years later that we can detect the hand of God guiding and protecting.
The 19th century artist J M Turner, who gave us so many wonderful marine paintings, longed to experience the full fury of the sea so that he could represent and express it in his art. He therefore arranged to have himself lashed to the mast of a ferry for over four hours on a stormy journey from Calais to England. As a result of getting so close to nature, he painted Snow Storm which was first exhibited, to general puzzlement and some degree of disapproval in 1842.
Another sea-based work by Maggi Hambling, Scallop (2003), sits on the beach in Aldeburgh, Suffolk, facing whatever the wind and waves throw at it. The scallop shell, of course, is a symbol of pilgrimage. In Hambling’s work, the shell is broken, with half of it standing upright and the other half lying down.
As we set out on our own pilgrimage of life, we are unlikely to receive assurance that we are safe from harm, that someone will walk out over the water to rescue us if we get into trouble, or that a scallop shell can act as a magic charm against danger. But we may gradually learn that the journey is worthwhile and that the strange shapes and shadows, of which we catch fleeting glimpses out of the corner of our eye, give some reassurance that we are not, and have never been, totally alone and at sea’.