The Angel in The Marble
The sculptor sits in silent contemplation on the cold and damp floor of the courtyard. The rain drops lightly fall in a slow drizzle as he watches small streams of water make their way down the marble, twisting and turning in different directions, guided by unseen imperfections along their journey to the cobble stone floor below.
His gaze slowly rises upward from the base of the stone. Dark glistening eyes admire the rectangular slab of marble towering 20 feet above him like a giant ivory finger pointing to the heavens. He notices the scratches and chisel marks around the bottom which vaguely form the outline of legs, one slightly at an angle, the other straight but unfinished with the beginnings of a foot with only one toe. These were the marks made by the previous sculptor who began the work but for unknown reasons did not finish.
There it sat for 25 years in that courtyard, rejected by other sculptors who deemed the marble as inferior for its purpose. After all, this was no ordinary commission for an ordinary statue. This was to be the representation of King David, one of the greatest figures in the Bible from whose lineage descended Jesus Christ himself.
It was meant to adorn the dome of the Florence Cathedral, the magnificent architectural masterpiece serving as the center of culture and Christianity for all of Tuscany.
Michelangelo lowers his head, stretches out his hands and flattens them against the marble in front of him as he prays, “Lord, please help me to reveal the beautiful and perfect masterpiece you have already carved in the heart of this stone. Not with the skill of my imperfect hands, but only through your perfect will working through me can this be done. Amen”.
Michelangelo began work on the famous statue of David in 1501. After working in secrecy for hours on end, day after day, he finally finished it in early 1504. The courtyard in the Opera del Duomo where he worked was open to the elements so he often worked in the rain, using the water as a guide based on how it flowed down the marble. It was said that he slept in his clothes at the base of the marble for days on end, often waking out of his slumber with an inspirational idea on how some detail might be perfected even further.
He was only 26 when he began his work but he was already known as a master artist in Florence so his commission to carve the biblical hero which was originally to adorn the upper rim of the Duomo church was no surprise. It was deemed so beautiful that rather than installing it in the heights of the church where it’s detail could barely be admired, it was decided to display it in the center of town in a prominent square where it was venerated for over 300 years. In 1878 it was moved to the Galleria del Academia where it still sits to this day.
Michelangelo was once asked where the inspiration for his sculptures came from. He replied, “every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it”. When asked about his inspiration for the statue of the angel he completed for the cathedral in Bologna he said, “ I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free”.
We often think of a sculptor as one who creates something from the outside as he chisels away at the granite or marble stone, removing the unnecessary material to translate his conceived masterpiece into life.
However, Michelangelo’s method was to approach the stone as if he was revealing something which had already been created. Each block of stone had something perfect already inside of it that he merely had to set free from its imprisoned slumber.
He often described his process of artistic revelation as an intimate conversation with God. He simply let God guide his hands as they chiseled away to reveal it.
I’ve often thought that perhaps our lives are like that marble slab sitting there in front of the master sculptor waiting for the unnecessary parts to be chiseled away to reveal our true selves.
Just like the statue of David inside of the marble, God’s beautiful masterpiece was already created through his perfect will and formed by his hands in the womb with a love that is beyond our understanding. However, once entering the world, the unnecessary material of life begins to form around it, engulfing the beauty and encapsulating it in the pain of a sinful world.
Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.
John 1:3
We spend our whole lives vainly hammering away at the marble in a desperate attempt to create something as close to perfect as we can get. Throughout this process we try to exercise our will as represented by what we conceive the marble should be. We look at our lives and we ask, “what can I create with this?” when perhaps we should be asking, “what does God want me to reveal in this?”
The words of the apostle John come to mind regarding the nature of God’s will versus ours in the act of prayer. He says in 1 John 5:13-14, “This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him.”
Unfortunately, our natural tendency is to tell God what our will is for our lives and ask him to execute it for us rather than asking for his will in all things. We tell him of our imperfect dreams, desires, and aspirations and then seek to implement them on our own with the hopes that God hears our prayer and comes along to provide support. With the sculpting chisel still in our tired hands, we then look at the work once it’s completed and blame God for every minor blemish and imperfection.
Instead, we should seek what perfect dreams, desires, and aspirations God has in mind for us first and ask for his guidance in accomplishing his will. In doing so, we hand God the chisel, letting the master sculptor of the universe reveal the perfect life that has been inside of us since our creation.
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!
2 corinthians 5:17
