Looking to Mary in cycles of belief

By D.A. WILKINSON
VINDICATOR RELIGION EDITOR
COLUMBIANA -- Mary, the mother of Jesus, is the focus of one congregation this Easter season.
The Rev. David Conrad of Jerusalem Lutheran Church in Columbiana has commissioned two pieces of art that will hang in the sanctuary of the church.
One, "The Resurrection," shows Jesus in the style of Michelangelo with the stone rolled away from the empty tomb. The image is a reminder of the season as Christians from Palm Sunday through Easter commemorate and celebrate their faith's key events: the conviction, crucifixion and resurrection of their Savior.
The second work of art, "St. Mary of Jerusalem," is the Rev. Mr. Conrad's artistic method to get people to examine their faith and how it must change and grow.
Mr. Conrad had commissioned four other pieces of art, pictures of the Nativity story that were hung in the church during Advent. All six works were done by his nephew, Jason Nickel of Toledo, an art instructor at Bowling Green State University and the University of Toledo.
Teachings: In the messages that accompanied both sets of works, Mr. Conrad uses the relationship between Mary and Jesus as a symbol of the relationship each member of the congregation has with his or her faith.
Many faithful will reflect on the death of Jesus in somber services on Good Friday. And Mr. Conrad pulls no punches in relating the horror Mary must have felt standing at the foot of the cross.
He imagines her thinking, "What kind of God are you?"
That probably wasn't the first time she asked that question, the pastor believes. From giving birth in a stable to fleeing from killers to finding Jesus six months into his ministry and asking him to return home, Mary went through a series of changes.
And her faith had to change, too.
"The faith that she had no longer fit the circumstances," Mr. Conrad said.
For Mary to understand, her old faith had to die. And that mirrors people's relationship to their faith as they cope with struggles and problems in their lives, the pastor said.
Renewal: Faith "can die and does die," the pastor said, but that spiritual death gives way to a new faith as part of the traditional cycle of a Christian's life -- "you grow a new one."
But the process isn't easy, because the events that precipitated the crisis and loss of faith are difficult.
"When old faith dies, it's the end of your world," Mr. Conrad said. "You feel like you are dead."
The key, he said, is to remember that growing new faith takes patience, just as it takes time for seeds to grow.
The process may be difficult because a person may decide the change is not good. But part of the process is a willingness to let go of the past, and Mr. Conrad said that applied to him.
"People ask me why I don't pull out an old sermon and use it," he said. "I explain I can't because I'm always changing, day to day and week to week. Many people say, 'I feel this way now and I want to feel this way forever.'"
People who grow a new faith work at it.
"They keep coming back [to church]. They don't give up," the pastor said.
And the secret is that ultimately a person's faith grows the individual, and not the opposite. That faith makes people move beyond their own lives and problems to help others follow the example of Jesus and his ministry.
That, said Mr. Conrad, "is the power of the Resurrection."