Last Updated:Friday - 09/24/2010

Anno Domini's contirbution

The Anno Domini exhibit at the Alberta Provincial Museum has been one of the most important Canadian commemorations of the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000. But while Anno Domini was timed to coincide with the 2,000th anniversary of Jesus' birth, its initiators would be more comfortable with calling the exhibit an examination of the effects of Jesus' life than a celebration of the Word-Made-Flesh.

Anno Domini is, after all, the production of a secular institution and is meant more to examine how Jesus has affected the world's cultures than to pay homage to the man himself. But if its explicit motivation is somewhat dispassionate, the exhibit is nevertheless an inspiration for Christians. It can even lead us to deepen our faith by understanding Jesus more.

The exhibit looks at 18 different images of Jesus that have had an effect on religion and culture over the centuries. Some of these seem quaint to us at the dawn of the 21st century, such as the image of Jesus, the Teacher of Common Sense. Other images are relatively recent in origin - Jesus, the Poet of the Spirit, and Jesus the Liberator. Many are ancient in origin, but still essential - Jesus, the Turning Point of History, Christ Crucified and Jesus, the King of Kings.

The exhibit draws on sources that are Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican, Protestant, and non-Christian. It is truly catholic in its breadth.

Anno Domini will make a great contribution to the Christian community if it can help Christians understand that the images of Jesus which underlie one's own faith are not the only valid images of the man we believe to be the Son of God. Jesus was a simple man who lived a simple life. But the eternal king is not someone who can be contained in the boxes created by our own ideologies.

The exhibit underlines the multi-faceted nature of Jesus with its quote from the British author G.K. Chesterton: "(The saint) will generally be found restoring the world to sanity by exaggerating whatever the world neglects. . . . He is not what the people want but what the people need. . . . Therefore it is the paradox of history that each generation is converted by the saint that contradicts it most."

In our own time, one can see this in the example of Mother Teresa whom so many admire and whom so few have imitated. Mother Teresa, like Chesterton, are "Voices of the 20th Century" -- people chosen to be part of this exhibit to illustrate each of the themes of Anno Domini. Mother Teresa leaves us with these challenging words: "The spiritual poverty of the western world is much greater than the physical poverty of our people (in India)."

Much of the message of Anno Domini is like that - a call for us to be more than we are, to place greater emphasis on love of God and neighbour and less on our own wealth and comfort. It should not be surprising that an exhibit about Jesus is, in many ways, as challenging to our North American way of life as Jesus is himself.

Indeed, it is sad that it appears that the Alberta Provincial Museum is the only secular museum in North America to devote such effort and expense this year to mounting an exhibit on the 2,000-year legacy of Jesus of Nazareth. The cultural community has placed major emphasis in recent years on denouncing the many failures of Christianity to live up to its own ideals. That is an important task too. But the great religions, Christianity chief among them, still hold out the only real hope for a Western world bent on self-destruction. Thank you to the Provincial Museum for pointing us again toward Jesus Christ, the life of the world.

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