Like a Mirror of Eternal Truth

This fantastic ceiling is made of mosaic tiles, individual pieces of glass and stone arranged to create an image similar to how your computer screen renders this image for you in an arrangement of colored squares. The mosaic was installed late in the fifth century as the final detail for this great eight-sided room. In the medallion at the center, we see John the Baptist holding a jeweled cross in his left hand while he pours water over the head of Jesus with his right. Jesus is pictured unclothed and standing waist-deep in water that the mosaic identifies as the Jordan with a sign just off Jesus’ left shoulder. The Jordan River is also (perhaps surprisingly) identified by a personification – the bearded figure to the far right carrying a reed and pouring water from a golden pitcher. Over this scene, a white dove descends, visible just above John’s right hand and Jesus’ haloed head. All of this is surrounded by a circle of the twelve apostles that begins and ends below Jesus’ feet, with the meeting of Paul on the left and Peter on the right. We know everyone’s name because they are written in gold next to them.

This photograph, which you can find on Wikipedia in very high resolution, allowing you to see all the detail, was captured by a camera placed near the floor and pointing straight.

To get this view in person, one would have to climb into the huge marble tub that is the baptismal font and lie back in the water, taking the position of one being baptized. This posture makes the image on the ceiling a sort of mirror of the activity below it. As a mirror – a thing we look into to see things that we can’t otherwise see for ourselves – this image tells us what is really going on in the font below it. Someone in the company of an agent of God is in the water, which is being identified with the Jordan River, though that river is thousands of miles away. As the Holy Spirit descends upon them, they are being identified as a beloved child of God for all eternity. The same thing that happened to Jesus is happening to them, and they are forever identified with Jesus.

By God’s covenant promise to you, you are forever identified with Jesus.

The Chapel of the Resurrection has a great baptistry as well. Though it lacks a fantastic mosaic, the artists who designed it wanted to evoke a sense of descent of the Holy Spirit in the light that shines through the domed skylight down on the bronze sculpture that is suspended over the water of the font below it. 

We also have a smaller font, placed in the main aisle of the Chapel of the Resurrection. Many people visit that font on their way into worship at the Chapel. Some dip their hand in the water and then, with wet fingers, make the sign of Christ’s cross over themselves as a gesture of memory – memory of a fundamental identity, that they are forever identified with Jesus.

May it be so for you.

Pr. Jim

Rev. Katherine Museus and Rev. James A. Wetzstein serve as university pastors at the Chapel of the Resurrection at Valparaiso University and take turns writing weekly devotions.

August 28, 2024