Julie and I are in Italy for our 25th, and last week we spent a few hours at St. Mark’s in Venice. The story of the church is long and winding (although it’s neither the largest nor the oldest church in Venice)—and every bit as political as it is theological.
Everything about the basilica is layered. East and West, faith and empire, glory and shame all meet here—hauntingly. It felt strange to find the place so beautiful, knowing even a little of its history: the stealing of Mark’s body from Alexandria, the horses taken from Constantinople, the plunder brought back from the Fourth Crusade, etc. The beauty is real, but it left me with a lot of hard questions about what happens when the church is entangled with power, and how the past keeps returning to the present, for good and for ill.
Perhaps that is why the mosaics of Judas, of King David, and of the child Jesus have stayed with me these last few days. Perhaps David’s and Solomon’s expressions tell us what we need to know about what happens to victorious rulers and kingdom-builders? Perhaps Judas’ body is a sign of what happens when we sell our soul? I like to think that smile on Jesus’s young face is because he knows how he means to work all this out. Mary, you’ll notice, is not smiling. But she seems sure.
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