One By One

[One By One]

Slide Text - Personal Evangelism – Bringing People to Jesus, One By One

Slide Graphics – Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper

Note: Parts of this message was developed with the help of the material in John McArthur’s excellent book “Twelve Ordinary Men”

This is a photograph of “The Last Supper”, painted by Leonardo Da Vinci in 1495. It is 15 feet tall and 29 feet wide, painted on the wall of the dining hall (appropriate for the subject) of the convent of Santa Maria de Grazie in Milan, Italy. It was one of the first paintings to portray the subject as lifelike people with real emotions. It is also one of the finest examples of single-point perspective ever painted. The painting depicts the night before Christ’s betrayal. He has just told them that one of them would betray him.

The figures are, from left to right

• Bartholomew, James Minor and [Andrew – today’s subject]

• Judas, Peter and John

• Christ

• Thomas, James Major and Philip

• Matthew, Thaddeus and Simon

The painting is in bad shape because Leonardo was trying a new technique – one that didn’t work well. At the time, most wall frescos were painted using an egg tempura (paint pigments suspended in egg whites) directly onto wet plaster. This meant you had to paint very quickly, before the plaster dried, and the paint would bleed and mix into the wet plaster, making it difficult to make crisp lines. In this painting, Leonardo painted onto dry plaster. He did not know that this would cause the paint to flake off the wall. The painting has been undergoing constant repair since it was finished.

Originally, Christ had feet, but around 1650, someone decided that the dining hall needed another door, and that the best place to put one was right through the bottom of the painting. Luckily, they decided they didn’t need any more windows. The convent was also damaged by bombing in WWII.

There is a story that one of the first figures Leonardo painted was that of Christ, using as a model a young man who was radiated innocence and peace. Over the years he painted the other figures from other models. The last figure he painted was that of Judas. He searched all over for a model who characterized evil, self centered, fallen from grace. He finally found a suitable man in a prison. When the man came to Leonardo’s studio to be drawn and sketched, he looked around in agitation and finally asked Leonardo if the painter remembered him. He had been in the studio years before to pose for the figure of Christ, but had, over the years since, fallen into drunkenness and vice and every sort of evil. Actually, this story is not true. Leonardo painted the picture over a 3-4 year period, and there is no record that he knew the names of any of the models.

The popular book “The Da Vinci Code”, by Dan Brown, is a fictional account of a secret series of “codes” or messages, hidden in Da Vinci’s paintings, revealing that Christ had a child by Mary Magdalene. In the Last Supper, among other things, the effeminate figure to the left of Jesus is, according to the book, not John, but Mary. This makes for a very entertaining conspiracy theory novel, but the “codes” are all completely made up by the author, as he admits.

Today we are going to talk about one of the disciples we don’t often discuss – Andrew, the third from the left in this painting.

[Andrew – What are you Seeking?]

Slide Graphic – Icon painting of Andrew – many of them say “Protocletus” (“First Called”) and have his right hand held in a symbolic gesture, ring finger to thumb, with middle finger slightly bent. The symbolism is the first two fingers represent Christ’s humanity and Divinity. Divinity, the longer finger, is bowed to Humanity. The ring finger and thumb form a circle, representing the church.

Slide text –

35The next day John [the Baptist] was there again with two of his disciples.

36When he saw Jesus passing by, he said, “Look, the Lamb of God!”

37When the two disciples heard him say this, they followed Jesus.

38Turning around, Jesus saw them following and asked, “What do you want?” They said, “Rabbi” (which means Teacher), “where are you staying?”

39“Come,” he replied, “and you will see.” So they went and saw where he was staying, and spent that day with him. It was about the tenth hour.

40Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, was one of the two

John 1:35-40a

Andrew was a disciple of Jesus and lived from around 5 AD to 60. Andrew from the Greek means "manhood" or "valour". He was a seeker, a disciple of John the Baptist – who lived in the wilderness on honey and locusts, wearing a camel-skin coat. To follow John the Baptist into the wilderness to study, Andrew must have been very hardy, and very serious.