Sunday by Edward Hopper

Have you ever heard the old Johnny Cash song “Sunday Coming Down?” I’ve always thought the music itself sounded upbeat even though the lyrics are melancholy from beginning to end.

The words tell the story of a man who wakes up on Sunday morning after yet another night of hard living. He walks around the town, seeing and hearing things that bring his mind back to an earlier point in his life – a more innocent time of kick the can, Sunday School, and fried chicken.

What at first appears to be a sentimental journey down memory lane develops into a real soul-searching ballad. The man knows that there used to be something substantial and real in his life that he long ago left behind:

In the park I saw a daddy
With a laughing little girl that he was swinging.
And I stopped beside a Sunday school
And listened to the songs they were singing.
Then I headed down the street,
And somewhere far away a lonely bell was ringing,
And it echoed through the canyon
Like the disappearing dreams of yesterday.

On a Sunday morning sidewalk,
I'm wishing, Lord, that I was stoned.
'Cause there's something in a Sunday
That makes a body feel alone.

Sunday, the painting by Edward Hopper, expresses this same sense of Sunday morning aloneness. There is no fellowship of humanity. There is no press of flesh or words of welcome. The businesses are not even open. The man is left alone with nothing but his thoughts and his cigar, and neither one seems to be bringing him joy.

Yellow paint often depicts joy and radiance and life. But in this painting, the yellow and brown and black create a melancholy mood – a sadness from which neither we nor the man in the picture can escape.

Have you lived long enough to experience the profound difference between solitude and loneliness? A harried mother of toddlers seeks solitude, but a widow with few visitors longs to escape loneliness. This business of being alone is either freedom or prison, depending on one’s ability to make it go away.

When the Church is living out the biblical metaphor “the family of God,” what a wonderful place of refuge she could be for the lonely, alienated, guilt-ridden, washed-up, and washed-out. The Church brings the gospel of Jesus – redemption, reconciliation with God and man, and a renewal of what we were truly meant to be under the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

The “disappearing dreams of yesterday” may be gone, but there is a present-day redemption and a solid hope of eternal life through Jesus Christ. And as sinners are made saints by the power of God, they are entered into the Body of Christ – a people that can combat loneliness through authentic Christian fellowship and shared sufferings.

Are we opening our mouths and telling others of this gospel? Do we ourselves look alone to Jesus for redemption from the despair and defeat of sin in our own lives? Do you experience the ‘fellowship of the saints’? Sundays are not meant to be days of loneliness and despair.

Hopper’s painting provokes thought about the reality of loneliness in the very midst of an urban setting where people and buildings are all around us. Being in close proximity to people is not the same as being close to people. In fact, being around crowds of people can actually bring more pain for those who lack real communion or fellowship. The multitude of faces serves only to mock those trapped in loneliness.

O Church, let us raise our heads up and see the men and women and children who are dying a slow death of loneliness and despair. Let’s bring them a joy unspeakable and eternal – a joy that brings uplift both here and for eternity. A joy that is unrelated to material possession or physical health, but is instead found in real friendship based on shared gospel belief. The kind of gospel that says, “Zacchaeus come down, for I’m going to your house today.”

W. Scott Lamb is a pastor with Providence Baptist Church in South St. Louis County, MO. He and his wife Pearl enjoy the challenges and pleasures of raising their four sons. Feel free to contact Scott at www.truthinartblog.com.