Day 1: Frankfurt Cathedral
My first goal in Europe was to avoid looking like a tourist, so I didn’t smile and walked fast, like I knew where I was going. It seemed to work: two of the three Frankfurters who talked to me initiated the conversation in German. (The first was an officer who yelled at me from her polizei car when, unbeknownst to me, the pavement I was walking on turned from sidewalk into shoulder. She tried twice in German, thick spluttering sentences, then retreated desperately to a single syllable: “No!” At that point I got the message.)
The word “tourist” is about as attractive to me as sauerkraut-flavored sherbet. As Evelyn Waugh says, “tourist is a term of contempt used about social inferiors of one’s own race encountered abroad.” Tourists are those obnoxious people who treat cathedrals like photography homework and speak English loudly down the street — not you, of course, and certainly not me.
At least, that’s what I’d like to think. But yesterday I was in Frankfurt for a few hours between planes with just enough time to get out and explore; I had no business in the city except sight-seeing; I didn’t understand a word of German. Not even my carefully nonchalant exterior could change the brutal fact: I was a tourist.
But the right kind of tourist, I hasten to add. I am not in Europe to trample on native customs or yell at bakers for giving me less chocolate than I want in my croissant. No, I want to be outside America for a while, to experience what it’s like to live in another culture. In short, if I can, I’d like to incarnate myself into a new society.
France is my target society—next week I’ll be traveling to Paris for language school — and I’m only in Germany for a week, attending an academic conference in Tübingen. I was only in Frankfurt for an afternoon. That’s not enough time to incarnate, but it is enough time to sightsee. So tourism it is, then. At least for now. And as a tourist, my first stop was Frankfurt Cathedral.
As with all cathedrals, its most meaningful feature is not any particular decoration but rather the effect of the whole. The high, arched ceilings, the stained glass like mountain peaks, the unshakable walls all bespeak a grandeur far greater than anything the architects could design. Even compared to the more impressive cathedrals in Rome (more art, more gold, more marble), the Frankfurt Cathedral still inspires awe, and not only for the house and its builders.
As I walked through the building, I found that the artwork consistently emphasized the Passion of Jesus Christ. (Duh, you say — it’s a church! What else would they emphasize? Well, I reply, there are many other biblical themes a church can choose to decorate itself with. This cathedral seemed to have a definite emphasis on the Passion.) Whereas in a Baptist church like my own, an “emphasis on the Passion” would probably mean a sermon series or regular altar calls, in a cathedral “emphasis on the Passion” means not spoken words but visual art. All of a sudden you can see as well as hear. Truth becomes more visceral.
The painting above the sculpture is, I think, a representation of the three men on the cross. The black obscures their wounded limbs; its ambiguity is more terrifying than blood and gore. Where the men’s heads should be, three skulls have been affixed to the canvas.
I entered this side chapel because of the painting. I wanted to get closer, and once I did I felt the best response was prayer. Kneeling at the prayer rail, I then looked at the sculpture beneath — and discovered to my horror that the body of Jesus lay, dead, outstretched before me. The very thing I had been lamenting seconds before suddenly showed itself to be more real than even my grieving mind could have imagined. And so I prayed, and then as I left I watched a short woman come hesitatingly up the aisle, smile to me with a mixture of apology and solemnity, approach, and kneel. This was no tourist; this was no well-meaning traveler momentarily transfixed by the power of a painting; this was a woman who had come to worship her crucified Lord. I looked back several minutes later and saw her standing past the prayer rail, staring down on the slain stone body of Jesus.
Eventually I entered a larger chapel behind this one and found a triptych of the last days of Christ.
I could follow the story from Gethsemane, on the far left, to the crucifixion, dead center, to Pentecost, far right. There was even an icon that seemed to symbolize the risen Jesus as the second Adam, offering clothes to a naked Adam and Eve (center panel, bottom right). But what I found most affecting about this chapel were the windows. They were all broken.
Shattered stained glass adorned a chapel that remembered the Savior’s body shattered for us. What could be more fitting? And on some of the windows someone had written Bible verses. Like the one above:
“And when you hear of wars and tumults, do not be terrified, for these things must first take place, but the end will not be at once.” Then he said to them, “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and pestilences. And there will be terrors and great signs from heaven….And then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. Now when these things begin to take place, straighten up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.” — Luke 21:9–11, 27–28 (ESV)
Terror, earthquakes, and pestilences are crowned with the returning Son of Man and the fulfillment of redemption. Just like the murder of the Son of Man was the gateway to redemption and adoption and new life. Just like the broken, mismatched stained glass still creates a beautiful window.
It’s at times like this that I see truth more clearly. Not that I have learned something I didn’t know before, but that I have become more convinced of its reality. And that, by the grace and love of God, gives hope.
I took my leave of this chapel slowly. It was not the time for hurry. I walked around the chapel, following the stations of the cross; I stared up at paintings of the martyrdom of St. Bartholomew. I walked past a monumental sculpture of Golgotha before pushing the heavy doors into the sunlight. Then I walked around the front of the church, wedged myself on a bench between a bicycle rack and an electric box, and ate cheesesticks for lunch.
