Mar 24, 2022
What We Do With Jesus — #2
This is the second in a series based on the story of Tucson’s Garden of Gethsemane, but meant to help us examine what we do with Jesus today.
We Want To Work For Him
Felix Lucero’s turning point moment on the battlefield led to him making a vow. The plaque in the garden says, “He vowed to God and to himself that if he survived, he would dedicate the remainder of his life to the sculpturing of religious statues for which he had a natural talent.” This is exactly what, or at least a significant amount of what, he did.
Accounts of his life at this point are fuzzy to say the least, some placing him in Tucson while others place him in Phoenix after the war. Around the time of the Great Depression rumor has it that he lived in a tent under a bridge. It seems that for much of his life Lucero lived much more like the folks that now charge their phones by his statues than those who have preserved and make it a point to visit them. He may have been without steady work during the majority of this period. He may have picked up some gigs as a dishwasher. Whatever the case, he was creating sculptures. How do we know? Because word was getting around.
Before Tucson’s sculptures, Lucero was discovered by a family with land in Yarnell, Arizona. They had a vision for a shrine in the hills where people could journey to find sanctuary with Christ. Lucero began by sculpting Saint Joseph out of concrete block. Saint Joseph, the earthly father of Jesus, is the patron saint of workers in some church traditions. Lucero must have sensed a connection to not only this saint, but those who would seek to connect with Christ through his intercession. This statue must have inspired the landowners and perhaps some faithful donors because they kept Lucero around.
From here on he seems to have settled into a groove, sculpting pieces coated with smooth plaster and painted white. In Yarnell he seems inspired by the rocks on the hills. Jesus’ robe flows over large stones as he leans into his Father in prayer. A stark stone face becomes the backdrop to a sculpture of Jesus, welcoming, seated at a table. A cavernous space between the rocks becomes the infamous tomb, with a sculpted burial cloth seemingly draped across a cut stone burial surface. Felix Lucero was delivering on his promise to God and proving he indeed had the talent to do what he promised.
It feels good to do what you sense you were made to do. It’s even better when you sense that God is smiling down on your work. But everyone who has done work intended for God also knows that sometimes it can feel like God is judging your work with a critical eye. How can you ever do enough for God, or do things well enough? It was God who formed the mountains Lucero was placing small statues upon. It was God who raised from the dead from a grave Lucero could only re-create. Could he ever do enough to, not only pay him back for saving his life, but for being the one who gives life and breath to every living thing in the first place? What would that even look like? Is that even possible? Is that what God asks us to do?
