Woman in Gold  Gustav Klimt

  1 Peter 2:9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

Recently I watched the movie “Woman in Gold”. It is based on the true story of the theft of Gustave Klimt’s extravagant portrait of Adele Bloch – Bauer, wife of a wealthy Austrian industrialist.    After the Anschluss in Austria in 1939, the Nazis stole the painting from its Jewish owners and later Austria claimed the painting as a national treasure. To hide the fact that Adele was Jewish , the name of the painting was changed to “Woman In Gold. “

Klimt painted the portrait in 1907 over a four year period. The painting is richly detailed and overlaid with gold leaf. When it –or its copy- is shown, it seems to pour from the canvas like molten gold. Adele’s face emerges  as if she were gilded into the background.

The movie is about the legal efforts of Adela’s niece Maria Altman to have the painting restored to her family. Part history, part fiction it details her fight to get back a family treasure which was not only stolen but then unjustly claimed by Austria for decades afterwards.

Some of the scenes where Jewish Austrians were taken away by the Nazis are painful to watch,  but one in particular was especially troubling. A young Austrian who’s tried to help Maria and her lawyer confesses that when he was 15, he found out that his father whom he had idolized was in fact a Nazi who totally sold out to Hitler. Out of guilt and shame, he spent his life trying to right the evils of his father. It was probably a fictional scene in the movie, but I understood him perfectly for I’ve walked in his shoes. Old feelings spoke old lies.

The Holy Spirit’s nudging came very quickly. “Why do you still see yourself like that? Do you not know who you are?“ Why indeed.?

I’ve been set free from the past. We all have, if Jesus is Lord. The Word of God tells us that when reborn, we are new creation in Christ. Christ died to set me free from sin, not just mine, but also those imputed to me by others. Therefore, every shred of my old shame- based identity is gone. We bear the heart print of Jesus within and it is His Spirit that abides. God does not lie about our identity in His Son. Satan hates us bitterly for that and does all he can to steal, kill and destroy us now. Whereas the Nazis stole precious art to satisfy their thieving lusts, the once resplendent Lucifer   never quits his quest: to steal our identities,  entombing them   in  deep  caves  so we never know who we are or what is rightfully ours.  Like the Austrian officials in the film,  he tries to  claim legal ownership of what’s been stolen.

I looked at the painting again, but it wasn’t Adele in the golden portrait any more.   It was me – and you! We’re   extravagantly bejeweled and robed like royal children of the Most High. Glory surrounds us and enfolds us but the portrait can only  suggest the eternal glory we’ll have with God.

But as it is written: Eye has not seen nor ear heard; nor has it entered into the heart of man, The things which God has prepared for those who love Him. 1. Corinthians 2:9

Holy Spirit, the Artist  in us,  reveals we’re treasured far more than any painting. The old identity is dead.  We are Christ’s  possession alone. We have been bought for a price and nothing can steal us away or separate us from our Father, from the love of God in Christ Jesus.