God’s Graffiti

stjohnstmarkchurchburySunday, November 30, 2025

Listen now

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

One of the fascinating things about Advent is how much it relies on imagery. It’s not a season of abstract ideas – it’s a season of pictures, visions and snapshots that might catch us off guard.

Isaiah doesn’t begin with a reasoned argument but, figuratively speaking, with a giant wall painting, a mural of peace: a mountain lifted high, nations streaming uphill… weapons hammered into farming tools.

In Matthew, Jesus doesn’t offer us a neat timeline for his return but a series of parables in pictures: two workers in the field, two women grinding flour, a thief breaking into a house at night.

These are meant to be disruptive. They are deliberately shocking to force us to stop and see things differently. And that’s where I want to suggest a surprising connection: between the prophetic imagery of Isaiah and Jesus, and the provocative street art of the graffiti artist Banksy.

Playful creativity

Now my surname is Banks and I was called ‘Banksy’ at school and sometimes at work. So, I’ve a soft spot for Banksy the graffiti artist – and who knows, maybe I’ve been hiding in plain sight all this time…

But the artist Banksy is famous partly for the playful creativity of his painting and partly because his art appears overnight. A blank wall one day, and the next, an image that makes you stop: a child frisking a soldier, a rioter hurling a bouquet of flowers, policemen embracing. You might very well dislike it and call it vandalism; but others call it genius. Either way, it’s hard to ignore it.

Isaiah and Jesus are doing something similar. They spray God’s graffiti onto the walls of our lives – sometimes beautiful, sometimes disturbing, always unforgettable.

Banksy didn’t originate it, but he popularised the quote: “Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.” I suspect that both Isaiah and Jesus would go along with that and raise it up a notch – that it’s God who comforts the disturbed and God who disturbs the comfortable….

So, let’s take a little time and think through their images, side-by-side with some of Banksy’s, and see what they reveal about Advent.

Unforgettable

Isaiah begins with grandeur: “In the last days the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established as the highest of the mountains… and all the nations shall stream to it.” (Isaiah 2:2)

Picture it: rivers don’t flow uphill, but here the nations do. People from every tribe, language, and nation flow up toward God – not to make war, but to learn peace.

Then comes that unforgettable image: “They shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks.” (Isaiah 2:4)

The prophet doesn’t talk theory. With his words he paints, he pictures, transformation. The same metal once used for killing is now reforged into tools for nurturing and growing and generating life.

Isaiah sees the words given to him by God in ways that still capture our imagination today. The finale of Les Misérables has: ‘They will live again in freedom, in the garden of the Lord. They will walk behind the ploughshare, they will put away the sword. The chain will be broken and all men will have their reward.’

And across the street from the United Nations building in New York is a bronze statue of a man beating a sword into a ploughshare. It was to represent the wish to end all wars by converting the weapons of death and destruction into peaceful and productive tools that are more beneficial to mankind.

Isaiah in spray paint

This is where Banksy’s “Flower Thrower” came to mind. A masked protester in mid-riot pose – but in his hand is not a weapon but a bouquet of flowers. It’s Isaiah in spray paint: energy redirected; violence subverted.

Or Banksy’s “Children Playing with a Gun.” Two young children throw a gun to each other as if it was a ball or a toy. It should shock us into seeing how absurd our world is, that children might rehearse war instead of play. Isaiah does the same by showing us how strange it is that adults would ever prefer swords to ploughs.

Isaiah’s mural is bold, absurd, impossible – and yet unforgettable. It’s God’s graffiti: a vision sprayed across the walls of history, daring us to believe it can be real.

Dilemma

Ironically, the sculpture opposite the United Nations was donated in 1959 by the then Soviet Union. And there is our dilemma, isn’t it? These are fine words in Isaiah. Inspiring words. But if we look around our world today, who can believe them? We only have to think of Ukraine or any of the other ongoing conflicts in so many parts of the world today.

Isaiah is not naïve, though. You only have to read chapter 1 again to see that. Our verses are not pie in the sky but a vision of ‘days to come’. They are to help us dream dreams of a point still in the future. And we’re at the start of Advent where we look both forward and back. We remember events that have happened and are still happening in places like Ukraine, but we remain hopeful of a fresh start in time to come.

There’s also an implied warning to the people of Israel in this text. This future isn’t just for them, it’s for all nations. If Israel doesn’t grasp it, then others certainly will. Visions are there in the Bible to capture our imagination and to give us a longing. To give us the desire and yearning for what might be in the future, so that we can change our reality now.

Stencils

Now contrast Isaiah’s vast mural with Matthew’s smaller stencils. Jesus says: “Two will be in the field; one will be taken and one will be left. Two women will be grinding meal together; one will be taken and one left.” (Matthew 24:40–41). The imagery is quiet and domestic, everyday scenes. But suddenly something radical happens and life’s turned upside down.

I remember when I was about 10 years old, there was a film shown at our church youth group based on this passage. People going about their everyday lives when suddenly zap. Half of them get beamed up like something out of Star Trek. Frankly, it scared the heck out of me and I was convinced I’d come home from school one day to find my parents had been taken and I’d been left behind. I googled it once and it was described as an ‘evangelical Christian horror film… which traumatised children’. Marvelous!

And then another picture: “If the owner of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake.” (Matthew 24:43)

A darkened house, a thief slipping in. At the very least, it’s unsettling. It’s like one of those movies where you’re yelling at the TV for the person not to go alone up creaky stairs into the attic or down into the cellar, with a flickering candle or a failing torch, because they’ve heard a noise.

Wake us up

Unlike those films, Jesus’ images in Matthew aren’t meant to terrify but to wake us up. They remind us that Christ’s coming won’t be announced in neon lights. It will break in suddenly, like graffiti appearing on a wall that’s been there for ages and we thought would never change.

That’s how Banksy works. His art arrives like a thief in the night: one day the wall is blank or mundane, the next morning it is scandalous, comic, or moving. Life is ordinary – then, suddenly, it isn’t.

I suggest that Isaiah, Jesus and Banksy have at least 3 things in common:

They disrupt. Isaiah imagines nations flowing uphill, Jesus imagines a thief in the night, Banksy imagines riot police holding balloons. The point is to shake us awake.
They provoke. These aren’t polite illustrations; they are meant to demand a reaction. You can’t walk past them unchanged.
They reimagine reality. They show us the world upside down – or perhaps right way up. Isaiah reimagines weapons as gardening tools. Jesus reimagines ordinary work as the launch pad for eternity. Banksy reimagines children stopping tanks with crayons.

Prophetic imagination and street art both insist that most of the time we don’t see the world clearly and that we need to look again.

Always hope

There’s one Banksy piece I think belongs especially in Advent: ‘Girl with Balloon.’ A small child reaches out for a red heart-shaped balloon, just drifting away. Beside the original version, which appeared on Waterloo Bridge, were the words: “There is always hope.”

Isn’t that Isaiah’s vision in a single stencil? Nations moving toward the mountain. Swords becoming ploughs. Hope just out of reach – and yet, always there. It’s also Jesus’ reminder to stay awake. Because hope can drift past if we’re not looking. The kingdom can break in, and we miss it if our eyes are closed.

Advent is the season when we stretch out our hand again for that balloon – for the kingdom that, in the here and now, seems to hover just beyond our grasp.

If you recall, it was a framed version of ‘Girl with Balloon’ which half-shredded itself when it was sold at auction at Sotheby’s thanks to a shredder that Banksy had built into the frame. It increased in value from £1m to £18m when it did that. I’ll leave you to draw a theological point from that!

Tenderness

Another Banksy work: ‘Kissing Coppers.’ Two policemen, locked in an embrace. Shocking, disruptive yet tender. That’s Isaiah’s vision too: reconciliation, strength bending into gentleness. It’s Matthew’s thief in the night, except this time the surprise isn’t fear but tenderness.

God’s kingdom breaks in not just with power but with love that crosses every boundary. Advent says: expect surprise. Expect disruption. Expect tenderness where you least imagine it.

Isaiah ends with an invitation: “O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord.” (Isaiah 2:5) Don’t just admire the Isaiah mural. Walk into it. Step by step, begin to live and behave as if peace were possible – because it is.

Jesus ends with a command: “Therefore, you must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.” (Matthew 24:44) Don’t just nod at the stencil. Stay awake. Be alert, because God’s graffiti can appear anywhere: in a conversation, in a meal shared, in a moment of reconciliation.

Together, Isaiah and Jesus call us to a double discipline: to walk steadily and watch urgently. To both see into the distance but be able to focus on what’s under your nose.

Unfinished gallery

What would it mean to take Advent imagery seriously? It would mean seeing the world as God’s unfinished gallery: Every metaphorical blank wall is a potential canvas for hope. Every sword or harsh word is raw material to be hammered into tools for life. Every ordinary moment – fields, kitchens, workplaces – are stage-sets for the kingdom of God. Advent invites us to live as if every day might reveal fresh graffiti from God’s Spirit.

So, what do we take away?

Isaiah paints a complex mural of peace: nations climbing and weapons transformed. Jesus stencils disruption: ordinary life interrupted and a thief stealing in at night. Banksy gives us modern parallels: the Flower Thrower, the Children playing with a gun, the Girl with Balloon, the Kissing Coppers. They’re in the hand-outs for you to take away.

All of them do the same work: They disrupt. They provoke. They reimagine reality. What I didn’t mention before was that the Flower Thrower first appeared in 2003 on the wall of a building of a Palestinian village near Bethlehem in the West Bank. Locally, that village is held to be the place where the angels announced to the shepherds about the birth of Christ. Most of the inhabitants are Christian – and there is tension because the village is being threatened by Israeli settlements.

We are pointed to Advent truth: that Christ comes suddenly, tenderly but disruptively – spraying God’s graffiti of hope across the walls of our lives.

So, let’s walk in the light of Isaiah’s mural. Let’s stay awake under Jesus’ midnight stencil. Let’s open our eyes to God’s graffiti – sometimes startling, sometimes beautiful, always transformative. Because that balloon of hope is still floating – and the wall of the world in which we live might never quite look the same again. Amen.

‘God’s Graffiti’ was delivered by Ian Banks at Dearnley Methodist Church on Advent Sunday, 30th November 2025. It was based on Isaiah 2:1-5 and Matthew 24:36-44.

References: