CC 11: The Narrow Gate

It took Michelangelo Buonarroti just over four years, from July 1508 to October 1512, to fresco the ceiling and vault of the Sistine Chapel. Initially, he was only supposed to paint the 12 Apostles, but by the end of the project, he had painted more than 300 figures.

Michelangelo had never painted frescoes before and was learning the craft as he worked. He did have some help from assistants who mixed the plaster, ground the pigments, moved the scaffolding, and aligned the cartoons. Michelangelo and his team spent long hours standing upright on makeshift scaffolding and platforms, constantly shifting them to reach more ceiling space. Michelangelo once called painting “torture.”

For most people, other than maybe a history buff, no one really cares about how long the painting took but rather is more concerned with the final result. Most people would not care if he put in a lot of effort into it if it turned out ugly. In business, they call this “The Bottom Line.” In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus calls this bottom line “The fruit of a person’s work.” As we close our series on the Sermon on the Mount, we look at Jesus’ parting thoughts, including how to identify a person living in the Kingdom and the choice that this most famous of sermons presents to all of us.