During my recent visit to Helsinki, I spent a couple of hours in the Ateneum Art Museum. As a visitor to Finland, I was deeply moved. What began as a cultural excursion became a reflection on identity, memory, belonging, and covenant. The Ateneum is more than an art museum; it is a visual narrative of Finland’s search for itself. Like many nations, Finland has had to answer the question, Who are we? The artists gathered here offer different responses through landscapes, portraits, village scenes, and modern explorations of the self. As I walked through the galleries, I found myself reflecting not only on the construction of modern Finnish identity but also on my own identity as a Jewish disciple of Yeshua.
I was particularly struck by the exhibition devoted to Eero Nelimarkka (1891–1977). Born into poverty as the son of a washerwoman in Vaasa, Nelimarkka rose to become one of Finland’s most beloved painters. He is best known for his depictions of the wide plains of South Ostrobothnia, landscapes that many Finns came to regard as expressing something essential about their national character. Yet he was also a sensitive portraitist and observer of everyday life. His paintings combine realism with a contemplative quality, drawing the viewer into a world where ordinary places and people reveal unexpected depth and significance, hidden mysteries, strangeness and uncertainty.
Unlike the dramatic nationalism of some earlier Finnish artists, Nelimarkka’s work often invites quiet reflection. He paints not heroes but neighbours, not myths but communities, not political ideals but the texture of everyday existence. His paintings seem to ask not only, “What is Finland?” but also, “What does it mean to belong?” That question resonated deeply with me as a Messianic Jew, someone whose own identity is rooted in a long history of belonging, memory, and covenant.
One painting in particular spoke to me. It depicted a small snow-covered village surrounded by tall pine trees. A handful of figures moved through the snow between modest buildings, while in the centre stood a simple structure marked by a cross. The people appeared tiny in comparison with the surrounding forest and winter landscape. Yet despite the vastness of nature and the apparent fragility of human life, the painting radiated warmth and security. The figures were not isolated. They belonged. They knew where they were going. The paths through the snow connected homes, neighbours, and places of worship, creating a visual testimony to the power of community.
Standing before this painting, I found myself thinking about the Jewish experience. For nearly two thousand years, the Jewish people have often lived as a small minority within larger societies and cultures. Like the figures in Nelimarkka’s village, we have carried memory, tradition, and faith through long winters of history. We have survived not only because of remarkable leaders and dramatic events but because ordinary families faithfully passed on stories, prayers, and practices from one generation to the next. Identity is preserved not merely through institutions but through daily acts of remembrance and belonging.
The earlier galleries of the Ateneum contain the great masterpieces of Finland’s national awakening. Artists such as Eero Järnefelt and Akseli Gallen-Kallela helped create a visual language for Finnish nationhood during the decades before independence in 1917. Their paintings of forests, lakes, labourers, and heroes gave artistic expression to a people seeking to understand themselves. These works ask a profound question: What is Finland? Their answer is found in land, labour, memory, endurance (Sisu), and community. Looking at these paintings, I was reminded of the role played by the Hebrew Bible, Jewish liturgy, and the Land of Israel in shaping Jewish self-understanding across the centuries.
The upper floors of the museum presented a striking contrast. Here the focus shifts from nation to individual, from shared narratives to personal exploration. Contemporary artists wrestle with questions of ambiguity, fragmentation, identity, and self-expression. The question is no longer primarily, What is Finland? but rather, Who am I? These works reflect the concerns of a modern world in which inherited identities can no longer be taken for granted. Yet they also reveal the human longing to find coherence and meaning amid complexity.
Both perspectives contain important truths. We are individuals, yet we are also members of communities. We shape our identities, yet we also inherit them. As a Messianic Jew, I often encounter descriptions of my identity as “hybrid” or even “fractured.” Some assume that Jewish identity and faith in Yeshua pull in opposite directions. Others imagine Messianic Jews as existing between Judaism and Christianity, belonging fully to neither. Yet my visit to the Ateneum suggested another possibility.
The Finnish artists were not inventing Finland from nothing. Rather, they were gathering together strands of language, landscape, memory, folklore, faith, and history into a coherent whole. Finland was not created by abandoning these strands but by weaving them together. Perhaps Messianic Jewish identity can be understood in a similar way. Rather than a fractured self, it is a braided self, one in which Jewish peoplehood, covenantal memory, faith in Yeshua, participation in the wider Body of Messiah, and engagement with the modern world remain distinct yet inseparably intertwined.
My visit to Finland also prompted reflection on a post-supersessionist understanding of the Church. The Finnish artists celebrated a distinct national identity rooted in language, land, memory, and shared history. Yet Finnish identity is not abolished when Finns become Christians; rather, it finds new expression within the wider body of Messiah. In a similar way, post-supersessionist Messianic Jewish theology understands Jewish identity not as something overcome by faith in Yeshua but as a continuing covenantal vocation within the people of God. Mark Kinzer’s vision of bilateral ecclesiology suggests that the one Body of Messiah embraces both the continuing corporate identity of Israel and the calling of believers from the nations. Just as Finnish Christians remain authentically Finnish while participating in a universal Church, so Messianic Jews remain authentically Jewish while participating in the one ecclesia of Messiah. Difference is not erased but reconciled, and particular identities become gifts offered to the whole body rather than obstacles to unity.
Recent psychology speaks of the “dialogical self,” in which multiple aspects of identity exist in conversation with one another. Theology adds something further. Walter Brueggemann argues that biblical faith understands human identity not primarily as autonomous or self-created but as covenantally constituted. The self comes into being through God’s prior address and covenantal commitment. We are known before we know ourselves, called before we choose our vocation, and sustained by relationships that precede individual choice. In this sense, the paintings of Nelimarkka reminded me not only of the dialogical self but of what might be called the covenanted self—an identity rooted in belonging, memory, obligation, and promise. The figures moving through the snowy village are not isolated individuals constructing meaning for themselves; they are members of a community shaped by shared stories, practices, and loyalties. Similarly, Jewish identity, and Messianic Jewish identity in particular, is not merely a personal preference or spiritual option but participation in a covenantal narrative extending across generations.
Looking at Finland through the eyes of its artists, I found myself grateful for a people who have preserved their identity through memory, culture, resilience, and hope. Looking at the same paintings as a Messianic Jew, I was reminded of Israel’s own story. The Finns speak of sisu—the determination to persevere through adversity. The Jewish tradition speaks of emunah (faithfulness), tikvah (hope), and zikaron (memory). Both peoples know what it means to walk through winter while waiting for spring.
“Remember the days of old; consider the years of many generations.” (Deuteronomy 32:7)
Identity begins with memory. It is sustained by belonging. For the people of God, it is ultimately secured not by our achievements but by the faithfulness of the One who remembers his covenant forever.
Prayer
English
God of Israel and of all nations, thank you for the beauty of creation, the gift of memory, and the communities that shape our lives. Help us to cherish our inheritance without idolising it, to honour the past while embracing the future, and to find our deepest identity in your covenant faithfulness. Teach us to walk faithfully through every season, trusting in your promises. Through Yeshua the Messiah. Amen.
Suomi
Israelin ja kaikkien kansojen Jumala, kiitos luomakunnan kauneudesta, muistojen lahjasta ja yhteisöistä, jotka muovaavat elämäämme. Auta meitä vaalimaan perintöämme ilman että teemme siitä epäjumalaa, kunnioittamaan menneisyyttä ja samalla ottamaan tulevaisuuden vastaan. Anna identiteettimme juurtua sinun uskollisuuteesi. Jeshuan, Messiaan, kautta. Aamen.
עברית
אֱלֹהֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל וְכָל־הָעַמִּים, תּוֹדָה עַל יֹפִי הַבְּרִיאָה, עַל מַתְּנַת הַזִּכָּרוֹן וְעַל הַקְּהִלּוֹת הַמְּעַצְּבוֹת אֶת חַיֵּינוּ. עֲזֹר לָנוּ לְכַבֵּד אֶת מוֹרַשְׁתֵּנוּ וּלְהַשְׁרִישׁ אֶת זֶהוּתֵנוּ בֶּאֱמוּנָתְךָ וּבִבְרִיתְךָ. בְּשֵׁם יֵשׁוּעַ הַמָּשִׁיחַ. אָמֵן.
Transliteration
Elohei Yisrael v’chol ha-amim, todah al yofi habri’ah, al matnat hazikaron, v’al hakehillot hame’atzvot et chayeinu. Azor lanu lechabed et morashteinu ulehashrish et zehuteinu be’emunatecha uvivritecha. B’shem Yeshua HaMashiach. Amen.
Further Reading
- Walter Brueggemann, The Covenanted Self: Explorations in Law and Covenant (Fortress Press, 1999).
- Mark Kinzer, Postmissionary Messianic Judaism (Brazos Press, 2005).
- Ateneum Art Muse
- Eero Nelimarkka at the Ateneum: https://ateneum.fi/en/exhibitions/eero-nelimarkka/
