Theo’s Big Brother

Theo’s Big Brother

It was bad enough that Theo’s older brother was ravaged in body and sick at heart. Now he was locked in an insane asylum because his neighbors said he was too crazy to be on the loose.

Maybe things would have been different if his preacher father hadn’t been so austere or his mother so moody. Theo’s older brother never felt loved as a child, nor could he shake the fact that his parents had given him the same name as their stillborn son, who had been delivered exactly one year before he was born. It’s hard enough to see your name and birth date etched on a tombstone; it’s devastating to feel that you’re a replacement for the child your grieving parents really wanted.

He tried to curry favor with his father by studying for seminary and then volunteering to serve at a poor church other preachers avoided. He loved working among poor miners and potato eaters. They returned his love by nicknaming him Christ of the Coal Mines. It was the only time Theo’s big brother ever felt loved. But before long, church leaders fired him for being too unconventional.

He tried his hand at art but insisted on painting subjects no one wanted to see on canvas. He sold only one out of more than two thousand paintings. He searched for romance, even resorting to bizarre acts in the name of love, but he was rejected by every woman except an alcoholic prostitute. It wasn’t long before he, too, was drowning in booze.

Now he was in the asylum, looking through bars at a starry night. The world can thank Theo for believing that his older brother still had a spark of genius. If he hadn’t brought art supplies to the asylum, perhaps his brother wouldn’t have put on canvas what he saw through the bars. The lunatic laid his work aside with a shrug. No one would purchase this painting either.

When he was released, he took the painting to Theo’s apartment along with the other unsold canvases full of sunflowers, reapers, and potato eaters. Theo promised to sell the works, but his older brother had already given up hope. Not long after, he shot himself. When Theo took his body to the church, the priest refused to hold a funeral for a man who had committed suicide. Instead, Theo took the coffin to a tavern, surrounded it with his brother’s paintings, and celebrated his memory with drunks, starving artists, and prostitutes.

Theo died before he could sell his brother’s paintings. But Theo’s widow, Johanna van Gogh, made good on her husband’s promise to Vincent. She might be shocked to know that one day Vincent van Gogh’s Starry Night, seen through the bars of that asylum, would become his most famous work—or that one of his paintings would fetch as much as $82 million.

No life is ever wasted or without hope. Even in a hopeless asylum, we can still see a starry night through the bars. Theo’s older brother gave up hope too soon. You won’t, if you hold on to this truth:

It takes the darkest nights to produce the brightest stars.

He counts the stars and calls them all by name. How great is our Lord! His power is absolute!

Psalm 147:4-5