A picture in our home has puzzled me for years. This print of a 1527 painting by Sebald Beham shows the resurrected Jesus... He's resurrected because you can see the wounds on his body but you also see the three empty crosses in the background. This resurrected Jesus is sitting on a stone, body slumped forward, head down, weary if not exhausted. Huh? The resurrected Christ does not grow weary. He's victor over sin and death, not someone who just squeaked by. Resurrected but weary? It doesn't fit the way the story unfolded.
So you can appreciate my curiosity when I learned about a display of more art works like this. The exhibition was at the Museum of Biblical Art at the American Bible Society in New York, where I happily happened to be. An essay introducing the exhibition said, "The works...reject temporality, the visionary superseding the actual."
"Aha!" I thought, "It's not about cold facts but about warm devotion." Devotion can transcend accuracy to the historical sequence without becoming groundless, wishful thinking. Finally the resurrected victor, yes, but so many aspects before His resurrection help us who are not yet resurrected. Weary Christ, weary me, weary you. Ultimately He's also the victor...and we will be too. I need every aspect of His life. Don't you?
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