This exhilarating painting by the 16th century Flemish artist is the most dramatic resurrection one I know. Our Lord leaps from the tomb like a victorious, record-breaking final-leg-runner of a 4x100m Olympic relay. And he’s still clutching the golden baton in his left hand. This is physical, athletic, Christian faith at its very best. It’s exactly the sort of faith we are invited to celebrate in these weeks of the Easter season – the Season of Seasons. Coinciding with the first flushes of spring with blossom in the trees and bulbs and birds bursting into song. ‘Alleluia!’, the thrushes and blackbirds sing!
The leap of joy into a golden dawn takes place while the grave-guards shield and rub sleep from their eyes or continue snoozing through The Great Escape. It’s the most unexpected, jack-in-a-box and subversive event in the history of our planet. An event impossible to do justice to in prose, poetry or paint but, for my money, Janssens’ done a pretty eye-catching job.
Shot through this gold-medal-spectacle, lies eternal and personal significance for all earth-bound, less-fit-mortals like you and me. It means we can access resurrection for the remainder of our lives
and for eternity in-person with the Lord.
St Peter and Paul wax as eloquent as human words can express. Let’s hear from St Peter 3 v10:
‘I want to know Christ – yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.’
Exactly how our resurrections will take place St Peter can’t imagine, and nor can we, but the reality that we will be raised from death is as certain as the historical fact of the first Easter Day.
There’s surprise, triumph and glory in the painting but, also for me, some slapstick humour …. which I’m sure wasn’t intended by the artist. The guard who’s most awake is looking over his shoulder and beginning to run as the Lord appears to be handing over the baton to him. His hand’s outstretched but he’s unsure whether to grasp it and become a convert or run for his life for failing to guard the tomb. Like the other soldier at the cross, when you unexpectedly bump into the divine, you have a similar choice to make.
David Hawkins
