Journey into Faith

Matthias Grunewald’s Paintings of the Crucifixion and the Resurrection are among the greatest portrayals of this theme Among all the masterpieces hanging in the galleries of the world. Yet there has always been a mystery about these paintings. He seems to use such a different figure for the crucified and the resurrected Christ.

His portrayal of the crucified Christ is heart-rending. After you have looked at the picture, you can never forget the destitution and dereliction of the crucified. His whole body is covered with sores and welts. His fingers are gnarled, and pain racked. His feet are twisted and bent by the heavy nails. His muscles are pulled tight with agony and suffering. His head hangs limp, and his face is deprived of any marks of life. Here is humanity crushed into the inhumanity of cruel death.

How different is the Christ of resurrection portrayed on the other side of the panel? This is a strong and handsome Christ, altogether different from the body upon the cross. The nail-print in the center of his hands seems to add to their beauty. His feet too bear the marks of the nails, but they seem to radiate with an iridescent light as they seem to carry him on the wings of victory.

His robe of death has been turned into a mantle of majesty and regal splendor. His eyes seem to flash with power mingled with love. The stone is rolled away, and the tomb is empty. Guards are prostrate with fear — dazzled into blindness by the glory of his splendor. The background seems to be Golgotha — a mere shadow paling in the splendor of the aura of divine light that surrounds him like a gigantic halo. Underneath this picture is the inscription: “I am he that liveth and was dead; and, behold, I am alive forevermore.”

Just recently scholars and researchers discovered the meaning of this great contrast between the figures of the Christ. Grunewald had been commissioned by Guido Guersi, the precept of the Monastery of the Anionites, to paint these two pictures for the altar in the chapel of the monastery hospital. The Hospital specialized in treating epileptics and those with blood and skin diseases. Before beginning their medical treatment, the patients were brought to the altar to contemplate the possibility of partaking in a miracle as they saw the body of the Christ covered with sores, and then transformed into the shining risen Christ. 

Has not Grunwald caught the heart of the drama of the story of Good Friday and Easter? Have you ever stood for a long moment at the foot of the cross on Golgotha’s hill? You look up into the face of a man who was done to death by his fellow men, because they could not stand his goodness. Pontius Pilate seemed to sum it up so well when he said: “I find no fault in him. Take him out and crucify him.” All the hostility of mankind seemed to be directed towards him. Greed and envy seemed to be the hammers that drove the nails. Lust and avarice were the nails that held him to that tree. Perverted authority drove the spear into his side, as if to further repudiate his lordship. When he died, sin had done to him more than it had done to any other man. Never has lust, greed, or any other tool of Satan ever done such a good job in destroying man.

All Hell was let loose on him. He steed in the sinner’s place— condemned and punished as no other man has ever been. “The chastise­ment of our peace was upon him,” said the prophet. He was despised and rejected by men. Ultimately, he drank that cup to such bitter dregs that he felt as though even his God and Father had forsaken him. We could never be so bad, but we could feel he tasted all this and more for us.

But the drama does not end with the darkness that covered the earth at high noon on that first Good Friday. Oh, I suppose there was light the next day. I am sure the disciples and the beloved women never knew that the sun shone. The darkness of bereavement and the memory of his deep agony had shut out the light. How dark it must have been when Mary started out for the tomb that morning. 

Isn’t it strange that Christianity should center in a cemetery?

Perhaps it is not so strange. It was Sigmund Freud who talked about two basic drives that dominate man’s whole life: Eros the will to live and Thanatos the will to die. When a child is born, he is all Eros — he wants to live – he fights to live. Soon, however, Thanatos, the will to die, comes in to challenge the will to live. Then, these two drives struggle for power. Finally, Eros, the will to live gives way to Thanatos the will to die — man is born ultimately for this. Man, ultimately ends in a cemetery. 

This is the part of the meaning of Good Friday. But the story does not end there. Have you ever walked with Mary as she walked down the dark and lonely lane that led to the sepulcher? Her mind was filled with thoughts of his death and her bereavement. What about the Heavy stone? Who would take it away that she could anoint his body for the last time as a symbol of her love and devotion to him? She certainly was not prepared to find things any different than she had left them the day before.

The first rays of light from the rising sun burst through the darkness to reveal the stone rolled away from the mouth of the sepulcher. As the dawn dispelled the darkness of the interior of the tomb, she was amazed to see the slab empty and the grave clothes folded neatly where he had lain. It seemed so incredible — first she could only think they had taken him away. Was not the crucifixion enough? Must they be even be so cruel, so hatefully and spitefully cruel to steal even the body of their loved one away? It was then that she heard the soft step by her side. She thought it was the gardener. “If you have taken him away, tell me where you have laid him.”

Then it was he who spoke to her: “Mary.” For the moment, the sun seemed to burst in upon her blinding her eyes. Then, she saw him. “Raboni” – “Master!” It was only for a moment, then he was gone. It was enough.

Rushing up the path she met Peter and John. They too were coming to mourn at his sepulcher. But now their mourning is turned into triumphant joy. “He is risen! He is risen!” come see the place where the Lord lay.

This is the Gospel in a nutshell. Paul could say: “If Christ be not risen, then our preaching is in vain, and we are still in our sins.” If Christ had not risen, Good Friday would be Bad Friday — indeed it would be Black Friday. Sin would have reigned unto death at Golgotha. Hell would have been in central. The battle of mankind would have been lost. Man’s story would end in a graveyard — as the ground slowly closes in upon his body. “From dust he came, and to dust he would return.” But here is the Good news from the graveyard. “He is Risen – Christ is Risen!” The whole witness is set aflame on that Easter morning by the assurance that he is alive again — and reigning.

Oscar Cullman has so well pointed up the difference between the Greek idea of immortality and the Christian idea of eternal life, when he compares the death of Socrates with the death of Jesus. You remember Socrates drank the poisonous hemlock, because he felt it would release him from the fetters of the body. Death was his great friend freeing his soul from the prison house of the body. How different with Jesus Christ. On Golgotha he came into mortal conflict with man’s great enemy death. He defanged him and took out his sting. The venom of death poured out its strength upon the ground. Death was defeated, vanquished and destroyed. He became the Lord of life. Because he lives, we too shall live.

This is the good news. Shout it from the housetops this Easter day. He is risen. Death is vanquished. Life has triumphed. And that life is for us. “And I give unto them eternal life and they shall never perish.”

This is the way Mildred N. Hoyer put it in her poem:

The Risen Christ

How silently the Easter dawn unfurls 
Upon the earth — soundless 
As his hand, Omnipotent, foiling 
Away the stone before the tomb.

See Christ steep forth, embodiment 
Of all that cannot be destroyed,
The Lord of Life, Light, Truth, and Love
Restorer of man’s faith and hope.

Now is Christ risen from the dead!
Rejoice! Let those who worship 
At an empty tomb, bestir themselves;
Today He lives – He loves.