WARNING: this could make you lose your faith

Published: April 15th, 2006

Dostoevsky, the great Russian novelist once visited Basel, Switzerland and in the Kunstsammlungen museum he meditated at length on one of the most disturbing depictions of the death of God in Christ, painted by Hans Holbein the Younger in the 16th century. In The Idiot Dostoevsky says that the painting - which depicts the lifesize, rotting body of Christ in the Tomb on Easter Saturday, could be enough to make a man lose his faith. 
 
Martin Luther said that God himself actually died on the cross. Easter Saturday is without doubt therefore the most desperate day of the year. It is the day to lose ones faith. The day of silence and unknowing. The day without hope.
 
This Easter, let us allow ourselves to be deeply troubled by the reality of the death and burial of Jesus. You may find the picture by Holbein helpful (below) in doing this. Let us turn the meditation upon despair into intercession for the suffering of the world. And then, when the sun rises on Easter day, let the hope and wonder rise sweeter in our broken hearts. For Christ is not dead. He is risen.
 
Hans Holbein the Younger, Dead Christ in the Tomb, 1521/22. Basel, Öffentliche Kunstsammlungen
 
 

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