This card…a painting by an USA artist: Henry Ossawa Tanner (1859-1936). It is the artistic rendering of John and Peter –in despair—walking to the “empty” tomb. John 20: 1-10.
I find this a powerful message. Look carefully at the painting. The two men look, or rather they stare, like in a daze, into the emptiness. Their head is still puzzled and worried. They do not understand. Yet gradually they are being filled with light and they are being transformed. Whatever ‘visible’ part of their body is filled with light…
The Resurrection narratives talk about Christ entering into his glory. The message I see is that, though the two apostles do not yet understand, their body seems to be transformed, the resurrection power puts them aglow. The message is clear for those who believe. The Lord is no longer in the tomb. He is not dead. He is alive…in them!
There are some messages in the Gospels: Lk. 24: 5 “Why do you seek the living one among the dead?”
Though not understanding, a strange new bodily-felt awareness pervades them… permeates them. The Lord is not in the tomb, for the tomb is empty. The Lord the Risen one, the divine power calling Jesus back into life…is nowhere else, but in them! Their body seems to be “aware”. It feels different inside. Is this perhaps the life of Christ that takes over our lives, filling us with divine presence, awakening us to this transforming energy, at work in us?
This, I think, is what faith is all about. Faith brings about transformation, already here and now. It is a new self consciousness. The self consciousness of Christ, the self awareness of Jesus, becomes ours. Read also Luke 24: 13-35 highlighted in verse 33: “Were not our hearts burning within us while he spoke to us on the way…?”
