Holy Saturday - Lent 40

 

"Joy of the Righteous in the lord at the Threshold of Paradise."
By Victor Vasnetsov, in the State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

Romans 5:1-5

From 1884 to 1889 Victor Vasnetsov the Russian artist, worked on painting frescos in St Vladimir's Cathedral Kiev.  I tried to see if the painting can be seen online, but there is a war going on in the Ukraine, and the Cathedral website is not working.  Vasnetsov's work was seen as radical for the time, because frescos are 'western'.  For me this symbolises how Jesus death has ripped up the rule book.  Humans are likely to have lived on the earth for 10,000s of years.  Organised religion as we know it has inhabited this space for a small section of it.  Only in todays world can almost half the population get access to vast resources of information.

I believe that Jesus is righteous, and all humanity is of equal importance to the Creator.  What is important now may look different from this perspective on time.

PRAYER:  You created us because you have the love a mother has for her baby.  As that 'baby', I adore you.