O Risen Christ, who has said, Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed: Mercifully grant that this benediction may be ours; so that, walking by faith and not by sight, we may evermore rejoice in thee, and confess thee as our Saviour, our Lord, and our God.
Rembrandt van Rijn, “Christ at Emmaus: the Larger Plate,” 1654, etching, burin, and drypoint #Easter pic.twitter.com/yFYzuHL3Uk
— National Gallery of Art (@ngadc) April 20, 2014
All the congregation of the people of Israel moved on from the wilderness of Sin by stages, according to the commandment of the Lord, and camped at Reph′idim; but there was no water for the people to drink. Therefore the people found fault with Moses, and said, “Give us water to drink.” And Moses said to them, “Why do you find fault with me? Why do you put the Lord to the proof?” But the people thirsted there for water, and the people murmured against Moses, and said, “Why did you bring us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our cattle with thirst?” So Moses cried to the Lord, “What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me.” And the Lord said to Moses, “Pass on before the people, taking with you some of the elders of Israel; and take in your hand the rod with which you struck the Nile, and go. Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb; and you shall strike the rock, and water shall come out of it, that the people may drink.” And Moses did so, in the sight of the elders of Israel. And he called the name of the place Massah and Mer′ibah, because of the faultfinding of the children of Israel, and because they put the Lord to the proof by saying, “Is the Lord among us or not?”
–Exodus 17:1-7
Lyrics:
1 Come, ye faithful, raise the strain
of triumphant gladness;
God hath brought his Israel
into joy from sadness;
loosed from Pharaoh’s bitter yoke
Jacob’s sons and daughters;
led them with unmoistened foot
through the Red Sea waters.2 ‘Tis the spring of souls today;
Christ hath burst his prison,
and from three days’ sleep in death
as a sun hath risen;
all the winter of our sins,
long and dark, is flying
from his light, to whom we give
laud and praise undying.3 Now the queen of seasons, bright
with the day of splendor,
with the royal feast of feasts,
comes its joy to render;
comes to glad Jerusalem,
who with true affection
welcomes in unwearied strains
Jesus’ resurrection.4 Neither might the gates of death,
nor the tomb’s dark portal,
nor the watchers, nor the seal
hold thee as a mortal:
but today amidst thine own
thou didst stand, bestowing
thine own peace, which evermore
passeth human knowing.
Almighty Father, who hast given thine only Son to die for our sins, and to rise again for our justification: Grant us so perfectly, and without all doubt, to believe in his resurrection, that our faith in thy sight may never be reproved; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord.
#art The Resurrection of Christ #painting by Rembrandt #HeHasRisen #JesusRose Happy Easter! #ChristisRisen pic.twitter.com/rJ0jLTlRdv
— ARGOS&NEKO (@ArgosNeko) April 20, 2014
I keep the Lord always before me;
because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.
Therefore my heart is glad, and my soul rejoices;
my body also dwells secure.
For thou dost not give me up to Sheol,
or let thy godly one see the Pit.
Thou dost show me the path of life;
in thy presence there is fulness of joy,
in thy right hand are pleasures for evermore.
–Psalm 16:8-11
Happy Easter!
Anthony Van Dyck, The Resurrection, c. 1631-32, oil on canvas pic.twitter.com/uksJ7qcQGK
— Wadsworth Atheneum (@TheWadsworth) April 5, 2015
You may download it there or listen to it directly there from Saint Philip’s, Charleston, South Carolina.
Botticelli's Resurrection of Christ (1490) #EasterDayImages pic.twitter.com/HFZhC7SmrK
— Tim Montgomerie 🇬🇧 (@montie) March 27, 2016
Lyrics:
Jesus Christ is risen today
Alleluia!
Our triumphant holy day
Alleluia!
Who did once upon the cross
Alleluia!
Suffer to redeem our loss
Alleluia!Hymns of praise then let us sing
Alleluia!
Unto Christ, our heavenly king
Alleluia!
Who endured the cross and grave
Alleluia!
Sinners to redeem and save
Alleluia!But the pains which He endured
Alleluia!
Our salvation have procured
Alleluia!
Now above the sky He’s king
Alleluia!
Where the angels ever sing
Alleluia!
George Augustus Selwyn was a very active man. This table is to enable students to pinpoint where he was at any particular time….
Today the Church of England commemorates George Augustus Selwyn, first Bishop of New Zealand, 1878
Selwyn was 1st Bishop of New Zealand (1841-68) before being appointed Bishop of Lichfield on his return to England; @Selwyn1882 was established in his memory
Engraving 1842 (ALT) pic.twitter.com/qbUI48AEn7
— The Anglican Church in St Petersburg (@anglicanspb) April 11, 2024
Almighty and everlasting God, we thank thee for thy servant George Augustus Selwyn, whom thou didst call to preach the Gospel to the peoples of New Zealand and Melanesia, and to lay a firm foundation for the growth of thy Church in many nations. Raise up, we beseech thee, in this and every land evangelists and heralds of thy kingdom, that thy Church may proclaim the unsearchable riches of our Savior Jesus Christ; who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.
17 October 1841: consecration of George Augustus Selwyn (1809-1878), Curate @windsorchurches (St John the Baptist), @lambethpalace Chapel, to be first bishop of the newly-created Diocese of New Zealand (part of the Province of Australasia). #anglican #181years 🇳🇿 pic.twitter.com/6qeCK5QuKy
— AustralianAnglican (@AustAnglican) October 17, 2022
O Living Lord, who on the first Easter Day didst stand in the midst of thy disciples as the conqueror of sin and death, and didst speak to them thy peace: Come to us, we pray thee, in thy risen power and make us glad with thy presence; and so breathe thy Holy Spirit into our hearts that we may be strong to serve thee and spread abroad thy good news; for the glory of thy great name.
Good Thursday morning #malmö #photofrommyheart pic.twitter.com/2XYSxC0Ujj
— Lisa von Steijern🇸🇪 (@LisavonSteijern) April 11, 2024
And as Aaron spoke to the whole congregation of the people of Israel, they looked toward the wilderness, and behold, the glory of the Lord appeared in the cloud. And the Lord said to Moses, “I have heard the murmurings of the people of Israel; say to them, ‘At twilight you shall eat flesh, and in the morning you shall be filled with bread; then you shall know that I am the Lord your God.’”
In the evening quails came up and covered the camp; and in the morning dew lay round about the camp. And when the dew had gone up, there was on the face of the wilderness a fine, flake-like thing, fine as hoarfrost on the ground. When the people of Israel saw it, they said to one another, “What is it?” For they did not know what it was. And Moses said to them, “It is the bread which the Lord has given you to eat. This is what the Lord has commanded: ‘Gather of it, every man of you, as much as he can eat; you shall take an omer apiece, according to the number of the persons whom each of you has in his tent.’” And the people of Israel did so; they gathered, some more, some less. But when they measured it with an omer, he that gathered much had nothing over, and he that gathered little had no lack; each gathered according to what he could eat. And Moses said to them, “Let no man leave any of it till the morning.” But they did not listen to Moses; some left part of it till the morning, and it bred worms and became foul; and Moses was angry with them. Morning by morning they gathered it, each as much as he could eat; but when the sun grew hot, it melted.
–Exodus 16:10-21
Wow!
From stewart_mckeown over on IG.
・・・
Canterbury, KentAn image I shot last year on a wonderful morning spent overlooking Canterbury. The valley was engulfed in a thick fog when I arrived before dawn but as the sun rose behind the Cathedral, it burnt through the… pic.twitter.com/W536ynPYgT
— English Cathedrals (@engcathedrals) April 11, 2024
"Done is a battle on the dragon black,
Our champion Christ confoundit has his force;
The yetis of hell are broken with a crack,
The sign triumphal raisit is of the cross"
– William Dunbar (c. 1500)Art: Albrecht Dürer, "The Harrowing of Hell" (1512) pic.twitter.com/FnneczvWUw
— Matthew H. Young (@matthenryyoung) March 30, 2024
Christ himself pointed out the benefit of his sufferings and resurrection when he said to the women in Mt 28, 10 – “Fear not: go tell my brethren that they depart into Galilee, and there shall they see me.” These are the very first words they heard from Christ after his resurrection from the dead, by which he confirmed all the former utterances and loving deeds he showed them, namely, that his resurrection avails in our behalf who believe, so that he therefore anticipates and calls Christians his brethren, who believe it, and yet they do not, like the apostles, witness his resurrection.
The risen Christ waits not until we ask or call on him to become his brethren. Do we here speak of merit, by which we deserve anything? What did the apostles merit? Peter denied his Lord three times; the other disciples all fled from him; they tarried with him like a rabbit does with its young. He should have called them deserters, yea, betrayers, reprobates, anything but brethren. Therefore this word is sent to them through the women out of pure grace and mercy, as the apostles at the time keenly experienced, and we experience also, when we are mired fast in our sins, temptations and condemnation.
These are words full of all comfort that Christ receives desperate villains as you and I are and calls us his brethren. Is Christ really our brother, then I would like to know what we can be in need of? Just as it is among natural brothers, so is it also here. Brothers according to the flesh enjoy the same possessions, have the same father, the one inheritance, otherwise they would not be brothers: so we enjoy with Christ the same possessions, and have in common with him one Father and one inheritance, which never decreases by being distributed, as other inheritances do; but it ever grows larger and larger; for it is a spiritual inheritance. But an earthly inheritance decreases when distributed among many persons. He who has a part of this spiritual inheritance, has it all.
Three still blooming.
Easter flowers.
🌻🌹 pic.twitter.com/OtId0SVRYJ— Louise McIntosh Artist (@InkyplotsArt) April 10, 2024
Tomb, thou shalt not hold Him longer;
Death is strong, but Life is stronger;
Stronger than the dark, the light;
Stronger than the wrong, the right.
Faith and Hope triumphant say,
Christ will rise on Easter-Day.
While the patient earth lies waking,
Till the morning shall be breaking,
Shuddering ‘neath the burden dread
Of her Master, cold and dead,
Hark! she hears the angels say,
Christ will rise on Easter-Day.
And when sunrise smites the mountains,
Pouring light from heavenly fountains,
Then the earth blooms out to greet
Once again the blessed feet;
And her countless voices say,
Christ has risen on Easter-Day.
Up and down our lives obedient
Walk, dear Christ, with footsteps radiant,
Till those garden lives shall be
Fair with duties done for Thee;
And our thankful spirits say,
Christ arose on Easter-Day.
–Phillips Brooks (1835-1893)
The end & the beginning: Resurrection & Annunciation at second level of Grünewald's astonishing Isenheim Altarpiece, 1515. Today is his day. pic.twitter.com/QbSvhlFCLM
— Dr. Peter Paul Rubens (@PP_Rubens) August 31, 2023
Listen to the whole glorious thing.
Lyrics:
1.This joyful Eastertide
away with sin and sorrow!
My love, the Crucified,
has sprung to life this morrow.Refrain:
Had Christ, who once was slain,
not burst his three-day prison,
our faith had been in vain:
but now hath Christ arisen,
arisen, arisen;
but now has Christ arisen!2. My flesh in hope shall rest
and for a season slumber
till trump from east to west
shall wake the dead in number. [3. Death’s flood has lost its chill
since Jesus crossed the river.
Lover of souls, from ill
my passing soul deliver.
Eternal God, the whole cosmos sings of thy glory, from the dividing of a single cell to the vast expanse of interstellar space: We offer thanks for thy theologian and scientist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, who didst perceive the divine in the evolving creation. Enable us to become faithful stewards of thy divine works and heirs of thy everlasting kingdom; through Jesus Christ, the firstborn of all creation, who with thee and the Holy Spirit livest and reignest, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
“We are not human beings having a spiritual experience; we are spiritual beings having a human experience.”
– Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, S.J.
"The Phenomenon of Man" 1955 https://t.co/EESxPHOalG pic.twitter.com/Ml3P6adAIF— Nicholas P Schiavone (@NickSchiavone) April 4, 2024
Almighty God, who broughtest again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the glorious Prince of Salvation, with everlasting victory over sin and the grave: Grant us power, we beseech thee, to rise with him to newness of life, that we may overcome the world with the victory of faith, and have part at last in the resurrection of the just; through the merits of the same risen Saviour, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, ever one God, world without end.
The morning after the storm. Today on Glastonbury Tor about 20 minutes before sunrise. pic.twitter.com/7pPtwVqRRV
— Michelle Cowbourne (@Glastomichelle) April 10, 2024
So put away all malice and all guile and insincerity and envy and all slander. Like newborn babes, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up to salvation; for you have tasted the kindness of the Lord.
Come to him, to that living stone, rejected by men but in God’s sight chosen and precious; and like living stones be yourselves built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For it stands in scripture:
“Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious,
and he who believes in him will not be put to shame.”
To you therefore who believe, he is precious, but for those who do not believe,
“The very stone which the builders rejected
has become the head of the corner,”
and
“A stone that will make men stumble,
a rock that will make them fall”;
for they stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.
But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, that you may declare the wonderful deeds of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were no people but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy but now you have received mercy.
–1 Peter 2:1-10
Morning everyone hope you are well. My view descending Heron Pike towards Alcock Tarn and Grasmere. And I had it all to myself. Have a great day. #lakedistrict @keswickbootco pic.twitter.com/Rcjx6287oO
— Rod Hutchinson (@lakesrhino) April 10, 2024
What links them together so that, all the same, they are the history of a single being, dying, dead and now rising again? A single world meaning, which has passed away and gone, to acquire new, eternal reality, presence and future in God? This is a problem of theological logic; perhaps it is the problem that the theologians have never attended to and that, if it were taken seriously, would threaten to throw into confusion all our beautiful Archimedean drawings on paper. And yet it is what is called the Logos tou staurou, the word and the message of the Cross, by Paul, who, in Corinth, renounces all other worldly and divine wisdom because God himself “will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the cleverness of the clever. . . . Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? . . . I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.” Risen too, of course, the “firstfruits of the dead”. Yes, he, he is the continuity for which we have been looking, the connecting thread linking ruin and rising, which does not break even in death and hell. He it is who walks along paths that are no paths, leaving no trace behind, through hell, hell which has no exit, no time, no being; and by the miracle from above he is rescued from the abyss, the profound depths, to save his brothers in Adam along with him.
And now there is something like a bridge over this rift: on the basis of the grace of the Resurrection there is the Church’s faith, the faith of Mary; there is the prayer at the grave, the faithful watching and waiting. It is a lightly built bridge, and yet it suffices to carry us. What it spans, however, is not some indifferent medium but the void of everlasting death. Nor can we compare the two sides as if from some higher vantage point; we cannot bring the two together in some rational, logical context by using some method, some process of thought, some logic: for the one side is that of death in God-forsakenness, and the other is that of eternal life. So we have no alternative but to trust in him, knowing, as we walk across the bridge, that he built it. Because of his grace we have been spared the absolute abyss, and yet, as we proceed across the bridge, we are actually walking alongside it, this most momentous of all transformations; we do not observe it, but can only be seized and pulled into it, to be transformed from dead people into resurrected people. May the sign of this transformation be found on our Janus destiny. May its mark be branded on each of our works, those that come to an end inexplicably and those that, inexplicably, are resurrected through grace. Their two faces can never meet; they can never behold each other, and we can never link up the two ends because the rope across the chasm is too short. So we must put it into God’s hand: only his fingers can join our broken parts into a whole.
Happy and blessed Easter! 🐥🐥🐥
In this Resurrection Hamburg painter Meister Francke, a Dominican friar born circa 1380, did something strikingly original: he painted Christ with his back turned to us while he climbs out of the tomb. 🐤 pic.twitter.com/PvbbypAILn— Rembrandt's R👀m 🖌 (@RembrandtsRoom) April 4, 2021
Lyrics (from Psalm 47)–
O clap your hands together, all ye people; O sing unto God with the voice of melody. For the Lord is high and to be feared; he is the great King of all the earth. He shall subdue the people under us, and the nations under our feet. He shall choose out an heritage for us, even the worship of Jacob, whom he loved.
God is gone up with a merry noise, and the Lord with the sound of the trumpet. O sing praises, sing praises unto our God: O sing praises unto the Lord our King. For God is the King of all the earth: sing ye praises with the understanding. God reigneth over the heathen: God sitteth upon his holy seat. For God, which is highly exalted, doth defend the earth, as it were with a shield.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen
[Easter]…is the proclamation of a war already won. The war is at an end ”“ even though here and there troops are still shooting, because they have not heard anything yet about the capitulation. The game is won, even though the player can still play a few further moves. Actually he is already mated. The clock has run down, even though the pendulum still swings a few times this way and that. It is in this interim space that we are living: the old is past, behold it has all become new. The Easter message tells us that our enemies, sin, the curse and death, are beaten. Ultimately they can no longer start mischief. They still behave as though the game were not decided, the battle not fought; we must still reckon with them, but fundamentally we must cease to fear them anymore. If you have heard the Easter message, you can no longer run around with a tragic face and lead the humourless existence of a man who has no hope. One thing still holds, and only this one thing is really serious, that Jesus is the Victor. A seriousness that would look back past this, like Lot’s wife, is not Christian seriousness. It may be burning behind ”“ and truly it is burning ”“ but we have to look, not at it, but at the other fact, that we are invited and summoned to take seriously the victory of God’s glory in this man Jesus and to be joyful in Him. Then we may live in thankfulness and not in fear.
–Karl Barth Dogmatics in Outline (New York: Harper and Row, 1959), p. 123
Today's pick: Giovanni Bellini: Resurrection https://t.co/43PUCqbw7W pic.twitter.com/oqp48rsHqA
— Art and the Bible (@artbible) November 8, 2020
This is what we mean by cheap grace, the grace which amounts to the justification of sin without the justification of the repentant sinner who departs from sin and from whom sin departs. Cheap grace is not the kind of forgiveness of sin which frees us from the toils of sin. Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves.
Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without Church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without contrition. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the Cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.
Costly grace is the treasure hidden in the field; for the sake of it a man will gladly go and sell all that he has. It is the pearl of great price to buy which the merchant will sell all his goods. It is the kingly rule of Christ, for whose sake a man will pluck out the eye which causes him to stumble, it is the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple leaves his nets and follows Him.
Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock.
Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin and grace because it justifies the sinner. Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of His son: ‘ye were bought at a price,’ and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us. Above all, it is grace because God did not reckon His Son too dear a price to pay for our life, but delivered Him up for us. Costly grace is the Incarnation of God.
–Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship
Today the Church of England commemorates Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Lutheran Pastor, Martyr
He died #OTD in 1945, executed in Flossenbürg concentration camp
Image: Window in St Lawrence University’s Gunnison Memorial Chapel pic.twitter.com/qx1HUHU9lx
— The Anglican Church in St Petersburg (@anglicanspb) April 9, 2024
Gracious God, the Beyond in the midst of our life, who gavest grace to thy servant Dietrich Bonhoeffer to know and teach the truth as it is in Jesus Christ, and to bear the cost of following him: Grant that we, strengthened by his teaching and example, may receive thy word and embrace its call with an undivided heart; through Jesus Christ our Savior, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
Today marks the death in 1945 of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, German pastor and theologian. His courage in the face of evil was unshakeable and his constant prayer for peace unmovable.
"We must be ready to allow ourselves to be interrupted by God." pic.twitter.com/z9gDPFniZD
— Ninefold Kyrie (@Gda1238) April 9, 2024
We give thee thanks, O heavenly Father, who hast delivered us from the power of darkness and translated us into the kingdom of thy Son; grant, we pray thee, that as by his death he has recalled us to life, so by his presence abiding in us he may raise us to joys eternal; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord.
There are so many iconic Swaledale views… and this has to be one of them.
📸 Wendy McDonnell | #YorkshireDales pic.twitter.com/zg9cAC8H9J
— Yorkshire Dales National Park (@yorkshire_dales) April 9, 2024
Therefore gird up your minds, be sober, set your hope fully upon the grace that is coming to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, be holy yourselves in all your conduct; since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” And if you invoke as Father him who judges each one impartially according to his deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile.
You know that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your fathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. He was destined before the foundation of the world but was made manifest at the end of the times for your sake. Through him you have confidence in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.
Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere love of the brethren, love one another earnestly from the heart. You have been born anew, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God; for
“All flesh is like grass
and all its glory like the flower of grass.
The grass withers, and the flower falls,
but the word of the Lord abides for ever.”
That word is the good news which was preached to you.
–1 Peter 1:13-25
Guten Morgen ☕️💕 wünsche euch einen traumhaften Dienstag 🌷🌿🌷
⭐️ Sommerfeeling im April ⭐️ pic.twitter.com/kcLEewGtUh— Renate Kleine (@RenateKleine) April 9, 2024
You may download it there or listen to it directly there from Saint Philip’s, Charleston, South Carolina.
#Easter the day of the Resurrection. My favourite painting in #Venice about this subject can be admired in the church of San Francesco della Vigna in the chapel Badoer and is by Paolo Veronese. Wonderful colorful contrasts. https://t.co/Gzb0yJ9Kwu #librarytour #virtualtour pic.twitter.com/7iIQjCDgd3
— See Venice Guided Tours – Luisella Romeo (@luisella_romeo) April 4, 2021
This remarkable and deliberate recording of the first Christians’ incomprehension of what they insisted was the irreducible bottom line of their faith teaches us two things. First, it tells us that the early Christians were confident enough about what they called the Resurrection that (to borrow from Prof. Wright) they were prepared to say something like, “I know this sounds ridiculous, but it’s what happened.” And the second thing it tells us is that it took time for the first Christians to figure out what the events of Easter meant—not only for Jesus but for themselves. As they worked that out, their thinking about a lot of things changed profoundly, as Prof. Wright and Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI help us to understand in their biblical commentaries.
The way they thought about time and history changed. During Jesus’ public ministry, many of his followers shared in the Jewish messianic expectations of the time: God would soon work something grand for his people in Israel, liberating them from their oppressors and bringing about a new age in which (as Isaiah had prophesied) the nations would stream to the mountain of the Lord and history would end. The early Christians came to understand that the cataclysmic, world-redeeming act that God had promised had taken place at Easter. God’s Kingdom had come not at the end of time but within time—and that had changed the texture of both time and history. History continued, but those shaped by the Easter Effect became the people who knew how history was going to turn out. Because of that, they could live differently. The Easter Effect impelled them to bring a new standard of equality into the world and to embrace death as martyrs if necessary—because they knew, now, that death did not have the final word in the human story.
The way they thought about “resurrection” changed. Pious Jews taught by the reforming Pharisees of Jesus’ time believed in the resurrection of the dead. Easter taught the first Christians, who were all pious Jews, that this resurrection was not the resuscitation of a corpse, nor did it involve the decomposition of a corpse. Jesus’ tomb was empty, but the Risen Lord appeared to his disciples in a transformed body. Those who first experienced the Easter Effect would not have put it in these terms, but as their understanding of what had happened to Jesus and to themselves grew, they grasped that (as Benedict XVI put it in “Jesus of Nazareth–Holy Week”) there had been an “evolutionary leap” in the human condition. A new way of being had been encountered in the manifestly human but utterly different life of the one they met as the Risen Lord. That insight radically changed all those who embraced it.
"Alleluia, alleluia. Christ is risen, who made all things; he has shown mercy on all people. Alleluia, alleluia."
The Resurrection, by Piero della Francesca. pic.twitter.com/6d4oO3WiXb
— Christian Culture (@Christian8Pics) April 14, 2018
“A story that is any good can’t be reduced, it can only be expanded. A story is good when you continue to see more and more in it, and when it continues to escape you. In fiction two and two is always more than four.”
–Flannery O’Connor, Mystery and Manners (New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 1957) p. 102
Giovanni Baglione, sketch for the (not lost) altarpiece of the Resurrection for Il Gesu. Criticism of the painting by a.o. Caravaggio and Orazio Gentileschi in 1603 ("it's the worst he's done", "clumsy") caused Bagione to file a suit for libel which he won. pic.twitter.com/MT94uEise4
— Rembrandt's R👀m 🖌 (@RembrandtsRoom) November 5, 2018
I have desired to go
Where springs not fail,
To fields where flies no sharp and sided hail,
And a few lilies blow.
And I have asked to be
Where no storms come,
Where the green swell is in the havens dumb,
And out of the swing of the sea.
–Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1899)
Good Morning pic.twitter.com/vD3NxaYzDf
— philip jackson (@pajacksonartist) April 8, 2024