In 1961, a visitor walked into the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, in Glasgow Scotland, carrying a brick. He found a painting of the crucifixion and started to destroy it and tear it to pieces. His anger and desecration of Christian art was not done out of hatred for Christianity but out of love for Christ. He objected to the way the artist had portrayed the crucifixion of Jesus.
Salvador Dali was the artist and the painting was “Christ of St. John of the Cross.” In it you see Jesus hanging on the cross over the world. The problem for the visitor was one of perspective. Dali had changed the traditional view people have on the crucifixion. Instead of standing below the cross looking up into the face of Jesus, Dali asks the viewer, for a moment, to look down on the cross from above.
The visitor felt it was sacrilegious to place oneself above Jesus. Others see what this vandal didn’t. They see an artist inviting you to have God’s perspective. Our heavenly Father looks down on this fallen world and he sees it through the eyes of Jesus dying on the cross for all people.
One of the odd things about Dali’s depiction of the crucifixion is the body of Jesus. If you look closely at his painting you will notice that Jesus hangs on the cross without any wounds. There are no nails. His body hangs from the cross with nothing holding him to it. Whether Dali intended this or not, one spiritual insight comes to mind: When Jesus was crucified, it wasn’t nails that kept him there. Love, boundless and divine and unfathomable, kept him there for you, for me, for all.
It isn’t easy to look at the world the way Jesus does, with a view of pure grace. Sure, we’re grateful for grace, but maybe there are some people who are less “worthy” of it, at least in my estimation. Did Jesus really “have to” die for all?
He wanted to, and he did. And he invites is to see the world through his eyes, through his cross, and to seek the salvation of all. He saved even me, who must say with the apostle Paul, This saying is trustworthy and worthy of full acceptance: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners,” of whom I am the worst. (1 Timothy 1:15)
How shall I respond to such a view? Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. (Romans 12:1,2)
Grateful for grace,
Pastor Stephen Luchterhand
Salvador Dali was the artist and the painting was “Christ of St. John of the Cross.” In it you see Jesus hanging on the cross over the world. The problem for the visitor was one of perspective. Dali had changed the traditional view people have on the crucifixion. Instead of standing below the cross looking up into the face of Jesus, Dali asks the viewer, for a moment, to look down on the cross from above.
The visitor felt it was sacrilegious to place oneself above Jesus. Others see what this vandal didn’t. They see an artist inviting you to have God’s perspective. Our heavenly Father looks down on this fallen world and he sees it through the eyes of Jesus dying on the cross for all people.
One of the odd things about Dali’s depiction of the crucifixion is the body of Jesus. If you look closely at his painting you will notice that Jesus hangs on the cross without any wounds. There are no nails. His body hangs from the cross with nothing holding him to it. Whether Dali intended this or not, one spiritual insight comes to mind: When Jesus was crucified, it wasn’t nails that kept him there. Love, boundless and divine and unfathomable, kept him there for you, for me, for all.
It isn’t easy to look at the world the way Jesus does, with a view of pure grace. Sure, we’re grateful for grace, but maybe there are some people who are less “worthy” of it, at least in my estimation. Did Jesus really “have to” die for all?
He wanted to, and he did. And he invites is to see the world through his eyes, through his cross, and to seek the salvation of all. He saved even me, who must say with the apostle Paul, This saying is trustworthy and worthy of full acceptance: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners,” of whom I am the worst. (1 Timothy 1:15)
How shall I respond to such a view? Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. (Romans 12:1,2)
Grateful for grace,
Pastor Stephen Luchterhand
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