How the Old Masters Saw Easter

 

Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

The picture at the beginning of this post was painted by Carl Heinrich Bloch in 1881. It is a very typical Easter image, showing Jesus emerging from the tomb and being worshiped by angels. This is a logical depiction since Revelation makes it clear that angels worship the risen Christ.

There were many witnesses to Jesus’ resurrection after the fact, meaning that they saw the living Christ in the flesh. There is no record of human witnesses to the actual resurrection, however. The closest we come to that is in Matthew 28:1-6, but even there it appears that the soldiers guarding the tomb and women who came to give Him a proper burial saw an angel of the Lord rather than THE angel of the Lord (which is the term used to refer to Christ himself).

Here is the Matthew passage, quoted from the ESV.

Now after the Sabbath, toward the dawn of the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. And behold, there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow. And for fear of him the guards trembled and became like dead men. But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here, for he has risen, as he said. Come see the place where he lay.”

This painting (circa 1700) by Noël Coypel is probably meant to depict the Matthew account. As mentioned above, there is no evidence that human eyes actually witnessed Jesus rise from the dead, but I like the way the painting shows the power of Jesus’ resurrection.

I’ll end this series with “Three Marys at the Tomb,” painted by Peter von Cornelius sometime in the early 1800s.

Both Mark and Luke mention that three women came to the tomb, but only two of them were named Mary. Regardless of their names, however, women were the first to hear the good news, and they hurried off to tell the others.

I want to be that kind of witness.

Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

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These works of art are all in the public domain because of their age.