Images

Jesus our Lord … was handed over to death for our trespasses and was raised for our justification. (Romans 4:24b- 25)

Images imprint themselves on our hearts. We recall them when we hunger to remember and feel what we most need. So it is that I often recall a painting of Jesus blessing a gaggle of children. It hung on a gray, concrete wall in a long-ago Sunday school room. I remember because I was and always will be one of those little ones in need of his blessing.

Perhaps that is why the image of a twisted crucifix has also engraved itself on my heart. A dark-skinned Jesus hangs heavily on the nails, leprous and lifeless, his desiccated body shredded by torture. I saw it in a Spanish cathedral and couldn’t bring myself to take a picture of it. It’s too brutal, too troubling. But I cannot forget it. Every year since, I find it on the internet and let it take me in.

Looking at it, I see the suffering of forgotten people in places I will never be. I feel the Love who embraces them all and forgives everyone, everywhere, everything. And I weep, loving the One who bears shame and rejection that I may know the Great Heart for whom our aching hearts long.

David L. Miller