Meditations on the Passion and Resurrection of Jesus
Sister Wendy Beckett
SPCK, 2021
This small book has thirty photos of paintings, each with a page of text from the late Sister Wendy. In a few paragraphs, she points out some features of the painting, comments on the biblical account from which it comes and gives some words of wisdom on what it tells us. An excellent book for a daily reflection.
Here are a few snippets:
Christ Before the High Priest: the High Priest meeting Jesus is “an encounter between small-minded power and large-minded submission.” (page 22).
Peter’s Repentance: Peter, following his betrayal of Jesus, “Now that he knows his true weakness, he will cling to Jesus as never before.” (page 26).
The Lance: “On the right we have one of the two thieves…He died raging against death, closed up in himself and his own bitterness and frustrations, hostile to everyone and aware only of himself. He went screaming into eternity; please God none of us die like that.
On the left…the good thief spent his last breath saying, out of compassion and concern, ‘Lord remember me when you come into your kingdom.’ …This is the death we all desire, a death of unselfishness and of peace.” (Page 40).
Descent into hell: “The icon is not so much concerned with what happened, that Jesus rose from the dead, but what this means. It means that the power of hell has been broken and that heaven is wide open to all who are willing to receive God’s love.
It is the choice of the will – to obey, to accept the Lord, or to turn selfishly away from him, that determines our future.” (Page 52).
The Incredulity of Thomas: “Doubt is not a dead end. It can lead to an intensification of faith. It was not the other apostles, standing reverently on either side, who acclaimed Jesus with the words ‘my Lord and my God’…It is doubting Thomas who is the first to acclaim, in unforgettable words, the divine Lordship of Jesus.” (Page 66).
Adrian Vincent, July 2021.