The picture above is a painting I’m working on, and I’m in that uncomfortable place of being in “the middle” or “in-between” when an artistic expression isn’t quite anything yet, but has the potential to be. I don’t like this place, but the discomfort still stands second to actually showing the completed piece to other people, which by then is an extension of my actual soul. As for now, I’m not sure what the end result will be, and it requires me to have faith that I have what it takes to complete it…and it is also where all the hard and careful work lies.

This is what Holy Saturday is for me…what happens in the place between Jesus’ death on the cross and when he walks out of that tomb transformed? I wonder if the in-between was as uncomfortable as it would appear to be. What occurred in that period of space time that made it possible for him to rise from the dead and transform and move in the world as something else? I know my brain doesn’t work like everyone else’s…but I do think about stuff like that. Creating a painting, while it doesn’t start with a real death, for me it is the death of an idea by transforming it into art by putting it onto a canvas, where it becomes something else, an expression of what I see in my soul. I wish I could explain it better than that…but I think that there is definite work being done during the space between death and new life. I think God took the idea of Jesus sacrifice of love from just an idea and transformed it into his final masterpiece, a piece of God’s soul into a resurrected Christ. There isn’t much written about how Jesus felt about the transformation in the moment, except to say, he wasn’t recognized by even his disciples until he wanted them too. He defied the rules of physics by appearing and disappearing at will, but yet broke bread and ate with his followers. From the book of Luke, here are some of his final words:

While they were still speaking about this, he stood in their midst and said to them, “Peace be with you.” But they were startled and terrified and thought that they were seeing a ghost. Then he said to them, “Why are you troubled? And why do questions arise in your hearts? Look at my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me and see, because a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you can see I have.” And as he said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. While they were still incredulous for joy and were amazed, he asked them, “Have you anything here to eat?” They gave him a piece of baked fish; he took it and ate it in front of them. He said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the law of Moses and in the prophets and psalms must be fulfilled.” Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures. And he said to them, “Thus it is written that the Messiah would suffer and rise from the dead on the third day and that repentance, for the forgiveness of sins, would be preached in his name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. And (behold) I am sending the promise of my Father upon you; but stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high

What a wonder it would have been to see the final canvas, the God of love’s soul exposed to the world…it must have been amazing.