I’m struck by the linen strips.
The new-born Jesus, wrapped in swaddling bands by
his mother, Mary, and laid in a manger (which would have been a shallow bowl
hollowed from a stone ledge)...
The
infant Jesus, still wrapped tight against the night chill, carried off by his
parents to Egypt, in search of asylum from a tyrannical ruler. Held close by
his mother...
The man Jesus stretched on the execution-scaffold.
His linen unravelled, only just (and a-historically) preserving his modesty...
We are not shown the corpse, taken down from the
cross; washed and wrapped for one last time in linen strips by his mother;
cradled in her arms; carried off to a safe place; laid in the tomb (again, on a
shallow depression on a stone ledge: so many echoes); kissed goodnight xxx
But we are led there, in our imagination,
step-by-step by-linen-strip by the genius of the artist-of-faith Leonard
Evetts.
We are not shown the linen strips left by the risen
Lord when he walked out of the tomb. Leaving them as a sign to be discovered, a
sign not only of life but also of love.
Then again, perhaps we are.
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