Holy Saturday: Waiting

What do the disciples do on Saturday? After the emotional events of Friday and with the restrictions of the Sabbath, there isn't much for them to do but hunker down and home and wait. But how did they wait? With resignation? In fear? What did they do in that time? Did they tell stories of their time with Jesus? Remember the good old days? Sit in silence after the unspeakable horror of crucifixion?

Eugene Burnand has chosen Holy Saturday as the subject of a painting. Here the disciples are gathered around a single table. They sit or stand, eyes staring vacantly or looking expectantly at one another. One disciples has his head in his hands.

Eugene Burnand. Holy Saturday. 1907-1908. Musee des Beaux Arts, La Chaux de Finds, France. 

Is it despair? Is it sadness? Is it sorrow or anguish? Regret? Disibelief? Are they waiting for something or are they just at loose ends? How would you characterize their waiting? How will you wait on this Holy Saturday...and all the others that follow?

Jesus will find the disciples gathered in a locked room, sitting and waiting in fear on the first night of the week that began Easter morning. The Holy Spirit will find the disciples together in a room on the day of Pentecost, waiting in the city as Jesus had instructed them (Luke 24:49). Were the disciples better at waiting than we are? Or did they just not record their impatience, their despair, their doubts?

Matthew 25.14-30: It's the Dog

The gospel reading for Proper 28(33)/Pentecost 24A is a parable. Specifically, it is the parable of the talents (Matthew 25:14-30). The master entrusts three servants with eight talents before he goes on a trip. When the master returns, he asks for an accounting of the money. Two of the three servants have multiplied the master's money. The third, described as worthless, is cast out.

Various artistic versions of the subject include additional figures (a bookkeeper, for example) and interesting settings (contemporary with the artist's time, for example). Swiss artist Eugene Burnand has used only the four men mentioned in the text and has set the parable in a classic, but timeless, setting. Between the three columns evenly spaced behind the men, are lightly drawn leaves, branches and landscape.

The three servants face the master. One servant holds a fully filled bag in his hands, presumably the original talents given him along with the additional profit he turned. A second servant stands behind him. We don't see his hands or his accounting or much of anything from him. The third servant, however, telegraphs his suspicion - or perhaps resentment? - of the master by watching from under a lowered brow as he stands with his arms crossed over his chest.

The master stands at the left of the composition with his right hand outstretched, preparing to reach for the money that is coming to him. The artist has made the master slightly taller than the first servant, but the gulf in the relationship is painted as horizontal rather than vertical. The composition doesn't reinforce a hierarchical imbalance of power as it would have if the master towered over kneeling servants.

One rather unique detail of Burnand's telling of the story is the dog in the composition. The dog is between the master and the servants. It appears that the dog has walked in with the master, whose left hand rests on the dog's head. The dog has stopped slightly ahead of the master and is looking up and back and the older man. Why is the dog there? Is the dog just another "good and faithful servant" to the master? "Fido" does, of course, share a root with the word for faithful. Is the dog there as a character reference for the master? The dog is looking up at the master with an expression that seems to be one of calmness and trust rather than cowering and fear. Remember the advice to never trust a person who doesn't love dogs, but always trust a dog when they don't like a person. Is this dog there to say that this master - for all his demands for profit and casting out into places where teeth are gnashed - can be trusted?

Image above: Eugene Burnand (1850-1921). The Talents. For Musee-Eugene-Burnand, click here. 

For thoughts related to the reading from Hebrew scripture, click here.

For an additional image of Deborah, click on the Art&Faith Matters Facebook link below.

John 20.1-18: To the Tomb

How, in a still image, does an artist show the moment when death becomes life?

Rather than trying to imagine what Jesus looked like at that moment, consider what expressions and emotions might have been on the faces of those who went to the tomb on the morning called Easter.

Two groups of people - first a group of women and then a pair of men - made their way to the tomb. The first group, women who went at first light, had expectations. They were prepared to continue their mourning. They were expecting to feel fresh grief from the loss of Jesus.

And then they arrived at the tomb and found the stone rolled away. What do their faces say?

Henry Ossawa Tanner. The Three Marys. 1910. Fisk University Art Galleries. http://www.fisk.edu/services-resources/fisk-university-galleries

The women returned to the disciples, telling what they found, and the disciples had to go see for themselves whether the story told by the women could possibly be true. 

So they, too, hurry to the tomb. Peter and John. What do their faces say?

Eugene Burnand. The Disciples Peter and John Hurry to the Tomb on the Morning of the Resurrection. 1898. Musee d'Orsay, Paris. http://www.musee-orsay.fr/en/collections/index-of-works/notice.html?no_cache=1&zsz=5&lnum=&nnumid=9239

And what will your face say on Easter morning or on any morning that you wake up realizing that Christ has risen?

For thoughts on how we picture what Jesus did in his life, death, and resurrection, click here.
For thoughts on Easter and the calendar, click here.
For thoughts on Jesus' words to Mary, click here.