The Christian imagination has been hijacked. From white-skinned, blue-eyed Jesus with a Bee Gees disco haircut, through a flag-waving, pro-American Christ, down to a harmless baby-eyed cartoon savior, the image of Jesus has been watered down, politicized, and otherwise co-opted. This is not to say that Christian imagery has to be literal, or realist, or limited to slavish illustrations of Bible stories. But the Christian imagination (how Jesus is described and depicted) is every bit as much a proclamation of the Gospel as writing and preaching, and bears the same responsibility to faithfully present Jesus to the world.

The Christian imagination is one that centers around Jesus as the Son of God, conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried; who descended to the dead and who rose again; who ascended and has promised to return. That’s the core. Other things can be expressed, too, (Jesus as judge, Jesus as friend, etc.) but without that core, images of Jesus cease to be products of the Christian imagination.

There is a strong history of Lutheran art. April 6 is the annual day of commemoration for Lutheran artists Matthias Grunewald (1470-1528), Lucas Cranach the Elder (1472-1553) (he and his wife Barbara were close friends of Martin and Katerina Luther); and Albrecht Durer (1471-1528).

Over the course of my ministry, I have come to interpret, rather literally, the charge to show Jesus to the world. In the past decade or so, I’ve developed great interest in the idea of putting an especially Lutheran twist onto traditional forms of Christian art. Here are two examples of this project, centering on the very crux of Gospel proclamation: the death and resurrection of Jesus.

A crucifix is among the oldest products of Christian imagination and reminds us that God would rather die himself than lose us. This crucifix is designed to be carried into worship in procession. I call it Crucifix Passionis (Cross of Suffering) and it differs from a traditional crucifix in several ways:

Most significantly, Jesus is not depicted as dead, but as dying. Jesus holds his head erect, and fixes his gaze on the viewer. This is done to shift the emphasis away from the sacrificial aspect of the death of our Lord onto the present reality of Christ’s presence with us in our suffering. In this carving, Jesus is not slumped over in death, but strains away from the cross. There is no spear wound in his side, as that happened after Jesus was already dead.

Traditional crucifixes frequently show Jesus as frail and emaciated. Here, he is strong and well-muscled. This is done in part to more accurately represent the physique of a carpenter, but primarily to communicate that the death of Jesus is not an indication of God’s impotence, but rather of divine strength. His hair is pulled back into a pony tail, a practice sometimes employed by long-haired carpenters to this day. The nails do not pierce his hands, but penetrate his wrists at a point between radius and ulna, where they could more realistically support the weight of his body.

In Eastern Orthodox art, the cross is shown with two additional lines. The small horizontal line at the top represents the sign above Jesus’ head. The lower diagonal line represents a board to which Jesus’ feet would have been nailed. The slant of the board hints at Jesus twisting his body in agony. The board slants upward to Jesus’s right (the viewer’s left) to show favor for the righteous; those at Jesus’ right hand.

The position of Jesus’ feet in this crucifix uses this idea from the Eastern Orthodox cross, but reverses it. Jesus’s left foot is higher, as “God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us”. (Romans 5:8 NRSV)

Christ, the Firstborn of the Dead (below) is a visual representation of the comparison and contrast of Adam and Jesus. “In fact, Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died. For since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human being. For as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ.” (1 Corinthians 15:20-22)

Jesus is shown bare since he is newly born from the dead and is the new Adam. He stands out starkly from the predawn gloom of the scene as he is the light which darkness cannot overcome (John 1:5). Finally, Jesus steps on a sword, a Roman “gladius,” to show that he overcomes the power of the Roman Empire, the grip of every earthly authority, and even the power of death itself.

Lutheran Art for Easter