after a few days of watching this sit, i don't know why i feel the need to couch this one in context. when i first saw this image, i was offended for a moment and then was gripped by this sense of a hope for redemption- and what else is the incarnation but this very idea, of christ loving the shittiness of this world enough to hope for it- towards a de-shitizing... or something like that. anyhow, this image has really impacted me this week.
Yeah, I see what you mean. Statues and images of Christ like this one seem far removed from the Christ of scripture. This is the Christ of religion, of legend of pomposity and self-righteousness. The graffiti almost evokes the scriptural jesus from the shell of the religious one. For some reason, this image reminds me of "Silence", the novel by Japanese author, Shusaku Endo, in which a Jesuit missionary is betrayed many times by one of his converts only to be prompted by God to absolve the betrayer again and again. At the end of the novel the missionary must tread on an icon of Christ in order to recant and save the small group of Christians he has been serving. In a moment of epiphany (mind you, not necessarily Biblical) he sees the icon telling him to tread on it - as if Christ himself longs to be defaced again and again for the salvation of his people. The Jesuit, himself mirrors Christ in the novel by giving up his own right for salvation in order to save others from torture and death - even the man who has betrayed him three times.
2 comments:
after a few days of watching this sit, i don't know why i feel the need to couch this one in context. when i first saw this image, i was offended for a moment and then was gripped by this sense of a hope for redemption- and what else is the incarnation but this very idea, of christ loving the shittiness of this world enough to hope for it- towards a de-shitizing... or something like that. anyhow, this image has really impacted me this week.
Yeah, I see what you mean. Statues and images of Christ like this one seem far removed from the Christ of scripture. This is the Christ of religion, of legend of pomposity and self-righteousness. The graffiti almost evokes the scriptural jesus from the shell of the religious one.
For some reason, this image reminds me of "Silence", the novel by Japanese author, Shusaku Endo, in which a Jesuit missionary is betrayed many times by one of his converts only to be prompted by God to absolve the betrayer again and again. At the end of the novel the missionary must tread on an icon of Christ in order to recant and save the small group of Christians he has been serving. In a moment of epiphany (mind you, not necessarily Biblical) he sees the icon telling him to tread on it - as if Christ himself longs to be defaced again and again for the salvation of his people. The Jesuit, himself mirrors Christ in the novel by giving up his own right for salvation in order to save others from torture and death - even the man who has betrayed him three times.
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