What is the Easter story?
For the last two years in the weeks before Easter we’ve told the Easter story by placing modern art paintings in pubs, shops and cafes. People are genuinely provoked and intrigued by the paintings which show the events of Easter set in modern London. Sometimes people also ask, “What is the Easter story? What does it mean?”
It’s a great question. We’re happy to tell the story here…
There are fifteen Easter paintings. Each work reflects a specific moment in the trial, condemnation, humiliation, torture and crucifixion of Jesus. This story of Jesus bearing terrible suffering and pain – abandoned by friends and supporters – lies at the heart of the Christian message of love and renewal. The very worst of human culture is faced by Jesus. He encounters human meanness, hatred, violence, pain, degredadation and murderous obsession. He meets these most terrible things with tenderness, endurance and forgiveness knowing that love is the dynamic, creative and divine centre of human life. It is a remarkable story, resulting in his death. It then reports his transformation. It is the greatest story ever told.
Jesus lived two thousand years ago. Around the age of 30 he began a preaching initiative in a mission that declared the God of the Jewish faith tradition to be fully active in daily life, offering all people friendship, security and full human community. This message excited and grasped many ordinary people, but these beautiful proclamations of Jesus antagonised the religious and secular authorities. Jesus went to Jerusalem declaring that the Kingdom of Heaven – an immediate opportunity of right, loving relationships for humans and the world offered simply by God – was active and straightway available for people. He was arrested and tried. This is where the story begins.
1. Jesus is sentenced
Jesus is given two trials. The first court is held by the religious authorities. They accuse Jesus of disobeying the traditions of the Hebrew Bible, and of making blasphemous claims about himself and the offer of God in openly declaring the arrival of the Kingdom of Heaven. This religious court has no authority to pronounce a death sentence, so they send Jesus to the Roman Governor of Judea. The Roman Governor sentences Jesus to death by crucifixion. The religious authorities are satisfied.
2. Jesus takes his cross
Paintings of Jesus receiving his cross show that Jesus, in the midst of hatred and ignorance, quietly and confidently accepts this terrible suffering and degradation from the religious and civil authorities. Those condemning and rejecting him have no inkling that the suffering of Jesus is God’s way of fully dealing with the grip of evil that so terribly diminishes humanity in the world. The authorities assume they have disposed of a troublemaker.
3. Jesus falls
Art works showing The Stations of the Cross depict Jesus falling three times on his way to crucifixion. He has been whipped before setting out for execution . Soldiers place a crown of thorns on his head, and mock him. Walking through the streets each prisoners carries a heavy wooden cross. Jesus falls.
4. Jesus meets his mother
The journey described in The Stations of the Cross follows the route taken by Jesus to execution. Starting at the Roman headquarters in central Jerusalem it ends on a hill outside the city called Golgotha. In the years after Jesus’s death the route was followed by pilgrims visiting Jerusalem. Tradition says that Jesus’s mother, Mary, met him as he travelled to his death, afterwards placing stone markers on the route.
5. Simon of Cyrene
The Bible accounts describe Jesus as unable to carry the wooden cross any further through the streets. The soldiers notice a man who is returning to Jerusalem from the countryside. As this man passes they detain him and force him to carry the cross of Jesus. The stranger picks up the cross and carries it behind the beaten Jesus. His name is Simon of Cyrene.
6. Veronica wipes Jesus’s face
No-one knows who Veronica is. As Jesus journeys through the streets to his execution accompanied by soldiers, Veronica wipes Jesus’s face with a cloth. It is a moment of love and tenderness in the middle of brutality. She is remembered today in this tradition for her pity and kindness.
7. Jesus falls again
Tradition says Jesus falls three times. He has been tortured. His closest supporters have abandoned him.
8. The women of Jerusalem weep
The Bible describes how a crowd follows the execution procession. Women weep in the crowd. They cry for the terrible violence and hatred of the world directed towards the innocent, kind and inspirational man before them. Their tears speak to us today. Violence and hatred in the world is still witnessed by women, who continue to hold together families and communities in the midst of terrible sorrow and suffering.
9. Jesus falls again
Jesus falls for a third time. All sorts of people, including the humble and poor, had responded to his message. After his death people came to understand that the God of the Hebrew scriptures and tradition was fully present in Jesus. Abandoned and derided Jesus stumbles through the streets of Jerusalem towards a most painful death.
10. Jesus is stripped
When they arrive at a hill outside the city called Golgotha the soldiers strip Jesus of his clothing. They cast lots between them to see which soldier will take his clothes. A drink of wine mixed with gall, commonly offered to criminals to ease suffering during crucifixion, is presented to Jesus but he refuses to drink it.
11. Jesus is nailed to a cross
Crucifixion was a form of execution used by the Roman authorities for pirates and political disruptors. It is inhuman. The soldiers nail through the hands and feet of Jesus, pinning him to a wooden cross. Next to Jesus they also nail two convicted criminals to other crosses.
12. Jesus is crucified
The crosses are erected so that they stand up. Above the observers, Jesus hangs from his cross, pinned by the nails. This type of execution was intended by the authorities to be the most shameful, degrading and painful death imaginable. No-one expected or could imagine that through these moments of suffering the creative, loving God of the world would be fully revealed for all humans, across all time. This is the Christian message.
13. Pieta
Jesus’s mother stands by the crucifixion cross, watching her son die. Soldiers managing the crucifixion push a spear into Jesus’s body to confirm that he is dead. Pieta is a painting / sculpture in which Mary, Jesus’s mother, is shown in the grief and sorrow of loss holding her dead son’s body.
14. Jesus is entombed
A prominent citizen of the city called Joseph goes to the Roman Governor of Jerusalem and asks for the dead body of Jesus for a burial. The Governor grants the request and the mutilated body of Jesus is taken to a garden with caves. Jesus is buried in a tomb, wrapped in cloths. The grave is closed with a large rock.
15. Emmaus
Jesus’s followers thought the story was over. They think the proclamation of the Kingdom of Heaven made by Jesus has ended in failure. But they are surprised beyond their every expectation. Instead of failure, they are astonished as they begin to experience a complete transformation of their understanding of what Jesus was doing in his life. They discovered that in Jesus’s death they remained intimately close to both Jesus and the divine love that Jesus served – closer than when they had worked alongside him. This new experience is new life to them. A new offer. They come to understand that God was working supremely in the life of Jesus to destroy death and to transform the world. The Bible gives accounts of the differing ways in which Jesus’s friends experience and understand this mystery. These experiences, reflections and new unexpected confidences in divine goodness and a continuing, transformative life of Jesus carry them into travelling, organising and serving people. They come to understand that the God of the Hebrew Bible, beyond all expectations, had lived a full human life in Jesus. They discover that when Jesus humbly accepted a most cruel death the Hebrew God was making a resurrection offer for the whole world. God transforms evil and death, and breaks its power over humans through Jesus. The world is changed for ever, opening it wide to creative love and compassion. This is the meaning of the name Jesus Christ. This supreme love triumphs over the pain and diminishment of the world. It is the story of the founding of the church and churches. The story and offer is alive today, for everybody.
DISCOVER MORE
- Find details and locations of the 15 paintings of The West London Station of the Cross in pubs, cafes and shops across mid-Wales this Easter: MODERN EASTER PAINTINGS IN POWYS SHOPS, CAFES & PUBS
- Read about the Christian story in Wales, the earliest recorded Welsh Christian martyrs and the relevance of the story today: EASTER IN WALES. WHAT HAPPENED?
- Discover a book that tells the story of how the church has understood Easter over two thousand years of history: PESRSPECTIVES ON THE PASSION
- Read detailed descriptions about each of Mark Cazalet’s Easter paintings here: WEST LONDON STATIONS OF THE CROSS
