Jesus is Placed in the Tomb

MATTHEW 27:57-60
As evening approached, there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, who had himself become a disciple of Jesus. Going to Pilate, he asked for Jesus’ body, and Pilate ordered that it be given to him. Joseph took the body, wrapped it in a clean linen cloth, and placed it in his own new tomb that he had cut out of the rock. He rolled a big stone in front of the entrance to the tomb and went away.

From Station 14, by Jess Hall

“W/Tomb” - Acrylic on canvas

Artist Statement: 

While in the tomb, the body of Christ occupies a liminal space. His life force has been unmade by death, and yet by the power of God it is being made again in preparation for his resurrection on Easter Sunday. In this sense, the tomb echoes the womb of incarnation, as Jesus’ body awaits birth/re-birth by lifegiving power. 

I wanted to include a component of God’s grief in my work over the broken and dead Son. A female form hunches over in the foetal position even as creative power is active in her womb, for at the death of Jesus I believe grief and joyous anticipation existed in the Godhead simultaneously. Three gold swirls in the womb represent trinitarian presence. A root tendril texture can be seen reaching out from the female form, as if the cosmologically restorative work which Christ’s resurrection will make possible is already slowly seeping through the earth. I painted the female body with my fingers, for I too participate spiritually in this scene. My sin buried Jesus, but mine are also the hands that paw in the dirt, rushing ahead, looking for resurrection Sunday.