Fr Robert Hendrickson

Dear Friends in Christ,

I’ve never liked most artistic renderings of the Resurrection.

Good Friday is portrayed in so many evocative, poignant, powerful ways. Its drama and tragedy are at the center of so much breathtaking art.

I can’t say the same for the Resurrection.

I think, maybe, this is because humans are much better at capturing what we’ve seen than what we might yet see. We know what grief looks like. We know what death looks like. That’s the human experience.

We can pour all of that into art that takes us right back to the brink of the familiar darknesses.

Resurrection is harder though. We don’t know it in the same way do we? We don’t have a lived experience of such a thing.

The truth is though, that for the world, we are the living living experience of the Resurrection. The faithful joy and determined hope of each and every Christian is our testimony. We illustrate by how we live what the Resurrection means.

The Resurrection is an unfolding reality as much as it is one decisive event. It is an event that set into motion a new reality. We’re still struggling to paint that new reality. We’re still trying to find the ways we might render the light of the empty tomb more vividly for a world that seems addicted to the darkness.

But here’s the truth. Our lives get to be depictions of the Resurrection. It is not something that once happened that we might recall or capture. It is the living, breathing hope of each Christian.

Our lives will be the most vivid illustration of that unfolding hope that anyone might find. 

May we live that hope vividly as we paint the Resurrection boldly.

Yours in Resurrection Hope,

—Fr Robert