The Body of the Christ in the tomb.

This painting by Hans Holbein the Younger will prompt any devout believer to question their faith and any non-believer to believe in absolute miracles. The absolute miracle may not be believing in fairies, but it lies in the deeper understanding of the extent to which human nature can go to have faith in miracles. The Dead body of Christ in the tomb would have been a lot worse to have witnessed in person than what Hans Holbein had depicted. The gaunt figure with its ribs exposed and the wounds green and molten must have been a sight that was tormenting. Yet, the people who witnessed it believed that the Body of Christ had indeed been resurrected. After seeing this painting, a non-believer who tries to see beyond rationalism and the material world will wonder or question the condition of human nature to believe in something so profound and yet unexplainable without sounding illogical, and that too for generations. This understanding is what makes a non-believer believe in miracles. And for the believers, the blinding realness of a corpse inside a tomb makes them question whether Christ has ever been resurrected at all or whether He is lying inside this painting.

An extract from the novel “The Idiot” by Fyodor Dostoevsky about this painting;

“This blind, dumb, implacable, eternal, unreasoning force is well shown in the picture, and the absolute subordination of all men and things to it is so well expressed that the idea unconsciously arises in the mind of anyone who looks at it. All those faithful people who were gazing at the cross and its mutilated occupant must have suffered agony of mind that evening, for they must have felt that all their hopes and almost all their faith had been shattered at a blow. They must have separated in terror and dread that night, though each perhaps carried away with him one great thought which was never eradicated from his mind for ever afterwards. If this great Teacher of theirs could have seen Himself after the Crucifixion, how could He have consented to mount the Cross and to die as He did? This thought also comes into the mind of the man who gazes at this picture.”

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