The Holy Week faculty reflection today comes from Roger Wedell, Program Director for Financial Well-Being Grant “Lema Sabachthani” – the anguished cry from the cross. American artist Barnett Newman startled the art world and many Christians when he exhibited his “Fourteen Stations of the Cross”. The phrase “lema sabachthani” is a sub-title for the series of 14 canvases. Newman wrote: “Lema Sabachthani – why? Why did you forsake me? Why forsake me? To what purpose? Why? This is the Passion. This outcry of Jesus. … the question that has no answer.” The paintings can be seen on the National Gallery of Art website – nga.gov. These human scale canvases (each 78” x 60”), viewed together, do not recall specific events so much as the compressed impact of many, disparate events – past and present. Using only raw canvas, white and black paint, Newman draws the viewer into the experience of emptiness, abandonment. We have the ease of knowing that Resurrection will come; but, in the now of our lives, in this Lenten Season, in the midst of this Holy Week, our pulse quickens at the unanswered and unanswerable question – why?
Posted on: Wed, 16 Apr 2014 19:00:00 +0000
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