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Sermon April 9, 2006 |
A Sermon Preached at
by the Rev. Cork Tarplee
There’s an old legend about Leonardo DaVinci and his famous painting of the Last Supper. It is said that Leonardo liked to find models to “cast” as the “actors” in his paintings, so to speak, and then to paint them from life. The story goes that he began the famous painting with the face of Jesus. To sit as his model for Jesus he asked a 19-year-old boy he stumbled upon in the streets one day. The youth’s face, Leonardo felt, held just the combination of gentleness, vulnerability and nobility he was looking for in Jesus. When the face of Jesus was finished, Leonardo went on to the twelve other figures in the painting: first finding just the right model and then painstakingly getting the features just right. It was years later—seven long years later, to be exact—when the artist finally had just one face left to portray: the face of Judas, the betrayer. Leonardo scoured the town and countryside looking for a face that reflected cold brutality, arrogance and greed. Finally, the legend goes, he found the face he was looking for in the city jail. So he had the man brought to his studio in chains and completed the sinister portrait of Judas. When finally he finished painting the betrayer, he had the jailers come to drag the model back to prison Before he was led away, they say, the model fell upon Leonardo, weeping and said, “Maestro, do you not recognize me?” Leonardo looked, but could find nothing familiar in the man’s features. “Maestro,” said the model, “Don’t you know me? I am your Christ—the same man you painted seven years ago, Jesus, there in the center of your picture.”
Like a lot of legends, the story is probably not literally true, but we all know it is true in a deeper sense. It asks us to examine the story of the crucifixion and to cast ourselves in that story with open hearts. Today, ordinary men and women of the congregation have taken all the roles in the story of the crucifixion. The one who read the part of Judas today could just as easily read the part of Jesus next year. All the parts are interchangeable for all of us. Today we may remind ourselves of Jesus, tomorrow we may remind ourselves of Judas.
Each of us has within ourselves the capacity to surprise ourselves, both with our gentleness, vulnerability and nobility and also with our cold brutality, arrogance and greed. In those moments in our lives when we feel closest to Jesus, the story of the crucifixion is a confrontation, a judgment that brings us up short. It reminds us of the depths of which we are all capable. In those moments in our lives when we are convinced that there is no health in us, the story of the crucifixion is salvation. It reminds us that Jesus gave up his life because he loved the very people who were willing to cry out, “Crucify him!” It reminds us that no ugliness in us can ever separate us from the love of God.
And one thing more: the story of the
crucifixion reminds us that lurking within each of us is the possibility to be
better, to be more like Jesus than we think
possible. His life takes hold within us
and we can surprise ourselves with the gentleness, vulnerability and nobleness
of which we are capable. For Leonardo’s
Judas, as for all of us, life may distort who we really are. But for each of us, as for Leonardo’s Judas,
at heart the face that is most authentic is the face of Christ.
AMEN