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No. 2, April 2005
SAVIOUR OF THE WORLD BY EL GRECO
Sister W. Beckett
Figure
1. Cristo Salvator Mundi c.1600 (oil on canvas) Greco, El
(Domenico Theotocopuli) (1541-1614)
National Gallery of Scotland,
Edinburgh,
Suplied by the Bridgeman Art Library
We can never know what Our Lord
looked like. The writers of the gospels were wholly concerned with what He
was, what He meant, not at all with how He appeared. Does it matter? Artists,
of course, had to ‘portray’ Jesus, and nearly all do it in much
the same manner: he is beautiful, majestic, a man of dignity and, often,
compassion. El Greco, it seems to me, is alone in venturing into that area
where, although Jesus ‘appears’, it is what does not appear that
is so moving. His Jesus does not come before us with a glowing halo, He is
not about the works of His earthly apostolate, (the gospel Jesus). No, this
is Jesus Saviour of the world, glimmering on the canvas as if for a sacred
moment. He emerges from a murky obscurity; the light that is His very self
(‘I am the Light of the world’) hardly contained His body: it
softly irradiated His head. He holds with one gentle hand the discoloured
globe of our sad earth, not holding it up – that is His Father’s
work – but holding it in place, gentling it, soothing down its roiling
passions. With Jesus’ hand laid upon it, our world is safe. Whatever
tempests sweep it, peace is, in the end, assured. This is what it means to be
saved: nothing can truly hurt us. This does not mean we shall not suffer, as
He Himself did. The pale face of this Saviour is unmistakably that of one who
has suffered. He has laid down His life for the ransom of many – (the
Aramaic phrase for all). It is not enough, thought, just to see that Jesus
holds the world still beneath His hand. With His other hand he both blesses
and beckons. We are not saved passively. It may be all God’s work, but
haw can He become effective in us unless we let Him? So Jesus calls us close,
calls us to enter into the radiance of His presence, with all that means of
desire and attention. He is always there, loving the world, offering Himself.
Prayer means that we too are there, letting Him save us, accepting that
transforming blessing. While He lived on earth, that transformation was
possible for those who actually saw Him, met Him, heard Him. But for our
sakes He died on the cross and – mysterious reality - rose. It is that
trans-temporal Jesus, that risen Lord, that El Greco holds before us, the
Jesus Saviour that is spiritually present to us always. This is the inward
Jesus, the Jesus whom we never see but who gives our lives their meaning.
This is not His face so much as His spirit. This is the Jesus of our prayer,
whose very presence takes us to the Father. The Jesus in whom we live.
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