09 April 2011

the feet that saved my life

I started writing this post about a year ago, but never got around to finishing and posting it. So here we go.

Last night I had to do an assignment for Perspectives in Fine Arts about Michelangelo's Pieta. The Pieta is a sculpture depicting Mary, the mother of Jesus, holding her son after the Crucifixion.
I was feeling pretty lazy and didn't want to go to the library to actually look through the book, so I just looked online. Much of the conversation I found had to do with the young face of Mary. She does not look to be the mother of a man who had lived for over 30 years, even if she was only 12 years old when he was born.
I thought that maybe I could just choose a photo of a front view and talk about several aspects of the sculpture. But I decided that it would be a good idea to actually look through the book.
I stood at the desk at the library and went through page by page. Nothing jumped out at me until I got to page 63: photos of Jesus' feet. I was reminded of a picture my dad took of his own feet underwater a couple summers ago. It was on his desk and I asked him why. He said that it was a reminder that he wasn't the one who walked on water.
These pictures were of marble representations of the feet that walked on water, the feet that were washed with tears and perfume, the feet that were rough and calloused from walking all day, the feet that first felt the cool night air in a cave in Bethlehem.
The sculpted feet bear the marks of our sin. Michelangelo did not neglect to show the wounds on my Savior's feet, the wounds that I caused. The wounds that meant that my feet could remain whole.
These were the beautiful feet that saved my life.

2 comments:

naswanson said...

and this is a beautiful post.

dr3am3r said...

i'm so glad that you decided to post this even if from a year ago. :)