The Holbein Moment

On Good Friday 2003, I happened to find myself at the Cathedral of the Advent listening to this sermon delivered by a familiar and beloved face. This was my first exposure to Paul Zahl. At the end of the sermon, a prayer was given invoking God Almighty to bring us to the Holbein moment. What did he mean by that? What is the Holbein moment?

The name of the painting above is The Body of the Dead Christ in the Tomb, by Hans Holbein the Younger. It is a terrifying depiction of death, woundedness, and rigor mortis which also serves as a metaphor for spiritual death, rebellion, defeat, and impasse. Take a good look at the painting from head to toe. Notice the lifeless mouth somewhat agape, the purple wounds, and the sagging flesh all in one chilling moment. This is God.

Now some people might be greatly offended by my posting of this painting and the graphic way I describe it. Some are even wondering about my mental health. I must remind those people of a movie they have recently seen. Probably with their children. It might have even been with a children's or youth group from church. Of course, this would be The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. What did you think about the dead, humiliated Aslan lying on the Stone Table in a lifeless heap, closely resembling the Holbein painting? The image of the dead lion was so wrenching that I could not find its picture on the internet. I had to use the picture right before his death.

What is C.S. Lewis saying in this depiction? What is Holbein saying in his depiction? What did Paul Zahl mean by "the Holbein moment?" It is the moment of understanding, as Paul said in his sermon.

Ephesians 2:1-3 And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.

We are wrathful sons of disobedience. We worship the world even as it devours and assimilates us like the Borg on Star Trek (stab at comic relief). The Source of Life and Rest is an enemy to us as we attempt to manifest self-deification.

Take another look at the Holbein painting. Look at it again from head to toe. Notice again the horror of death. This Man got up. The horror of death was defeated. Death was defeated. Remember the return of Aslan? Remember the change from lifeless heap to glorified victor? How about the risen Christ at the end of The Passion of the Christ? What did they have to endure? Do we skip over this?

Here's to the hope that you have come to the Holbein moment. If not, here's to the hope that you get there as soon as possible. When you do, gaze at the Holbein painting. Take in all of the medicine. Then, know that He got up. He got up so that you could get up through Him. He got up so that He could make you alive.

Ephesians 2:4-8 But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places, in Christ Jesus, in order that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God