The Veiled Christ

It's that time of the show where we get some real education. Now last week on Instant Classic we looked at a fascinating piece of sculpture from the 19th century, the Veiled Virgin. Today we consider the even more stunning sculpture that inspired it, the Veiled Christ by Rococo sculptor Giuseppe San Martino, completed in 1753 and housed in San Severo Chapel in Naples. Last week we took a look at the Veiled Madonna, the Veiled Mary, the statue of the Virgin Mary who had beautifully carved a marble veil over her, and we talked a lot about that. And I want to show you today the image, the sculpture that actually influenced that one. If you thought that one was interesting, take a look at this. This is Giuseppe San Martino's, the Veiled Christ. And unlike the face of Mary that we saw last time, it is the entire full-length profile of Jesus. There it is at the top. Look at that from up above. The beautiful contours of the body, all the suffering and stress that Christ suffered on the cross, all of the tension. Think about crucifixion scenes. Think about the beating and the crowning of thorns and the whipping. Think about the uncomfortable rigidity of his stance on being nailed to the cross. And look at how gentle in death the body is reposed. Look at how gorgeous that is. To be able to carve marble in such a way that you can literally see through the marble veil. If you wouldn't know better and I hadn't shown you that, I bet most of you would have said if I asked you what that was, it looks to be a marble statue or a statue of some kind covered with a cloth. Take a look at the bottom picture there. Look at the pillows. And if you go back to the first picture, Mike, look at those pillows. They look like comfy pillows, don't they? They actually look like something you'd want to lay your head on. And there are two of them piled together and they rest the head of the Christ. It really is, go back to some of the longer pictures, my favorite view, honestly, is the one from up ahead. It is, there's your shroud of Turin, isn't it? I mean, we think about the shroud of Turin and how it covered the face of Jesus, but covered the entire body. That is exactly what the shroud of Turin aspires to. If you go back to that image, that is exactly what you sort of see there, right? It's delicate. And I love the fact that there in the bottom right-hand corner, you have the crown of thorns, right? That has been taken off the head of the dead Christ and set aside. And let me just say this, every time I do something like this, people get angry with me. I get snarky letters from somebody saying, my Christ is alive, unsubscribe. So go ahead and unsubscribe. Look, in order for Christ to be resurrected, in order for Christ to save the world, he had to die for our sins. Every version of Christianity, including your really screwy, intolerant one that says, my Christ was never dead. He couldn't have risen until he was dead. I'm not saying he stayed dead. I'm not saying he was dead all the time. I'm saying that in order for Christ to resurrect from the dead and take away the sins of the world, he had to die. It is not evil or sinful to consider the dead Christ before we celebrate the risen one. And if you're too small minded to know that, you got to go watch another show, unsubscribe.