Article March 25, 2013 Issue

365 days of Easter

Robin Hoagland

At the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, there’s an Easter every day.

In one gallery hangs a painting by Eugène Burnand known as “Peter and John Running to the Tomb” (Full title: “The Disciples Peter and John Running to the Sepulchre on the Morning of the Resurrection”). Against a backdrop of the soft yellows and purples of morning light, the faces of these two disciples are full of anxious hope, disbelief, hesitant anticipation, and the stirrings of resurrected joy as they hurry to the sepulchre. They’re responding to the astonishing news from Mary Magdalene that their Master has risen, as he had promised he would (see John 20:1–10).

To see this masterpiece—even through an image on the Internet—is to be caught up in the moment, to feel the power of the Christ pulling us from a place of mental darkness into the dawning confidence that “with God all things are possible” (Mark 10:27). And while we know how this central story of Christianity ends—not with crucifixion but with resurrection—these two disciples haven’t yet witnessed it, and they don’t seem quite as certain about it as they soon will.