I painted this as part of an artists’ collaboration on depicting the Stations of the Cross, and I chose to paint Jesus meeting the women of Jerusalem because I was already praying with and painting Mary Magdalene’s journey with Jesus for Lent. What a profound gift this painting has been to me.
Mary Magdalene’s relationship with Jesus has been a source of a lot of prayer for several Lents and Easters now for me. One aspect of it in particular that the Lord really met me in as I painted this is that she had to say goodbye. This man saved her from her darkest, most horrific circumstance when he delivered her from seven demons, and after that she stayed with him. He had seen not only the ugliness of the work of the demons in her life, but also her. He saw her heart and he loved her. He loved her like no one else could, at a time that she surely felt despicable. Her love for and attachment to him are palpable as she is one of the few who stay with him at his darkest hour and then needs to be at his tomb after he has died. What a special bond they had. So the fact that she has to let him go—both in the crucifixion, and in the resurrection when he has to return to his father—is excruciating. How can “love never fails” be true when of all people, the one who has loved you like no one else has, dies or leaves?
But this Lent the Holy Spirit has really been emphasizing for me that even in these moments of apparent separation, love does not fail.
This theme resurfaced for me in a time that I’m having to let go of someone I love very much, someone who has loved me like that and shown me who Jesus is. But as I’ve painted this, there’s been such a sense of Jesus’ pain in response to these women’s pain at losing him. John says of Jesus at the time of Lazarus’ death, “At the sight of her tears, and those of the Jews who followed her, Jesus said in great distress, with a sigh that came straight from the heart, ‘Where have you put him?’ They said, ‘Lord, come and see.’ Jesus wept; and the Jews said, ‘See how much he loved him!’” The women who meet him in his passion are weeping for him, and surely he has the same reaction to them now. As I painted, I was praying about what Jesus’ face would be saying, and this is what came. These women meet him with bloodshot eyes, flaming red cheeks, desperate love in their eyes as they face the one who has most loved them and share what feels like their final moment together. How helpless they are in this moment of profound loss. And he looks at them in agony at their agony. This is not the look of someone who forgets about you or whose love for you can fade. This is the look of someone who carries these women deep in his heart, who cares about them with all he’s got. That is a love that cannot end. That is a bond that will continue through the moments they can’t see each other anymore. He’s going to take their love for him and his love for them so particularly into his passion, into the resurrection, into his return home.
He leaves, but not only do they still have him in their hearts through the Holy Spirit, but they can know from the love in this moment of letting him go that he will never, never stop loving them.
