Kavod! The Weight of Glory

St. John’s description of the crucifixion of our Lord is dramatically paralleled in the Flemish painter Peter Paul Ruben’s The Elevation of the Cross, a triptych completed between 1610-1611 (Rubens did a second version in 1638). Let’s focus on the central panel. A confused mass of kinetic energy is on display as at least nine men conglomerate into a struggling tangle of limbs and torsos as they fight to raise Jesus and the lumber of the cross. It is a profoundly dramatic, if doubtful, scene. Doubtful because Christ is impossibly heavy. The variety of figures attempting to raise him—from some thickly-roped with muscle like circus strongmen, to soldiers, to elderly men in varying dress—suggest that additional recruits had to be conscripted impromptu from the watching crowd to help those originally tasked with the job. On this point, Rubens’ is taken to be gesturing to the culpability that all humanity shares in the death of Christ. You. And me. And even my daughter making breakfast in the next room.