The woodcut prints of Eric Gill are some of the most carefully crafted and imaginative pieces of religious art. The simplicity and contrast of black and white, dark and light make the image stark but then with a softness of line giving shape to the human body.
The presence of two young people walking behind is deeply resonant of discipleship and the wonder and curiosity that every disciple feels since those first words of Jesus to two earlier followers who asked Jesus "Where do you live?". And he said, "Come and see."
Gill made many different prints of the Passion, but this small early print has the kind of immediacy and uncomplicated appeal that is stripped down gospel. The Simon of Cyrene figure in the middle stands tallest but does not dominate; the bowed Christ under the heavy crossbeam, head radiated with cruciform light as cross is superimposed upon cross, seems nevertheless unbowed in purpose; the taller child with the staff is on a holy walk behind, and the smaller child obscures the hand of his friend; and at the exact centre of the image the hand of the Cyrenian lifting the weight from the back of Jesus.
At the start of Holy Week, this picture is a contradiction of the tradition which has us sing in the first line of the great Passion hymn, Alone Thou goest forth O Lord. And yet. There is for Jesus, the Son of the Father, an encroaching loneliness that will eventually leave him alone and isolated, not only from the support and company of other people, but cut off from the source of life itself. "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?"
The cry of dereliction is at times too painful to bear even the reading of it in the Gospel, too theologically devastating to be analysed or deconstructed. That great reverberating cry of the anguish of God will come later than the scene in Gill's print. To read Abelard's great hymn while contemplating Gill's more humane episode of the Passion, is to ponder what Paul meant; "He who knew no sin was made sin, that we might become the righteousness of God...."
1 Alone thou goest forth, O Lord,
in sacrifice to die;
is this thy sorrow naught to us
who pass unheeding by?
2 Our sins, not thine, thou bearest, Lord;
make us thy sorrow feel,
till through our pity and our shame
love answers love's appeal.
3 This is earth's darkest hour,
but thou dost light and life restore;
then let all praise be given thee
who livest evermore!
4 Give us compassion for thee, Lord,
that, as we share this hour,
thy cross may bring us to thy joy
and resurrection power.
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