This past Sunday Stephen Holmgren focused our attention on “Christ Carrying the Cross,” by Hieronymus Bosch (1515).

It’s an arrestingly beautiful work, and it’s been the occasion for much reflection over the past week. An excerpt from Stephen’s sermon:

With sustained attention to the composition of the painting you will notice a significant detail. The faces of seventeen people appear in the painting, not counting Jesus nor his image on the legendary Veronica’s towel. Seventeen people who are part of the crowd, and not one of them is looking at Jesus! Not even the man with the orange hat in the left center of the painting. Though he is facing Jesus, his eyes are turned upward toward the man with whom he is apparently talking. A crowd full of agitated people, with Jesus in the middle, and not one of them is focused on him. In other words, all of them are focused on their own concerns and purposes. Though Jesus came into a world so in need of him, and into a city filled with human problems, the people around him are heedless to his significance. And yet, for them, for those who are happy to push him to his death, he will carry his cross.

See here for the entire Palm Sunday sermon, and here for his blog post.