Art to Heart Baptism^*

Gian Girolamo Savoldo: St. Mary Magdalene Approaching the Sepulchre

©2002 by Jeff Dugan

Early on the third day, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb, and found it empty.  This is Gian Girolamo Savoldo’s (pronounced zhahn zheerohlahmoh Savoldo) depiction of a moment from that story.  Fearing the body has been stolen, she may have been weeping when she hears something, and looks up to see what has interrupted her solitude.

 Up to this point, the painting is a fairly straightforward illustration of a Bible story.  But there’s something wrong here, even though it takes some looking to find it.  The inconsistency is at the left edge of the painting, at the horizon.  Looking there, we see the glow of the sunrise in the east.  And of course the sun should rise in the east, but what should not happen is the flood of bright, white light that strikes Mary’s shimmering robe from the right.

Savoldo knows enough about painting to avoid such a mistake.  And in this case, the discrepancy is not a mistake at all.  The light that shines upon Mary more intensely than the sun is meant to announce the presence of the risen, glorified Messiah.  The moment shown here may be the moment when He calls her by name, and she recognizes her Lord.

But there’s something else interesting that Savoldo has done with Mary’s glance.  When you view the painting hanging on a wall, it’s impossible to escape the realization that Mary is glancing directly at the spot occupied by the viewer.  Then you realize that Savoldo has issued you a challenge.  He implicitly asks you whether Jesus so fully inhabits your life that someone would see Him in you, and hear in your witness a call as powerful and important as if the Creator of the universe had called them by name.

Answering Savoldo’s challenge begins with the submission to Christ that we commemorate in the ceremony of baptism.  Today we revisit that miraculous new dawn, to witness a life (or lives) rescued from the clutches of death to the promise of eternal life – a new creation (or new creations) through which the light of Christ will shine as a brilliant beacon to those who seek Him.