"It is Finished"

"It is Finished"


A little over a year ago as we were approaching Easter, I started having the feeling that I wanted to paint a picture of the Garden Tomb, where Christ was buried. I don't know what prompted the idea, but I felt a great interest in the site and what it might have looked like while Christ lived.

As I researched the area and looked on line to find the oldest picture of it I could, before all the renovations were made to bring it up to the standards of a fine tourist attraction, with all the added hand rails and beautifully potter flowers every where. Much of the surrounding area had been built up and repaired with stones to make it a more enveloped and secured area for people to gather and to protect it from those who's intent was to destroy or defame it.  Many of the paintings I had seen were of this modern new place.

That is not what I wanted. I wanted to be able to look at my painting as if I were the only one there and had just arrived after Christ had risen and be able to feel his presence there with me as I pondered the great event of the resurrection of Jesus Christ my Redeemer, who suffered in Gethsemane and died on the cross for me, and for my sins. I wanted to give thanks as I reflected on this merciful gesture that would enable me to be forgiven and through His mercy be allowed to return to live once again with my Heavenly Father and my Savior.

Once I felt I had the vision of what I wanted the painting to represent, I began the process of drawing the picture with the symbolism I wanted in it, that would make it more meaningful to me and for those whom I would be sharing it with.

I put in red flowers, representing the blood that was spilled in Gethsemane because of your and my sins; purple flowers that represented His royalty, a Son of His Father who lives in Heaven; Pink Geraniums, my favorite color of flowers, in an earthen clay pot formed and envisioned by man, representing you and I being formed and shaped through His forgiveness allowing us to become like Him and  as He has asked us to, in Mathew 5:48  "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.".  And last the Easter Lily, a modern reminder of the living Christ and our Father which is in Heaven.

I titled the picture "It is Finished."  It was the final act that Christ needed to perform to complete what the father had asked him to do.

I am not a seasoned water colorist, and was very apprehensive when I started the painting. I though if I started on the right, where there is very little interest, if I were to make an error I could more easily fix or repair it without it being so noticeable. I began and immediately was disappointed with what I had done. I quickly ran in and washed the paint off, scrubbing as I went. And naturally it is almost impossible to wash all the paint out. I sat and stared at my painting almost in tears.I had taken such care to get to this point and felt I had ruined it practically before I started. As I stared at the mess, as I thought it was, I noticed colors fading and washing in together and before my eyes I began to see the face of Christ forming right before my eyes on my paper.

And as I stared, I was overcome with the spirit of the Lord and the reassurance that Christ really does 'fix' our mistakes. Now when I stare at my painting, I can thank the Lord for the tender mercy he gave to me that night as I began my painting, and that he gives me every day as I walk with Him through this life.

"It is Finished"

                                                                               by

Deborah Parr