20 July 2025

Our younger son lives and works in Leeds. Whenever we visit, we always go to the Art Gallery. Its tiled café is a wonder. The craft shop underneath always has some tempting art work and the city’s collection of art is certainly  worth visiting.

In the main hall, there is a painting by Holman Hunt called ‘The Shadow of Death’. A youthful Christ looks as if he is dancing in the carpenter’s shop. There are wood-shavings on the floor and carpenter’s tools on the wall.

Mary is kneeling down. She has opened a highly decorated kist. Her attention is caught by a shadow on the wall. It’s the shadow of the youthful Christ with his arms outstretched in dance! And it looks like a man on a cross!

The youthful Christ doesn’t see the shadow of death on the wall but Mary, His mother, does. And inside the half-opened kist, we see a crown! It isn’t a crown of thorns as one would expect but a crown of glory!

This is the intrinsic shape of the gospel manifested in the life of Christ and his Kirk. Afterall, he talks about the cross as his ‘hour of glory’ and paints a picture of a seed having to fall into the ground and die before it bears much fruit.

His teaching is all about dying to self and living for others. It’s not a ministry for celebrities for it is a ministry lived in the shadows. ‘Ye though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,’ sings the Psalmist, ‘I will fear no evil for thou art with me.’