Daily Devotion for Thursday 24th April 2025

Information

The artist Sieger Köder was born in January 1925 in Wasseralfingen, Germany. During the Second World War he was sent to France as a front line soldier where he was made a prisoner of war. Once back from captivity, Sieger Köder attended the Academy School of Art in Stuttgart until 1951. After 12 years of teaching art in a secondary school and working as an artist, Köder undertook theological studies for the priesthood and, in 1971, he was ordained a Catholic priest. From 1975 to 1995, Fr. Köder exercised his ministry as a parish priest in Hohenberg and Rosenberg and also producing wonderful art. He retired to Ellwangen, not far from Stuttgart, where he continued to paint until his death in 2015 at the age of 90.  In an interview before his death he said “People come to Ellwangen asking to see the painter. If they’re that interested in the painter they haven’t understood my paintings.”

Reading: John 20 v 1

Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb.
 
Reflection

Before it was light, before running to get the disciples, before the appearance of the risen Lord who looks like a gardener…before all those things Mary Magdalene finds the empty grave. Sieger Kode captures this moment of wonder and strangeness.

Pause to look at the picture.

You can’t help noticing Mary first – in red. The same red is a sign of hope – the roses blooming amidst the tombstones, the sky’s promise of dawn. Mary’s red might be the red of new life, given by the presence of Christ.

There is nothing to see in the grave itself – the dark space suggests a complete emptiness. Mary is kneeling –she has been looking into the grave, or she is lost in wonder. She isn’t even looking in the grave anymore – she’s looking up, shielding her eyes. Her left hand rests on the gravestone, her right hand is raised to heaven.
 
For the first in a series on ‘The risen one in art” – the risen one is not actually depicted here. But what we see is the impact of Christ’s rising on Mary, beginning with astonishment, and later growing to joy.
 
All around Mary we see other signs of what Christ’s rising means.

The writing in the bottom right hand corner “Jesus Nazarenus” looks like a Roman memorial: the Roman’s gravestone, marking the death of the one they had crucified, is thrown to one side.

The Hebrew script, cracked and broken in two, reads “science”. The former understanding of logic and science is totally re-written by the rising of Jesus Christ.

Two crosses stand to the right of the picture, still as strong as they were when they held their victims, but the third cross, to the left, now bears a garland, and looks more like a piece of art then a functional instrument of torture – it has been transformed.

Your eye might quickly see the gap in the wall, suggesting an easy escape-route from the place of death to the joy of dawn. Look again and you’ll see that the ominous skull shape in the wall has been torn in two. Death itself is dead.
 
Prayer

Christ, the risen one,
dawn on our understanding, we pray.
Show us how your living power
breaks through our barriers of understanding and explanation,
bringing the rising dawn of joy.
Life eternal, be born anew in us.
Amen.