The Symbolism of Epiphany’s Lenten Paintings

 

The serpent is lively and colorful. But God has pronounced a curse upon him — “I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head and you will strike his heel” (Gen 3:15).

The color of the sky is reminiscent of the sky color around the Good Shepherd stained glass window. 

The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil is purposefully shaped like a cross. The proper preface for communion for the season of Lent upon which these paintings were created: “… who brought the gift of salvation to all people by his death on the tree of the cross, so that the devil, who overcame us by a tree would in turn by a tree be overcome.”

Adam has returned to the scene of the crime. He is repentant, looking at the bitten fruit.

Adam is clothed with the skin of an animal. With his sin, Adam has brought death into the world. The first to experience death is the animal God killed to cover Adam’s nakedness and replace the fig leaves Adam had previously used.

Only Adam is portrayed in this scene from Eden, so that there is a contrast between Adam and Jesus, who is called the second Adam (1 Cor 15:45).

The peacock is the bird of paradise in ancient art. He is also called the bird of pride. Pride was the sin of both Satan and Adam, thinking they knew better than God.

 

The sky turned dark while Jesus hung on the cross. Now that He has died, the sky is returning to is afternoon yellow.

INRI — Latin letters for the sign that hung over Jesus’ head in Greek, Aramaic and Latin: “Jesus, the King of the Jews.”

The cross is cut from a tree. Jesus fulfills the prophecy: “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree” (Gal 3:13). The cross is purposefully set at the opposite angle of the Tree in Eden. The devil beat humanity on a tree, but Jesus defeated the devil on the tree of the cross.

“For as in Adam all die, so in Christ [the second Adam] all will be made alive” (1 Cor 15:22). Jesus is the second Adam. Adam is portrayed in the Eden painting as having already fallen into sin. Jesus is portrayed in the Calvary painting as already died. His eyes are closed and the spear has pierced His side.

The borrowed tomb where Jesus will be placed is in the background. In the Easter painting, the scene will be reversed with the open tomb in the foreground and the empty cross on Golgatha’s hill in the background.

The serpent is pale and colorless. He has been crushed under the heel of the woman’s offspring—Jesus Christ. But the serpent has struck Christ’s heel. If you look closely, there are two fang marks on His heel.

The raven is a bird of death. The peacock is in a place of beauty that brought death to all people The raven is in a place of death that brought life to all people. He is picking at the dead snake.