Exodus

Maybe the greatest experience of art that I had last year was the exhibit at the Jewish Museum in New York City titled "Chagall: Love, War, and Exile."  I wrote about it here last November 14, but this Good Friday I am revisiting it through the book I bought at that time.
A Jew, born in Russia, Chagall ended up in the United States to escape Hitler's persecution of the Jews.  To express his concern for the Jews who were being killed in Europe he painted more than 25 pictures of the Crucifixion.  He stressed the Jewishness of Jesus and used his Crucifixion as a symbol of what was happening to the Jews in the concentration camps.  He commented, "My Christ, as I depict him, is always the type of the Jewish martyr, in pogroms and in our other troubles, and not otherwise." 
Among the many explanations of his art on the walls of the exhibit was this: "The Crucifixion images were not an expression of Christian theology. For him the cross was a symbol of persecution and oppression rather than a sign of redemption and hope."  That's a very succinct expression of what the Cross means to us.  Their were two paintings that I thought came very close to expressing redemption and hope. 
One of them is the picture (above) which Chagall titled "Exodus."  While it was not the most beautiful painting in the exhibit, it held for me the deepest meaning.  A large Christ is leading the Jewish people across the Red Sea to the Promised Land.  Moses holding the Tablets of the Commandments is almost out of the scene in the lower right hand corner.  Jesus is pictured with a halo and is surrounded by light, more as the triumphant Christ of John's Passion account rather than as the suffering Christ of Matthew's Passion. 
We Christians use the Exodus as a prototype of Jesus leading us out of slavery to sin into the promised land of new life.  Redemption and hope.