Looking In At The Window, Peering Through The Lattice

I have just received a wonderful book in the post from Amazon : The Life of Christ by the 19th Century French painter James Tissot.
This is a complete set of 350 watercolours, illustrating the Gospels which took Tissot ten years of his life to complete and the book coincides with a major new exhibition of these works at the Brooklyn Museum New York.

I first came across Tissot's art by chance  when I was looking for images for my blog to go with Lenten Reflections and I loved the vital colours and inspirational realism of his work.


The painting below shows Jesus looking through a lattice inspired by The Song of Songs Solomon Chapter 2 Verse 9:


"See where he stands behind our wall. He looks in at the window, he peers through the lattice".

This is my reflection on these words and the painting

Love  may withdraw from our sight for a time, and yet not be far away, but behind a wall, standing, and to be ready to return.
One glimpse of Christ's Love is enough to make us seek after Him, though He may often be out of our sight, yet He is not far off, but, as it were, behind the wall; 
But it is  'our' wall, because often we build  up these separations ourselves, between Christ and ourselves that hides Christ, as a wall hides each of us from another; 
Christ never goes away, but he waits ,: There is much love on Christ's side, even in our times of saddest desertions, as when Peter the disciple he loved denied him three times.
It is sad when the wall that hides him, is of our building: There is often nothing between Him and us, but our own sin. 
Christ opens a window, and looks out, and I get a glance of his face: but never a full sight of Him. But He makes windows in the wall and gives blinks of himself . 

"He shows himself through the lattice:'  Christ can see us clearly even if we cannot make Him out clearly: yet even through the smallest hole where Christ shows himself, there is something wonderful to see: His love draws us in.

Christ communicates his love for us  through small holes in our experience and there are several degrees of these throughout our lives.

Even the smallest outline of a glimpse  is wonderful, even  if it is just to see Christ  through the lattice.

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