Living With Trauma: The Healers 3

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1f/Leonardo_da_Vinci_or_Boltraffio_%28attrib%29_Salvator_Mundi_circa_1500.jpg Gentle Reader, if you click on the above link then you will catch a glimpse of the long-lost Da Vinci (the Renaissance Italian artist, not the TV show) that just sold for a whopping $400,000,000. Sotheby`s, the fabled auctioneers, get an extra $50,000,000 on top of that. Now if you have ever wondered where all the money has gone that we need desperately to eliminate poverty and bolster our social infrastructures, then that should give you a clue. I find this painting rather intriguing. Among other things, this representation of Christ could easily be a male twin sibling to the Mona Lisa. This type of face seems to figure in many of Da Vinci's paintings. It has been posited that the great artist was simply super-imposing his own self-portrait, which in these cases would have him morph as Jesus in one portrait and a young woman in another. Jesus in this painting looks not in the least like the man of sorrows, rather like a Florentine dandy, expensively and fashionably dressed according to the norms of the early Sixteenth Century, with his hair recently permed. He is holding in one hand a crystal orb, likely a rather costly piece, and his other hand is raised in benediction, but if you look carefully, it seems as though he has his fingers crossed. Salvator Mundi. Saviour of the World. But this depiction of Christ bears no resemblance to the carpenter's son who was ignominiously nailed to a cross as punishment for saving the world. There is nothing of the humility of Christ, neither are there the visible wounds in his hands. This is how Leonardo and his contemporaries wanted to reinvent the Saviour of the World. No nasty blood and wounds, no embarrassing humility, simply someone who reflected the values of the burghers and the aristocracy of his age, because the church had long ago bartered her sacred legacy for earthly pomp and worldly power. Purchased at four hundred million dollars. I doubt that the new owner of this piece of art that really ought to belong to all of us is going to see in this portrait the man who was born in humility, healed the sick, preached the Good News, then died in humiliation. I don't think he is going to have a restless conscience tonight, nor any night, nor is he going to harbour any nagging doubts that perhaps he has way too much money, and that the man represented in the portrait, being God made human, was himself so very poor for us. And so, this privileged individual will likely completely lose out on the work of redemption, healing and reconciliation that could make him or her one of the richest persons in the world, if they were but to abandon their riches at Jesus' command for the Pearl of Greatest Price.