Then Jesus went with them to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to his disciples, “Sit here while I go over there and pray.” He took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee and began to be grieved and agitated. Then he said to them, “My soul is deeply grieved, even to death; remain here, and stay awake with me.” And going a little farther, he threw himself on the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me, yet not what I want but what you want.”
—Matthew 26:36–39
LOOK: Gethsemane by Carola Faller-Barris
In this artwork, the contemporary German artist Carola Faller-Barris has collaged to paper a photo cutout of a traditionally sculpted corpus of Christ from a crucifix, orienting him sideways as if he’s lying on the ground, his arms outstretched to the heavens. But he’s tangled in twine, representing the sin, hate, misunderstanding, and betrayal that have felled him, or else the oppressiveness of death, cutting holes through his hands and feet and restricting his movement. The words of the psalmist could be his:
The cords of death encompassed me;
the torrents of perdition assailed me;
the cords of Sheol entangled me;
the snares of death confronted me. (Ps. 18:4–5)
Just prior to Gethsemane, Jesus had washed the feet of his disciples, signaled by the water bowl and draped cloth to his left. This action embodied his ethic of humble service and love. But one of the Twelve whom he washed betrayed him into the hands of his enemies. The blood-red color of the bowl is striking in this work that is otherwise just beige and gray, drawing our focus to the messianic model that God’s people, in demanding the crucifixion of the one God had sent (or abandoning him in his final hours), by and large rejected.
Christ is isolated in this work; no other figures are present, emphasizing the aloneness Christ felt in Gethsemane and on the cross. There’s not even a background—just a void that suggests the indeterminate space between life and death. By using Christ’s crucified form but titling the work Gethsemane, Faller-Barris collapses together Christ’s prayer on the Mount of Olives and his prayers at Calvary, both of which express an admixture of agony and surrender.
LISTEN: “In Passione positus Iesus” from De Passione D.N. Iesu Christi by Francisco Guerrero, 1555 | Performed by the Gesualdo Six, dir. Owain Park, 2021
In passione positus Jesus, cum pro nobis oblatus est,
tremens ait: tristis est anima mea usque ad mortem vigilate mecum.
Et factus est in agonia orabat dicens:
Pater mi, si possibile est, transeat a me calix iste
et clamans in cruce dicens:Deus, Deus meus ut quid dereliquisti me in manus tuas Domine
commendo Spiritum meum consummatum est.English translation:
In his Passion, Jesus, when sacrificed for us,
cried out, trembling: “My soul is sad unto death.
Watch with me.” And in his agony, pleading, he said:
“My Father, if it is possible, take this cup from me.”“My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
Into thy hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit. It is finished.”
This sacred motet for five voices is by the Spanish Renaissance composer Francisco Guerrero. Written for Passiontide (the final two weeks of Lent), it quotes some of Jesus’s words from the garden of Gethsemane the night of his arrest, and then three of his seven sayings from the cross. Download the sheet music here.
Art & Theology 