Christ Rules and Reigns in Triumph

On one occasion Michelangelo turned to his fellow artists and said with frustration in his voice, “Why do you keep filling gallery after gallery with endless pictures on the one theme of Christ in weakness, Christ on the cross, and most of all, Christ hanging dead?”

He asked, “Why do you concentrate on the passing episode as if it were the last work, as if the curtain dropped down there on disaster and defeat? That dreadful scene lasted only a few hours, but to the unending eternity Christ is alive; Christ rules and reigns and triumphs!”

Michelangelo was surely right, a preoccupation with the death of Christ to the exclusion of the resurrection is inconsistent with the Scriptures. We should never think of the cross in isolation from the resurrection. We should always remember that the Lord Jesus died an atoning death, but He did not remain dead.

We serve a risen Saviour, who even now sits in His glorified state at the right hand of His Father in heaven.

Therefore also God has highly exalted Him, and bestowed upon Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow, of those who are in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Phil. 2:9-11)