On the wall in our living room hangs a giclee of Eugene Burnand’s “Peter and John Running to the Tomb.” We treasure this picture for its simplicity and its complexity. I remember when I first saw this painting hanging over the mantle in my wife’s grandmother’s home. With little ones racing about with squeals of delight I stood with my hands clasped behind my back, staring at the scene. I was filled with wonder at the thought of racing with them to see the risen Christ. As I stared further I saw the differences in their hands, their eyes, their robes, their positions. John’s anticipation of faith contrasts with Peter’s apprehension of guilt. John had remained true to Christ through the end. Peter had denied Christ and fled in bitter tears. Yet both run to the risen Christ that Sunday morning. I appreciate this painting on different levels and find it to be an excellent object lesson for a Gospel conversation. It is immediately understood and increasingly appreciated. In this it also serves as an example of Scripture.
Someone once wrote of the Gospel of John, “It is safe enough for a child to wade and deep enough for a grown man to drown.” I feel this way about the whole of Scripture. God has given us a clear word and a deep word. When I stare at the text I know what it says, I sense what it means. The Spirit inspires the text from without and illumines the text from within. But there’s more. There are more riches than what lie on the surface. Created in God’s image, I am called to a noble, mighty even royal task… to search out the riches of God’s mysteries. It is the glory of God to conceal a matter, But the glory of kings is to search out a matter (Proverbs 25:2). Okay… I’m game. I’m hooked. I can’t stay away. I can’t get enough of the truths of Christ concealed and revealed in the Bible. Yet I am always satiated by the wisdom unearthed (Job 28:12-28), as if an entire Thanksgiving meal for twelve is set before me. When I stare at the text, I often shake my head and say under my breath, “It’s too much… too much!”
