Deposition

This is a weird time of year to say it, but I was thinking about it for whatever reason.

Of all the scenes of our Lord's Passion, one that has always struck me as singularly, achingly, pathetically terrible is the Deposition. It's a picture of something we've all felt, and it is so emptying and defeating: as if we haven't been through enough already. It's looking at the huge pile of dishes after Thanksgiving dinner while everyone else settles in for a nap, having to deal with insurance companies after a car accident, being told not to get comfortable after the baby is out because you have stitches coming. The feeling is realized in the extreme at the cross: the injustice incomparable and colored with pure horror and anguish rather than just fatigue and annoyance.

The world's greatest execration, and yet there's work to be done. As usual, those who undertake it are the ones who most deserve to be spared the awful burden. Even the banality of evil we see here proven great.