We should remember that Jesus from the dead

We should remember that Jesus from the dead (the resurrected Jesus):
Yesterday, for Christians, is the saddest day of the year, the day they crucified Jesus. Tomorrow is probably the happiest, the day he rose from the dead.

Today we are in no-man's-land between Good Friday and Easter.

But today has a name - Easter Saturday. This is the day Christians remember Jesus in the grave. It was also a day of absolute grief, when his disciples and followers were lost, bereft and lonely.

Then on Sunday, the third day, a rebirth, the miracle of miracles. He came back to them.

Initially there was disbelief and then a kind of reluctance faith. And then, after a time, think of the monumental, impressive proportions. Faith through the centuries, and here, more than 2000 years later, there are the churches and cathedrals and Easter bonnets (on New York's Fifth Avenue, at least) to celebrate and witness to that joy.

The cross, not surprisingly, is the enduring symbol of Christianity. Most Christian churches display paintings or sculptures or glass images of Christ, his face contorted in pain, dressed in a loincloth on the cross. His bloody hands and feet are nailed to the structure.

It is, to be sure, the most heartbreaking images, even if you do not quite Believer.

The comedian Dick Gregory once pointed out that if Christ were executed today, people would start wearing electric chairs around their necks. A strange pattern, yes, but after the laughter sinks a good idea to pause. Many instruments of torture employed to remember they love.

Interestingly, there are more - much more - images of death than the resurrection. The populist conception of Jesus is a man in pain and not a man of joy, humor, happiness and friendliness. Or a man who wonders.

The Christ on the cross is a man to cry, "Why have you forsaken me?" his father, and this is the image most of us immediately think of doing. We seem to celebrate inhumanity of man than the humanity of Christ. Here he is vulnerable. Bid. Bloody. Broken.

Sure, there are many pictures of the baby Jesus in a manger, but this is often an anonymous swaddled or Jesus. Center-stage - or center-barn - of course, but Mary and Joseph, several wise men, shepherds and animals are equal billing.

Jesus' life between birth and death is rarely shown. Sometimes you see him in flowing robes, with outstretched arms. Presumably this is the image popes and cardinals like to model. Respectfully. Ethereal. Pious.

Sometimes we see him healing the sick, the raising of Lazarus from the dead, and one or two images to cast out the money changers in the temple. These are rare. Eventually, all heads back to that picture on the cross, or that the baby in the manger.

I once spoke with a Lutheran minister who bemoaned the fact that almost every picture of Jesus him as miserable, or pious eyes to heaven. This, he said, Jesus gave a false picture. A man without human form.

"He was a man of humor, of decisiveness. A leader. Yet we have seen this Renaissance view of him that remains to this day. Artists are afraid to deviate from that image."

That is true. The image would have gone through various permutations and artistic styles, but it still is, usually, an image of grief, rather than a picture of joy.

Same Lutheran pastor had hung a painting called Jesus, smiling at his church, a famous painting depicts Christ throwing his head back and guffawing. Not smiling demurely, Pope-like, but a man enjoying himself, laughing at a joke, remembered a time.

There are few images of Christ risen from the dead, and they often have a bright halo above his head and frightened, subdued mortals to his feet. These historic images are religious, but they lack the conviction or beauty of the crucifixion.

The fact is, the way we mainly pictures it is in terms of Good Friday - bleak, dark and sad - instead of Easter Sunday - one day of spring, flowers, of the rebirth of wonder. And hope.

That is unfortunate. We need Christ happier. A man reborn. One Easter Sunday Jesus, not just a Good Friday Jesus. I would like. I would like to think he would too.