CQOD—van Gogh: the working Jesus

CQOD MOBILE
Wednesday, April 16, 2025

van Gogh: the working Jesus

Meditation:

He was despised and rejected by men,

a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering.

Like one from whom men hide their faces

he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

Surely he took up our infirmities

and carried our sorrows,

yet we considered him stricken by God,

smitten by him, and afflicted.

—Isaiah 53:3-4 (NIV)

Quotation:

Jesus Christ is the Master who can comfort and strengthen a man like that Macedonian, a labourer and working man who has a hard life, because He is the Great Man of Sorrows who knows our ills, who was called a carpenter’s son, though He was the Son of God, who worked for thirty years in a humble carpenter’s shop to fulfil God’s will, and God wills that in imitation of Christ, man should live humbly and go through life, not reaching after lofty aims, but adapting himself to the lowly, learning from the Gospel to be meek and simple of heart.

... Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890), in a letter, Dec 26, 1878, The Letters of Vincent Van Gogh to His Brother, 1872-1886, Constable & Company, Limited, 1927, p. 192 (see the book)