I viewed an art show last week with featured works of Brian Kershisnik. Brian paints beautiful pieces with angels, women and babies, but this is the piece that caught my eye, partly because I had never seen it before.
Here is the statement of explanation: The Harrowing of Hell, an event sometimes referred to as "Christ in Limbo," shows the glorious time between the crucifixion and resurrection, in which the door for salvation was opened. Countless souls that had been trapped since the beginning of time were saved because of Christ's redeeming sacrifice. Jesus has wedged his cross into the monster of death and sin, pushing forward in his own powerful wrestle on our behalf. Jagged and snaggly teeth fall from the beast as the dead are freed. It is a scene of both terror and redemption as the Savior reminds us of the hope and deliverance available through his atonement.
This piece led me to think about these scriptures:
"O how great the goodness of our God, who prepareth a way for our escape from the grasp of this awful monster; yea, that monster, death and hell, which I call the death of the body, and also the death of the spirit" (2 Nephi 9:10).
"Death and hell must deliver up their dead, and hell must deliver up its captive spirits, and the grave must deliver up its captive bodies, and the bodies and the spirits of men will be restored one to the other; and it is by the power of the resurrection of the Holy One of Israel. O how great the plan of our God" (2 Nephi 9:12, 13)!
The monster is so large and ugly, but it should be portrayed as such! It is with great effort that Christ has opened the jaws of the monster and He is pointing for men to get out. The bodies are naked, which to me means that the people cannot hide or cover themselves up. I have thought about how I would be captured in darkness, in the grasp of the monster, were it not for the Savior.
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