Expression of Love (2013)
Pencil Drawing
© Michael J.D. Linsner
Title: Expression of Love
Artist: Michael J.D. Linsner
Size: 15 in. × 15 in.
Year: 2013
Medium: Oil pencil on paper
The Story Behind Expression of Love
Of all the things I’ve made, this 40-hour, oil-based pencil drawing might be the most meaningful for me.
I was a high school junior in my independent study art class, and the theme for the annual church-affiliated fine arts festival that I regularly participated in as a teenager was “Expression of Love.” After pondering the theme for a while, the idea came to me. I would attempt to capture the expression on Jesus’s face as he went to the cross and carried out the most beautiful expression of love our world has ever known—to die in our place that we might receive life.
Drawing inspiration from Akiane Kramarik’s famous painting, Prince of Peace, I began drawing, and the first thing I completed was the eye. Then, contrary to habit and without much thought, I started coloring the bottom of the page and working my way up. The result was that most of the face was finished before I got to the crown of thorns.
I wish I had a picture of it. Jesus’s face was completely clean. There was no blood. There were no cuts or bruises on his cheek. There was no tear in his eye.
Perfect.
Jesus’s face was perfect.
And at this point I knew that this was the best drawing I had ever done. But it wasn’t done.
According to the prophet Isaiah, Jesus was beaten beyond recognition (Isa. 52:14), so as I moved on to the crown of thorns, I felt that to faithfully depict Jesus’s expression as he went to the cross, I would also have to include bruises and blood. Suddenly, I realized that to finish the drawing I would have to do something that I did not want to do. I would have to draw on top of what I'd already completed, potentially ruining what I'd spent hours and hours working on.
Reluctantly, I picked up my red pencil and got to work. With every stroke of red, I felt as if I was defacing my own drawing. The work was slow and painful, but as I did it the thought occurred to me that what I was feeling toward my drawing was, in a very small way, similar to what the Father must have felt as he watched his Son be crucified.
Jesus was perfect, spotless, and without sin (2 Cor. 5:21), and while working on this project I felt as if God allowed me to catch a small glimpse of what it was like for the Father to watch the Son be crucified as he laid on him the iniquities of us all (Isa. 53:6).
The experience also reminded me that my sins were what put Jesus on that cross (Rom. 3:23). In a very real and tangible way, I put the cuts on Jesus’s face. I put the bruises on his cheek. I shoved the thorns into his brow, and I put the tear in his eye.
In a way I hadn’t understood it before, I understood. God died . . . for me. And he died for you too.
“God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8, ESV).
This is the love of Christ—his beautiful expression of love.
Receive it.