Thanks for sharing this. Have you been there?

Thank you. Thought I would use my reaction, below, on Maundy Thursday in my sermon:

There is a virtual tour of the Vatican’s Sistine Chapel where you can turn the camera’s view as you will and magnifying any angle. Of course overhead in the center of the chapel is the famous portrayal of human creation the finger of God touching the finger of Adam. But the thing that gave me some pause was looking straight ahead at the large altar. The whole mural behind the altar is full of naked and semi-nude human bodies and then in the center of the altar is a same size almost naked corpus of Christ on a standing crucifix, same sized as the painted figures of men, women, devils and angels. If you are the celebrant standing there at the altar or a communicant or worshipper facing the mural you have to see to Christ’s left the bodies, some decaying, one like deflated balloon, all being dumped from a boat and dragged into hell and to the right of our crucified Lord, the dead being lifted, often limp toward heaven. What a thing to look at as you celebrate the Holy Communion, the judgment of all humankind, mercifully the cross and its Savior in the center before your eyes. I say mercifully because what is at the center, as we also have in our church on a blank cream colored reredos wall is a judgment scene—the crucified Christ. Our judgment on God and his Son, death by nail, sticks and hanging. Thus the left of the goats, judgment on us all, guilty of killing the innocent, the perfect, our God. And the right, the sheep forgiven and gathered as a flock forever to feed on and in God. The blood of Christ paints us righteous and redeemed. There is no virtual tour of earth for God, he has seen us from his Son’s eyes, left and right he has looked on us, calling us in mercy to himself and his promises and table. Harvey Mozolak