The Collective Worship Resource - from the Culham Institute in association with The National Society

• The Web Gallery of Art has the della Francesca painting, as well as other images of the resurrection, and can be found at www.wga.hu (in the Artist Index under P for PIERO della FRANCESCA).
• Information about Rosenthal, two pictures and an interesting discussion of his famous image can be found on the Spartacus site at www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAProsenthal.htm

'Led like a lamb to the slaughter
In silence and shame,
There on Your back
You carried a world
Of violence and pain.
Bleeding, dying, bleeding, dying.

You're alive, You're alive,
You have risen, Alleluia!
And the power and the glory is given,
Alleluia, Jesus, to you.'

1. Show an OHP of the Rosenthal image. Rather than talk at the students, use questions to encourage them to look and think about the picture:
   • What is going on here?
   • Where is this? When?
   • Do you think the picture was carefully composed?
   
   The picture was taken by Joe Rosenthal and shows six men from Easy Company of the third US Marine Division raising the flag on Mount Suribachi, on the Pacific island of Iwo Jima, on February 23rd 1945. The tiny island of Iwo Jima had three airstrips and the Japanese used Mount Suribachi to fire on any position established by the Americans.
   
   After days of terrible fighting the summit was captured and a small flag raised. Seven thousand Americans were killed on the island together with twenty thousand Japanese. A larger flag was later brought and raised so that, in the words of Sergeant Mike Strank, "every Marine on this cruddy island can see it.". It is generally accepted that the image which Rosenthal captured was, although not the original flag-raising ceremony, unposed. Of the six men in the photograph, three (including Strank) were killed in action within weeks. Of the other three the most famous was a Pima Indian named Ira Hayes. He died at the age of thirty-two, in 1954, an alchoholic. Three months before his death, at the dedication of a monument based on Rosenthal's image next to Arlington Cemetery, he was asked "How do you like the pomp and circumstance?" He replied, "I don't."
   
   
2. Show the painting of 'Resurrection' by Piero della Francesca. As with the Rosenthal photograph, explore the painting by asking questions.
   • What is happening here?
   • Who are the figures in the foreground?
   • Why is the landscape in the background half dead/leafless and half green/leafy?
   
   Piero della Francesca was probably born around 1420, in Sansepulcro, where this painting is found today. It was probably painted around 1460. Its calmness makes a striking contrast with the hectic movement of Rosenthal's photograph. Also, in Rosenthal's photo we can see no faces - Rosenthal, when accused of posing the picture, cited this fact to rebut the claim - whereas in della Francesca's picture the poised figure of Christ stares into the eyes of the viewer.
   
   
3. What feature is shared by both of these images?
   
   The flag.
   
   Flags probably weren't actually used much in the time of Jesus. Roman Legions carried a 'standard' - more a badge on a stick, than a flag! The fact that an artist in the 15th century puts a flag into the hands of Jesus as he rises from death exemplifies how we use familiar images - and language - to try and describe the meaning of the Easter story.
   
   From the very beginning the church has seen the death and resurrection of Jesus as the key event of history. Somehow, in that event. humanity and God are reconciled. But what was going on? One set of language and images is to see the events on Good Friday as a battle. Sin and Death throw everything they have got at Jesus. And Jesus is defeated in this battle - "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" he says. It sounds like the end, but for Christians this ultimate human experience of death, experienced by God's son, is one which God takes and then extinguishes its power. That is why Good Friday is called 'Good' - without death Jesus could not rise again on Easter Day and show God's promise of life.
   
   So in the story of Easter, the end is not death, but life - and victory on Easter Day!
   
   On Good Friday, Jesus was already carrying the the flag which, on Easter Sunday, he holds high as a sign of victory. In fact, some writers imagine the cross itself as a kind of flagpole - and the broken and bleeding body of Jesus as the flag which, despite the terrible battle, continues to fly defiantly from it!
   
   You can't press the parallel between Rosenthal and della Francesca's images too closely! Iwo Jima is remembered today as a terrible battle in which tens of thousands of men died over a tiny patch of earth. It was a horrendously expensive victory. In fact, the first flag to be raised was promptly destroyed by a hidden Japanese soldier who flung a hand grenade at it. Rosenthal photographed the second attempt. Jesus, of course, killed no one - commanded his followers to do the same - and rejected hatred. His victory is achieved through suffering, not violence. The red cross on the flag in della Francesca's picture, is symbolic of Christ's own blood, not that of his opponents.
   
   Christianity is full of paradoxes and 'Good' Friday is at the centre of them. The flag of victory is grounded in the human experience - shared by God - of darkness and defeat.

"a banner that flies across this land,
that all men might see the truth and know
he is the way to heaven."