I had the privilege of getting away for a few days this Holy week and visiting a beautiful friend in Florence. The time was filled with many moments of solitude and sacred pause in the midst of beauty. While I thought the most iconic art I would see would be Michelangelo’s David, I was taken aback with a completely different piece. Michelangelo was commissioned and completed 3 “Pietas” in his lifetime. These were sculptures of Mary holding the limp, dead body of Jesus. The one in Florence (Pietà Bandini) is different than the other 2– as it also depicts what is believed to be Nicodemus.
Then our tour guide gave us a piece of information that wrecked me: Michelangelo carved his own face into the figure. He saw himself as one who also carried the limp body of Jesus after being sacrificed on the cross. He wasn’t just depicting a biblical scene—he was entering into it. Carrying the broken body of Christ, grappling with grief, responsibility, and maybe even redemption.
There’s something really holy about that—how Michelangelo, in the later years of his life, would identify not with the heroic, but with the burdened. It invites us to ask: who are we in the story of Jesus’ death and resurrection? Are we simply observers, or are we bearing His body, His mission, His pain?
Audrey Wells 