Showing posts with label Easter Art Trail 2015. Show all posts

Easter Icons 2015: Easter Art Trail

Easter Icons 2015: Art Trail Images

Easter Icons 2015: Easter Art Trail

This year we broke out into Southend High Street, seafront and even Southend Pier with 14 framed art works about the Easter story. Focussing on themes such as betrayal, denial, death and life, art works were placed on railings in the High Street and on the Pier, at Adventure Island and in shops and cafes, including The Royals Shopping Centre, The Forum, Utopia, Tomassi's, Toys 'n' Tuck and Lemon Witch.
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Dinner Date | The Passover Meal | The Last Supper



Easter Icons : Dinner Date

If you knew you were going to have one last meal,
who would you invite? what would you eat?

 Like someone on death row, Jesus knows that he will die soon.

 He arranges one last meal with his friends.

 It’s a special meal, a meal that would have happened every year,
it was called the Passover meal.

 The meal which remembered God leading his people out of slavery from Egypt.

 But this time it was even more special,

it was tinged with the weight of it being the last meal Jesus would share with his friends before he died.

 Unwrap this Easter Icon: Read Luke 22:7-16 (The Bible)
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Broken | The Passover Meal | The Last Supper

Easter Icons | Broken

It was a meal with friends.

A meal that happened every year.

But this time it was different.

It was a Passover meal, a meal that remembers God’s rescue of the Hebrews from slavery in Egypt,
but this time Jesus was saying he was the Passover.

Taking bread, he breaks it and gives it to his friends saying,
“This is my body”
Lifting a cup, he passes it to his friends saying,
“This is my blood”
Jesus understood this meal was going to be his last.

He was about to enter his last mile.

But while it was Jesus’ last meal,
his words are like instructions to his friends
to keep sharing this meal in order to remember him
and so it is from then to now,
around the world,
bread is broken and a cup lifted
and Jesus is remembered.

Unwrap this Easter Icon: Read Mark 14:17-25 (The Bible)
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Gave Blood, Saved Lives | The Passover Meal | The Last Supper


Jesus took the cup of wine
and said ‘this is my blood poured out for many’
Not the usual kind of conversation at the dinner table,
but in these words Jesus is saying 
that I’m about to die and my death will mean life.

Donating blood is something many people do,
it’s a precious gift,
for the blood we donate enables another life to be saved.

Jesus donates not just one pint,
but every pint and not to save one life, but every life.

This is what Christians remember every time they
meet to break bread and share a cup of wine,
in his death is life.

Unwrap this Easter Icon: Read Mark 14.22-24 (The Bible)
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Betray | 30 Pieces of Silver | The Garden of Gethsemane

Easter Icons | Betray

He was one of the chosen 12.

 Judas had been with Jesus for 3 years.

 Judas believed Jesus was the leader Israel had been waiting for.
A leader who would bring revolution,
who would establish Israel again as the kingdom of God.

 But things had begun not to going in the direction Judas had first thought.

 So Judas betrayed him.

 He went to Jesus¹ enemies and agreed to hand him over and they gave him 30 pieces of silver.

 A few nights later, in a garden outside Jerusalem, Judas led soldiers to Jesus and his friends.

 Judas greeted Jesus with a kiss and the soldiers arrested him.

 And so into history the name Judas is associated with betrayal.

 'You Judas we say, but perhaps it should be I Judas, for not one of us is without sin.'
Unwrap this Easter Icon: Read Matthew 26:14-16 (The Bible)
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Kiss Me Quick | The Betrayal | The Mount of Olives

Easter Icons | Kiss Me Quick


History is full of famous kisses.

 Stories we tell from Sleeping Beauty to the Princess Bride,
to Spiderman are famous for their kissing scenes.

 Some cultures kiss as a way of greeting.
Some kiss as a sign of affection,
some kiss as an expression of passionate love.

 Seeing someone give another person a kiss is not an unexpected sight.

History is full of famous kisses,
but the most infamous kiss in history
is when Judas kisses Jesus.

 Here the kiss is both a greeting,
but more importantly it is a betrayal.

For in this kiss, Judas identifies Jesus
in the darkness of the night, to those who have to arrest him.

 The idea of ‘kiss me quick’ is dark humour
for there is nothing fun in this moment.

 At the same time we can perhaps imagine Jesus,
wanting Judas to get on with it, for that kiss
sets in motion the arrest, the trial and eventual execution of Jesus on a cross,
a path that Jesus has set his face towards.


 The kiss of betrayal marks the no turning back for Jesus.

 Unwrap this Easter Icon: Read Matthew 26:30 and the surrounding verses.
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Unfollow | The Betrayal | The Garden of Gethsemane

Easter Icons | Unfollow

@Judas_Zealot unfollows @JesusChrist

 It you read any of the gospels –
the stories of Jesus’ life,
you will find that Jesus calls people to follow him.

 Some do and some don’t.

 Judas is one of the twelve followers who get named.

 Why did he follow?

 We can guess that he liked what Jesus was saying,
it resonated with his own beliefs.

 Judas thought Jesus was someone who was going to bring change
to a people under occupation to a foreign power,
to a country where many were poor and taxes were high.

 Follow Jesus, perhaps thought Judas, revolution was on the way!

 But something about Jesus ended up meaning Judas,
decide to unfollow, to go from friend to betrayer.

 This is the shock of Jesus, he disturbs the comfortable,

and comforts the disturbed.
Unwrap this Easter Icon: Read Luke 22.1-6 (The Bible)
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Crumbled Under Pressure | The Denial | The Courtyard



Peter was number 1 friend of Jesus.

There had been highs and lows like any friendship,
but nothing major.

Peter had made promises that he was willing to go to prison for Jesus,
but with Jesus arrested and on trial,
Peter is identified as one of Jesus’ friends.

3 times he is asked, are you not one of them,
and 3 times Peter denies it, claiming to not know Jesus.

In the early hours of the morning, a cockerel crows
and Peter suddenly realises that he has failed Jesus,
he has denied their friendship to save his own skin.

With tears running down his face in flees, full of shame and guilt.
Peter’s story becomes one of failure,
but in which ultimately he finds forgiveness,
offering hope to all of us who find we lack courage when it really matters.

Unwrap this Easter Icon: Read Mark 14:66-72
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Je Suis Peter | The Denial | The Courtyard

Easter Icons | Je Suis Peter

Je suis Peter.

 I am Peter.

 We are Peter at the moment where
we are undone by a mistake we have made,
a failure we have committed,
a promise we have not kept.

 Peter talked a big game,
but when it comes to the crunch,
he is found wanting.

 Peter is the character in the gospels –
the stories of life of Jesus –
that we probably identify with the most:
the highs, the lows,
our lives following Jesus, find their echo in his.

 Je suis Peter,
yes, but the astonishing truth of the gospel,
is that, through no merit of our own, 
we can also say,
Je suis pardonné.

 I am forgiven.


Unwrap this Easter Icon: Read Mark 14.27-31, 66-72 (The Bible)
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Dying for Chocolate? | The Crucifixion | The Skull


Dying for Chocolate?

 Eggs made of chocolate is Easter.

 The supermarket shelves are stacked with Easter eggs boxes
inviting us to buy one, or three.

 While Easter has become about chocolate,
the history behind it is the death of Jesus on a cross.

 We are left asking did Jesus die to give us chocolate,

or does this history of one man’s death have more to it?

Unwrap this Easter Icon: Read Luke 22:7-16 (The Bible)
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Easter Pin Up? | The Crucifixion | The Skull

Easter Icons: Easter Pin Up?

It was a Friday that they crucified Jesus.

 It was a Friday that Jesus died.

 They nailed him to pieces of wood.

 It was a long and painful way to die.

 They crucified him for claiming to be the Son of God.

 They crucified him as an enemy of the state.

 They crucified him because he was a threat to the status quo.

 We look at the account of Jesus’ trial and then death
and we say that this was a failure of justice,
but Christians have come to see that in the death of Jesus,
we see God’s perfect justice displayed.

 The cross of Jesus is paradoxically not a sign of weakness or foolishness, but power and wisdom.
Unwrap this Easter Icon: Read John 19.16-27 (The Bible)
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Dead End? | The Crucifixion | The Skull

Easter Icons | Dead End?

The story comes to a stop,
a dead end.

Jesus dies
and the question to ask is this just another tragic death,
is this the final word, that ends the story.

Life is full of endings,
some are intended, 
some are accidental,
some are filled with sorrow,
some are give rise to thankfulness.

Endings can also include new beginnings
and this is the promise of the Easter story,
that this dead end – Jesus dead and in a tomb –
will find a new beginning:
from death to life.

Unwrap this Easter Icon: Read John 19.17-30 (The Bible)
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OMG! | The Resurrection | The Empty Tomb

Easter Icons | OMG ECG

It was early on the Sunday morning.

Women were on their way to see the body of Jesus.

Jesus had lain stone cold dead in a tomb,
Death should have been the last word,
When they get there the tomb is open and there is no body.

The shock of Easter is the tomb is empty and Jesus is alive.

He meets Mary, one of the women and appears later to his followers.

But God has raised him back to life.

But there is a word after that: resurrection.

This is the good news of Easter.

This is the good news for you.


Unwrap this Easter Icon: Read Luke 24.1-12 (The Bible)
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Dead Man Walking | The Empty Tomb | Alive!

Easter Icons | Dead Man Walking

READ ALL ABOUT IT! Dead Man Walking!

Imagine the headline ‘Dead Man Walking’
we wouldn’t believe it or
we’d think perhaps it’s the beginning of a zombie attack.

Easter is nothing more than a dead man walking.

Jesus who had died, who had been sealed in a tomb for 3 days,
appears walking, talking, eating.

Everything hinges on Jesus coming back to life,
and not just the humdrum life that we know all too well,
but new life, easter life, life as it was always meant to be.

The word we give it is resurrection,
and the resurrection of Jesus is life, life and more life
and its being let loose in the world,
to the point that you could say that every follower of Jesus,
is a dead person walking,
walking with the resurrected life of Jesus in them.


Unwrap this Easter Icon: Read John 20:1-28 (The Bible)
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Resurrection Comeback | The Empty Tomb | Alive!

Easter Icons | Resurrection Comeback

Resurrection is making a comeback.

We talk all the time about things or people making a come back
such and such style of clothing is coming back into fashion
such and such person is on their come back tour

To speak of resurrection making a come back
is a play on words for resurrection means to come back to life,
or more accurately to be raised back to life from the dead.

In this sense resurrection has never gone away,
but perhaps the word and what it signifies has dropped out of common understanding
but at the heart of the easter story is resurrection,
specifically the resurrection of the otherwise dead Jesus.

Jesus comes back,
overcoming death,
and this is the hope that lies at the heart of the Christian faith:
that just as Jesus was resurrected, so one day will we with him,
that death will not be the last word on our lives.


Unwrap this Easter Icon: Read Matthew 28.1-10 (The Bible)
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Easter Icons Map

To help you find the Easter Icons below is a handy little map. If you have Google Maps on you smart phone it should prompt to open in that (data charges may apply).

 Download PDF Map by clicking here (1,025 kb)
Don’t forget to take a selfie with each of the Easter Icons and share on Twitter and Facebook with your thoughts.

Facebook: Post on our page /Icons-on-Sea
Twitter: Use hashtag #EasterIcons or tag us @IconsOnSea The Icons are only in location until Monday 6th April 2015


 The Easter Icons were all there the last time we checked. However due to the nature of this installation some of the pieces may have been altered, gone walk about, or been destroyed since we last checked.

If any do disappear and are unrepeatable we will note them here.

 Damaged/To be replaced
Currently 'Crumbled under pressure' is damaged and will be replaced on Wednesday 1 April 2015 [This has now been replaced]
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