The Last Supper (2016)

Displayed against the altar in the Derby Chapel of Ormskirk Parish Church is a large oil painting of the Last Supper. Although the theme is well-trodden, and the painting perfectly good quality, it was the place of execution that caught my attention: Thorn Cross Prison. It was there that the artist, Mr Catterall, painted it, in the final week of his sentence, having resolved to ‘go straight’ on his release. For a man with no artistic training, he has done a jolly good job. Whether his resolution to ‘sin no more’ proves just as effective, I cannot say.

Each one of us sits in prison. Our crimes might have been more respectable than the artist’s, but that makes little difference to God the Judge. Even our determination to live well and right is seldom honoured. Only Jesus Christ the Liberator can release us from both our sin and its guilt, from its gaol and its sentence. As Christ shared the bread and cup before His death, so He prepared to release many millions from bondage and captivity, from death and hell.