Our Easter Sunday service was based on John 20 v 1-10 and the disciples running to the tomb on Easter Sunday.
A high resolution copy of the painting is found here.
And an explanation of the back ground to the painting here.
the two quotes I used were:
Sebastian Moore said – “In the risen Jesus we meet our deepest desire personified. It is almost too much to believe – and in fact most of us do not fully believe it. Otherwise we would not lead such humdrum, mediocre, sort of dragging lives. But occasionally the dream takes hold and we feel more alive, less afraid of life and the future, and we have some inkling of the incredible beauty and mystery of our lives and of our universe.”
John Macmurray – “All religion. . . is concerned to overcome fear. We can distinguish real religion from unreal by contrasting their formulae for dealing with negative motivation. The maxim of illusory religion runs: ‘fear not, trust in God and he will see that none of the things you fear will happen to you’; that of real religion, on the contrary, is ‘fear not; the things you are afraid of are quite likely to happen to you, but they are nothing to be afraid of.”
( John Macmurray, Persons in Relation (London: Faber & Faber 1961), p. 171.)