Bursting Forth

I drew this for Illustration Friday.  This week's theme was "burst" and I had originally thought of a child with his mom shopping at a store where he saw ice cream and when she tells him no, he "bursts" into tears.  But as I was preparing to color it, I started thinking of a song that I love, called "In Christ Alone" by Townsend and Getty.  In the third stanza the song says, "And bursting forth in glorious Day/ Up from the grave he rose again!"  I kept thinking of how Jesus might have caused the grave to just burst open with his power and joy which I had hoped to covey in this picture.  His left hand is pushing away the stone while the right hand and his left leg prepare to pull him up out of the darkness which has been shattered by his light.  I added the vine to the upper right corner because in the book of John, Jesus calls himself the True Vine from which the life of the Christian must come.  All those who put their trust in him are given this new life.  And the little yellow flower in the foreground also represents new life, coming up from between the stones of the pavement.  Life in Christ will always push its way through the stoniest of circumstances.  I hope you enjoy my illustration.  Jesus came to give us abundant life, overflowing and bursting and I wanted to show that as he bursts from the grave that could not hold him.