One of Rembrandt's early paintings is The Raising of Lazarus, an oil painting that's just over three feet high and just under three feet wide. To the lower right, there is Lazarus -- half lying down, half sitting up, just starting to rise. Crouched around him, half bent over with grief and growing wonder, are his two sisters, Mary and Martha, and some of the people who had come to comfort them. Standing over and above them all, is Jesus -- not bent over like the others, but standing fully upright, with his right arm raised high. From the expression on Jesus' face, I can almost hear his words, "Lazarus, come out!"

In this wonderful painting by the seventeenth-century Dutch master, the central figure is Jesus. All of the other figures in the painting are smaller and rounder. Jesus alone sta…