For several years now, my Lenten practice has included meditating upon the painting Christ in the Wilderness by Russian artist Ivan Kramskoi. His rendering of Jesus-vulnerable, hungry, cold, and tired in the chill light of dawn-tells me something important. Against a backdrop of stone, this very human Christ faces the night alone, hands clasped in prayer, with his back toward the rising sun. His eyes are puffy and red, forehead furrowed in concentration. It's not a pretty picture. This is Christ in the flesh, wrestling with temptation and clarifying the truth of his call.
When it exhibited in Moscow in 1872, Kramskoi's painting created a stir. The choice to depict Christ without a halo, his face exposed and fully embodied, was controversial, even heretical. At a time when the fashionable art world flocked to Paris, and Impressionism was the rage among young painters, Ivan Kramskoi had made the choice to stay in Russia and paint portraits with a restrained realistic palette of color. In defense of this painting, he wrote:
"There is a moment in the life of every man who is however slightly or greatly created in the image of God, when he is in a quandary - whether to take a ruble and deny the Lord or not to yield one step in the direction of evil."
For this artist, the choice to create and exhibit this painting mirrored Christ's own struggle in the desert against temptation. During the nearly ten years that it had taken him to complete this painting, Kramskoi seems to have drawn the strength he needed to emerge with Christ from the wilderness, now more firmly convinced of his own mission in the world.
Each year, I return to this painting and draw courage. How shall I respond to my own call? What must I let go? What must I hold onto more firmly? To recognize Christ here in the wilderness, gives me the strength to return to my own inner room, close the door, embrace the loneliness and fear that awaits me there, and pray in secret to the One who knows -because He's been there too.
