"Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you:"
- Matthew 7:7
Christ in the Wilderness, Ivan Kramskoy, 1872
The painting pictured above happens to be my all-time-favorite of Jesus. People often make a big deal about how God became man, sharing our physicality in both its glorious and mundane aspects. However, no one seems to want to paint the mundane aspects. Except for this guy, that is. I mean, it figures. Leave it to a Russian to paint Jesus as one of us, really one of us. There's nothing glorious about Him here, no rays of majesty or ethereal light. Just a dude sitting on a rock. Bored. Slightly despondent, even. Substitute the robes with skinny jeans and he could be the spitting image of your jobless, pot-smoking cousin. And, yet, He's God Almighty, the Alpha and Omega, the Lord of Majesty and Master of the Day of Judgement. Creator of the Universe, Savior of the World. God! Sitting on a rock. Bored. Crazy, right? Damn near unbelievable, even. And yet, there it is. What does this have to do with prayer, you ask? I'll tell you.
As anyone who has ever prayed and felt nothing should be able to relate to this painting. Even Christ's physical position, sitting with head stooped and hands folded, eyes staring blankly forward whilst trying with ever-increasing futility to barge mentally into the divine presence, should ring a bell with any amateur mystic. And this painting, intentionally or not, tells us that, you know what? That's okay. Not every prayer, Christ's bags show us, will result in spiritual ecstasy. Perhaps not even most prayers. Perhaps not even any prayers. Even Jesus, GOD INCARNATE, had His spiritual dry spots. How do we mere mortals, then, deal with them?
1. Integrity: "He who loves me keeps my commandments" says Christ in the Gospels (cf?).
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