Truly God, Truly Human: Weekly Devotion for Ash Wednesday

Today is Ash Wednesday—one of my favorite days in the church year. Why? Because for me, it tears down all the pretenses that I’ve got it all together… that I am in control. Keeping those pretenses up can be exhausting. It is a relief to drop them for a while. The ashes remind me that life is fleeting and nothing is guaranteed. And yet, we are all incredibly significant in the eyes of God. Such a juxtaposition.

Carl Bloch’s Christ in Gethsemane is also a juxtaposition, showing the humanity and divinity of Christ. The colors in this painting are not random. Bloch is working within a long Christian visual tradition where color carries meaning.

The red robe symbolizes humanity, blood, and sacrifice. Jesus is clothed in our mortality. The blue of the outer garment symbolizes divinity and the eternal. Divinity is wrapped around humanity.

Jesus, in his deep agony, is comforted by an angel. The angel’s face shows sorrow for what her Lord is enduring. Notice how the light contrasts with the gnarled trees and the deep shadows of the garden. The light illuminating Christ is a visual reminder of John 1:4: “In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.”

Also notice that the blue cloak is slipping toward the ground. It is almost as if Bloch is showing that Jesus’ divine glory is being set aside while human fear comes forward.

Ash Wednesday is the reminder that we are dust. But we are also worth the cost of the divine becoming vulnerable—becoming killable—for us. 

I invite you to sit with this image for a while. What in this scene is comforting? What is disturbing? What contrasts do you notice besides light and darkness? How does seeing your Savior in such agony touch your soul?

Featured art: Carl Heinrich Bloch, Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane (1873)