Paint the True Christ
Reflections on Art and Discipleship
By John Michael Heard
A Hidden Life by Terrence Malick is one of my favorite films. It is about Austrian farmer Franz Jägerstätter, who bravely refuses to swear loyalty to Hitler and serve in the Nazi army during World War II. In one scene of the film, a painter and mentor of Franz shares a beautiful reflection about art and the church that deserves our consideration:
What we do is just create sympathy. We create admirers. We don't create followers. Christ's life is a demand. You don't want to be reminded of it, so we don't have to see what happens to the truth. A darker time is coming — when men will be more clever. They won't fight the truth; they'll just ignore it. I paint their comfortable Christ, with a halo over his head. How can I show what I haven't lived? Someday I might have the courage to venture. Not yet. Someday, I'll paint the true Christ.
Via the painter, Malick delivers to artists a timely and prophetic challenge that we would be wise to heed. Where are the artists who would dare to paint the true Christ — Christ, whose life invites more than just sympathy but is itself a demand?
Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me (Matt 16:24).
What does it mean to paint the true Christ? The answer is deceptively simple but involves more than most are willing to submit. The painter names it when he asks, “How can I show what I haven’t lived?” We cannot illustrate what we have not seen. We cannot write what we have not heard. We cannot describe what we have not experienced. There is no way to paint the true Christ until we have become intimately acquainted with him ourselves, until his experiences have become our own. This means that discipleship is critical for any true Christian artistry.
We cannot pretend that art and discipleship are altogether disconnected. As though the art I enjoy does not form me into its own likeness, or, similarly, as though my discipleship to Jesus—or to anything else—does not effectively shape my art. On the contrary, the quality of my art is directly tied to the quality of my discipleship. That is not to say that good disciples will necessarily be good artists or vice versa, but rather that it is impossible as an artist to do justice in my efforts to show Christ to the world through my art unless I am willing to surrender my life to him as a disciple.
Discipleship involves bringing our whole selves into submission to Christ’s teachings, lordship, and love. When we decide to become Jesus’ disciples, we are given the opportunity to walk with him, to know him, and to become like him. As we grow in our discipleship, we become increasingly acquainted with the person and work of Christ. Our thoughts, desires, and affections become more reflective of his own and, by extension, our actions and our very lives begin to look like, sound like, even smell like our teacher. Eventually, we find Paul’s words—“I no longer live, but Christ lives in me”—resonant with our experiences (Gal. 2:20) . Our efforts to show Jesus to the world through our art become more and more consistent with the true nature of his person, and our art shines with a divine radiance.
But discipleship is costly. As Bonhoeffer so famously states: “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.” If we want to know Christ, and if we want our art to resonate with him, we must be willing to go where he leads us, knowing that the road Jesus walks inevitably leads to Golgotha. That is not a figurative statement, as the lives of Bonhoeffer and Jägerstätter demonstrate, and we should be prepared to follow him even to the grave if that be his will. Only when we have yielded to follow him anywhere can we begin to behold his beauty in greater measure—since that road takes us to the cross, where in his love for us he died so that we might be reconciled to God.
It is easy to paint the comfortable Christ. That is the Christ to which our culture is most accustomed: one who is holy, but whose holiness demands nothing of us. His face shines, but only with the light that we give him. His words are true, but only insofar as his words are useful to us or relevant to our circumstances. Rather than being conformed to his likeness, we make every effort to conform him to our own. The world rewards those who paint Christ in this manner—with fame, money, notoriety, and success. But those who succumb to it often sacrifice their souls in the process and give up the privilege of actually seeing the face of God and reflecting his glory in their work. The artist who is not willing to climb Golgotha alongside Jesus will never realize the depths of his love, and their art will only ever glimmer with the fleeting beauty of this world.
We need artists in the church today who are willing to venture to the deeper places of God’s love, artists whose work radiates with a holiness and potency that provokes by nature of its demands. We need artists whose work makes followers rather than mere admirers—not of us, but of Christ. If artists in the church are serious about our work, we must take seriously Jesus’ call to take up our cross and follow him. We must be disciples before we are artists.
The call of Jesus is difficult, but we hold on to resurrection hope. The writer of Hebrews says it was “[f]or the joy set before him” that Jesus endured the cross (Heb. 12:2). Likewise, our journey is filled with joy, since we get to delight in the living presence of Christ himself along the way. Even as we face our own Golgotha, we know that Jesus prevailed over death, so that though we die, we will live again. I pray that the most beautiful thing artists in the church ever accomplish is greater than anything that could be captured on canvas. Let it be our very lives poured out.
John Michael Heard is the Content Editor for Creo Arts. He is based in Wilmore, Kentucky, pursuing an M.A. from Asbury Theological Seminary. In addition to his work for Creo, he publishes regularly on Substack at Not Yet Home. He is passionate about storytelling, with a focus on screenwriting and middle grade fiction.
Photo by Akram Huseyn, courtesy of Unsplash.
