The Virgin of Kyiv is one of the most famous icons in the world. Although historical details of this icon are murky, it is believed to have been written in Constantinople in the early twelfth century and eventually given to the Grand Duke of Kyiv around the year 1131. Some years later, the duke’s son, after sacking the city of Kyiv, transported the famous icon to the city of Vladimir in modern day Russia. Legend says that the icon itself chose the city when the horses moving it from Kyiv stopped moving somewhere close to Vladimir. It’s likely that such a story was used to justify Vladimir’s claim to replace Kyiv as the principal city of the ancient kingdom of Rus.[1]
The icon of the Virgin of Kyiv represents what is known as the Eleousa pattern of icons. There are myriad writings of this form of icon, but the Virgin of Kyiv is perhaps the most well-known. In this icon, the Virgin Mary cradles the Christ child. Her left hand points gently up to Christ, signaling that he is the focal point of this image. With her right hand, she holds up the infant Jesus as he reaches up with his body to gaze into her face, his own face pressed snugly against his mother’s. His right hand is placed firmly on his mother’s breast.
There is so much to take in. It’s difficult not to feel a pang of poignancy in one’s chest as you see Jesus as a human child who cannot part from his own mother. Indeed, he is actively seeking her face. But then there are Mary’s eyes, which are unsettling. She looks not at Jesus but at the person gazing on the icon. Her eyes are sorrowful. Does she know her child’s fate? Does she know about the sword that will pierce her own soul, too?
I recently saw someone post this icon on Facebook as an obvious reference to the devastating war that is ongoing in Ukraine. When I read more about the Virgin of Kyiv icon, I was struck by the eerie connections with the current crisis in Ukraine. This icon represents such heart-warming tenderness, showing in so many ways the love of Christ for the human family, which is symbolized by the Blessed Mother. This icon, too, stands at the center of a centuries-long tumultuous history between historic capitals representing modern Ukraine and Russia respectively.
But what does this icon have to do with Ash Wednesday? What does a work of sacred art have to do with this somber evening, where we are reminded of our own mortality? The brittle ashes that will soon be imposed on our foreheads are scratchy reminders that from dust we came and to dust we will return.
Of all things, the Virgin of Kyiv icon has made me consider the reading from the prophet Joel. It is difficult not to think of the current war in Ukraine as Joel sounds the alarm amid his own people. Joel is using apocalyptic language, but there is also an imminent threat, vague though it may be. Is it real war? Or is it a figurative way of speaking of God’s judgment? There is an approaching cloud of gloom and doom. It seems to be from God, although nothing is certain.
Joel, like so many of us, is quick to establish cause and effect. What have God’s people done to deserve this threat on the horizon? There is clearly some state of sin for which they must repent. Joel’s command is clear: return to the Lord. Repent. Who knows whether God might turn and relent?
Joel, like so many of us, can’t help but read the crisis at hand as God’s judgment. Joel, like so many of us, reacts to catastrophe by resorting to the only tactic he feels is worth the gamble: turn to the Lord. Joel, like so many of us, is torn between two things: fear of God’s wrath and appeal to God’s graciousness and mercy.
Joel’s words may seem like nothing more than unleashed anxiety in reaction to crisis, but Joel also can’t shake a particular understanding of God’s nature. It has been emphasized over and over again in Scripture. Long before Joel’s words, we hear back in the books of Exodus and Numbers that God is full of compassion and mercy. We hear it, too, in other prophets and in the Psalms. This is nothing new. As confused as God’s people may be time and again as they wrestle with disaster, enemy invasion, and their own sinfulness, Joel reminds the people not to forget this irresistibly compelling attribute of their God.
And for some reason, this has drawn my attention to the icon of the Virgin of Kyiv. It is seemingly far removed from the words of the prophet Joel, but it is not really so far removed. In this icon, we see the face of the One who came in human form to remind the world of God’s very nature, which humanity would so often forget and still so often forgets.
=Which of us does not struggle to see the face of mercy looking into our eyes when we can’t bear to face the wrong we’ve done? Which of us doesn’t imagine God’s face somehow turned away from those on the wrong side of a war? Which of doesn’t have trouble seeing God’s face still turned in love towards a world that has gotten things so horribly wrong?
The tension in Joel’s own words between a God of wrathful judgment and a God who is steadfast in mercy and compassion and who might yet forgive is also mysteriously present in the icon of the Virgin of Kyiv. Christ does not turn from humanity in anger. In the icon, Christ is reaching up to cuddle his own face against his mother’s with endless longing. But Mary gazes at us. Representing humanity, perhaps she, like us, is trying to comprehend the gaze that will not let her go.
Is it a profoundly moving accident of history or a beautiful wink of God’s providence that the icon of the Virgin of Kyiv images the incomprehensible nature of God’s steadfast love toward humanity? This icon moved from ancient, ransacked Kyiv to modern-day Russia now sits in a modern-day Russia that is ravaging Kyiv. The only thing that can bring peace into this intractable conflict is the steadfast face of Christ’s mercy and compassion.
We, too, this day, sit in a place of so many tensions. We come knowing that we must acknowledge our sinfulness. Every Ash Wednesday is a reminder that after a year of wandering and turning away from God, we are invited yet again to turn. Frustrated by our foibles and stubbornness, by our selfish ways and easy resentments, we, like Joel, decide that it’s worth the effort. Maybe, after all, God will turn and relent.
Without realizing it, we like Joel, assume that God has turned from us. We struggle to imagine how, after all the evil the human race has done, God could still be turned towards us. It’s hard to shake this notion. But Joel reminds us that it’s hard to shake something else, too. Joel has been unable to get something else out of his head, and I pray that we will never be able to get it out of ours either. God is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.
No matter how much we feel compelled to look away and no matter how much we can’t really believe it, Christ is grasping onto us with passionate hands of love. He’s not forcing us to look at him. But if we remember this day, as we do every year, to look down at his face, it is pressed against ours. His eyes look into ours if we dare cast them down. And we know that Joel was on to something. We mourn our sins and repent of our past misdeeds, but turning always shows us what never changes. Always, always, Jesus is looking at us, reaching up our bodies to press his face against ours and to remind us that God has always been gracious, merciful, and forgiving. And he always will be.
Sermon by Father Kyle Babin
Ash Wednesday
March 2, 2022
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_of_Vladimir