In the painting, Jesus is depicted atop Sierra Blanca, a New Mexico mountain range, greeting the rising sun after performing a sacred puberty ritual.

Lentz, who is known for his iconography depicting Jesus in different cultural contexts, painted Apache Christ in 1989 following a conversation with the church's pastor.

In preparation for the artwork, he studied Apache rituals and gathered sacred spring water from the summit of Sierra Blanca to use in the mixing of his paints.

In 2024, a priest from St. Joseph removed Apache Christ and other sacred Mescalero art objects from display due to his view that they were pagan imagery.

The St. Joseph Apache Mission Church was built in Mescalero, New Mexico, in the early 20th century on the site of a prehistoric ruin of the Jornada Mogollon culture.

[2] Albert Braun, a Roman Catholic priest who helped to construct the church, respected the traditions of the Mescalero Apache ministry and did not interfere with their culture.

[3][4] Artist Robert Lentz studied icon painting under Photis Kontoglou around 1977 at the Holy Transfiguration Monastery in Brookline, Massachusetts.

[5][6] He became a Franciscan friar and created icons depicting Jesus in different cultural contexts, as well as several gay-themed artworks with controversial backstories.

[10] The icon painting depicts Jesus as a Mescalero Apache medicine man standing on the summit of Sierra Blanca at dawn.

[5] Before his feet is a basket containing sacred objects,[8] including a grass brush, bags of tobacco, cattail pollen, and an eagle feather.

[7] In the painting, Jesus is represented greeting the dawn on the fourth morning of the traditional puberty rites for young women who have come of age.

[16] Also removed were baskets and ceramic chalices which were used during the Eucharist and had been gifts from the Pueblo community,[4] as well as a painting of a sacred Indigenous dancer by Mescalero artist Gervase Peso.