The Colour of Jesus

During the years I was in pastoral ministry I would, from time to time, invite groups, whether bible studies or "exploring your faith/confirmation" classes to ponder their visual image of Jesus. Did they have a notion of what he looked like? To help the conversation I would provide a number of different images from through the ages and around the world. Sometimes I would put them on the walls around the room and invite them to stroll around and then choose one. There would be a Black Jesus and an Asian Jesus, Christ crucified and Christ as monarch, usually a dozen or more.

Somewhat to my dismay the most popular image of Jesus was the one which many of us know from our childhoods,  a 1940 painting by the American artist, Warner Sallman. It depicts a glowing, mooney, white guy Jesus. I've often joked that with a shave and a haircut and a good tailor this Jesus wouldn't look out of place on Bay Street or Wall Street. Even teens would opt for this one because it was most familiar from their Sunday School days. I would happily be part of a cat burglar team which spirited these images away from churches, never to be seen again, although my climbing-through-windows days are long gone.



How did the brown Jewish peasant of the first century morph into this? That question is being asked these days, more than ever, as the white privilege of our society, including Christianity is being challenged. We have literally made Jesus in our image, sometimes in a benign and banal way, as did Sallman. But there are also the haters, such as the KKK and White Supremacists who want Jesus to be white because in some warped logic it justifies persecuting those who aren't.. A few days ago several men in camo gear with assault rifles "stood guard" over a statue of Jesus on a church lawn, an obvious response to Black Lives Matters protests and marches. What are they protecting?

Does every racial group need to see Jesus from the perspective of its skin colour as well as  culture and even gender? He was born a Middle Eastern male, yet he represents the humanity of every person of every background.

I wonder whether when we are allowed to be together again we need to do our own walk-around of the images of Jesus and ask what it means to see him through different eyes. It could prompt some worthwhile discussion about race, and privilege and who we perceive Jesus to be.

Oh yes, I would also include these images from an article in Popular Mechanics from 2002 called The Real Face of Jesus. Even though this was supposed to be an approximate reconstruction of a first century Palestinian face, it was hardly ever chosen by participants in those groups.