Sunday, March 29, 2009

What Did Jesus Look Like?

The pastor at church today asked the children, "What did Jesus look like?"

You can imagine that he got all kinds of answers. Then he asked them, "How do you know?"
One boy was heard to say, "We have a picture of him at home."

Over the last two thousand years artist all over the world have painted their idea of what Jesus may have looked like. I grew up looking at several pictures in my home and they each looked slightly different. One had him with blond hair and blue eyes. When I traveled to Japan in 1963 I visited a Christian Church there and saw in the pastors office a painting of the Crucifixion and Jesus looked Japanese. In an African Church there was a painting of Jesus who was black. 

The truth is that no one in Jesus day painted a picture of him or gave a detailed description of Jesus. So no one really knows what Jesus actually looked like. Artist painted pictures of Jesus in their own image or the image of their people. 

There is some truth to that idea in that you should be able to see the image of Christ in each faithful Christian. 

6 comments:

  1. I always pictured with dark hair and dark eyes, based on where he was from.

    ReplyDelete
  2. He was short, looked Jewish, had a solid build with wide shoulders consistent with being a carpenter.
    As a rabbi he was also married, to Mary Magdalene. It was almost unheard of for Rabbi's to be unmarried in those days.

    ReplyDelete
  3. You make me smile MickH. Interesting speculation.

    ReplyDelete
  4. How interesting. Today when Paul got out of the shower and dried his hair it was long and hanging down. I told him he looked like Jesus. He said, what??? He wears his hair in a ponytail now and when it was down it sure did look like the pictures I've seen of Jesus. :)
    You're right though, no one really knows what He looks like.

    ReplyDelete
  5. :)
    Always light hearted and pragmatic Larry!

    ReplyDelete
  6. This is interesting...I think that since He is within each one of us, that He looks like *all* of us.

    ReplyDelete