Paintings of Jesus

A pastor asked the Sunday School 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 own people. 

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