Friday, December 5, 2008

Jesus' Ethnicity

The last section of the Faces of Jesus film focused on images of Jesus from around the world. I really liked this part and always find things from other cultures and countries fascinating. On a random note, I found most foreign the Latin American triplet trinity… they portrayed God as a figure with three identical heads. This seems totally bizarre to me, but I guess it’s one legitimate way to portray the trinity.

Whenever I saw Jesus portrayed as Black or Asian, it always made me pause a second. That’s obviously not how he looked… I would think, even against my will. What makes me most sad, however, is the realization that a Caucasian Jesus doesn’t make me take a second look. Why does a Black or Asian Christ make me rethink, but not a Caucasian one? I know Jesus was a Jew, and therefore certainly probably looked a lot more Middle Eastern than we generally portray him, and yet it doesn’t make me pause in the same way a Black or Asian Jesus does.

I’m not exactly sure why this is the case. I hope it has less to do with prejudice and more to do with the images of Jesus I grew up seeing. I’m sad that I’m okay with Jesus being portrayed like my own ethnicity, but I’m not so willing to let him be portrayed as someone else’s. (Although to my own benefit, I will say a blonde Jesus always makes me cringe a little.)

I find the concept of Jesus being portrayed as our own ethnicities interesting. People do it all the time. I remember being in Africa as a child and seeing a Last Supper carving in which Jesus and his disciples were made of black wood, and Judas was from blonde wood. Ouch. And at the end of the Infant Jesus Museum is a display of nativities from around the world, in which each nation portrays Jesus and Mary with their own features and clothing. I thought that was really cool, actually. God made each people group distinct, and I think he receives glory from the beautiful diversity. He is obviously not limited to being a God of the Jews, but is the creator and redeemer of all. I think, therefore, it’s not wrong to portray Jesus as your own ethnicity, as long as you don’t use that to work against other nations (I’m thinking of people portraying Jesus as blonde and fair, which was probably done for wrong reasons at times…).

There was a reason Jesus was Jew, however, so you cannot forget all the significance of that, nor the incredible history of the Israelites. For that reason as well I’m not sure about the example of the man who told the Indians that Jesus was one of them. I can totally understand how that was necessary for them to understand the story… God did become man to be like us so we could understand Him… but the significance of his Jewish heritage is so important as well. I suppose both understandings can be good.

eks

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