What DOES Jesus look like?

 Anyone watching the latest series of Killing Eve?

Hopefully I won’t give away any spoilers but I want to start by thinking about the visions Villanelle has of Jesus.

For those who have never watched the show or have no idea what I’m writing about I shall give a brief resume.

Villanelle is a psychopath, a ruthless killer who works for a shadowy organisation as an assassin.

Her dress sense is incredibly flamboyant and for a murderess there is something endearing about her, she seems a little lost, in need of mothering but I don’t think she would make a good daughter or a faithful best friend. She would put you on her hit list if you just looked at her in a funny way.

The fourth and final series begins with her “finding God” wanting to prove that she has turned over a new leaf. She uses her extensive charms to join a church, even moving in with the kindly vicar of the parish. She is desperate to get Baptised, for all the wrong reasons, and actually belong to something good for the first time in her life.

This is when she starts to see visions of Jesus, her own version of Jesus, Jesus in drag.

To be honest I’ve avoided looking up any reaction to this but I suspect there is some outcry from the more conservative quarters that this image of Jesus is blasphemous. I’m sure if this series was on the BBC at a specific time rather than streamed on iPlayer it might have got more reaction.

However, I take a different view as I think we all have a tendency to make Jesus in our image to suit ourselves and make Jesus relatable.

The Victorians were fond of portraying Jesus as white with glowing blonde hair and clear crystal blue eyes and that image has pretty much stuck for many people.

One day on our church Facebook page I dared to post an image of Jesus that was black and someone got very upset about it. But each culture has their own idea of what Jesus/God looks like, basically we like to make Jesus someone we can identify with, usually with our own colouring and style.

Ethiopian Last Supper (anonymous)

Peace, Be Still by James He Qi (1998)

No one knows what Jesus really looked like as there are obviously no photographs from that time but one of the the best approximations I’ve seen is this image by child prodigy Akiane Kramarik, amazingly she was only 8 years old when she painted this! WOW!

Prince of Peace

Then there is this model by Richard Neave which never claims to be Jesus but a representation of what a Jewish man of that time and place might look like. It is far removed from the the blonde haired image we so often see.

Model by Richard Neave  2001

Jesus might not look like us but if we are made in God’s image then each of us displays something of God and his son Jesus in our essence. The family resemblance is not in looks but something in our personality - our caring nature, our creativity, the sense of justice or wonder we possess, the ache of compassion, the joy we experience seeing a sunset or hearing good news.

I refuse to be offended at Villenelle’s vision and likewise didn’t get upset when my bother bought me a dancing with Jesus bobbling figurine at Christmas. Was it a present meant to provoke a reaction? It just made me laugh, as I’m sure God does when we often get things wrong in a crazy way, not when we do something blatantly sinful on purpose.

Our own childish view of Jesus is like a child’s stick figure drawing. Perhaps God has hundreds and thousands of these images stuck on his giant fridge and each day as he passes he smiles benevolently at our crude likenesses.

I’m sure God has a sense of humour and can take a joke far better than the rest of us and see the funny side when it doesn’t mean harm. God has broad shoulders and one day we will see him face to face and perhaps then he (or she) really will have the last laugh at our shocked faces.

A long time ago on a blog post far far away I wrote this poem called Jesus is an Action Man - if you enjoyed this you might like this too CLICK HERE to read it.