Behold the Man.....

The end of the year at school is often a great time to be lazy. Several of my students were on a physics trip to Six Flags today. Basically they get to go "learn" about physics while the rest of us are stuck at school. Maybe I should motion for a trip to Jerusalem so we can better "learn" about the bible. Can you tell I am bitter? Well at least it rained for the first part of the day.

Any who, I came up with a ridiculous excuse to not give a test and showed a video on the search for the historical Jesus. My kids were less than thrilled. I think they would rather have had the test.

I love the historical context of the Bible. From Mesopotamia right through the Roman Empire, the Bible presents such a rich backdrop for its events to unfold before. Well as we (mostly just me) watched the video, one girl asked "why don't we have any pictures of Jesus?"
It was a simple question with a much more complicated meaning than the girl probably ever realized. We have descriptions of Caesar, Alexander the Great, Buddha etc, why no Jesus?
And it was brought home to me that this current generation really relies on tangible connections for their lives. It is not enough to just believe or have faith (which is a dangerous and at the same time intriguing place to be) that belief or faith needs to be real to them. Otherwise it is just something they discard, like Santa Claus.
Now it becoming real can occur in many different forms: life circumstances, historical inquiry, generational teaching, and relationships. But increasingly kids want/need to see Jesus. The girl that asked the question was essentially saying "if we have all this "good history" about Jesus, how come no one took the time to write what he looked like?" That is a very fair and simple question. If Jesus was so important to his followers, why not tell us what he looked like? The answer deals with something most people are not willing to explore. It may not be important to them or the may not want to delve into the culture to find out why some things are the way they are. It may take too much work.

Israel is a unique group in ancient history because the were not artistic. They did not even decorate their pottery. One way archaeologists can determine if a site is Jewish or not is by looking at the pottery. Bichrome pottery is a type common in the ancient world. It was basically decorative pottery. All the cultures around the Israelites used this type (Philistines, Phoenicians, Greeks, Roman, etc.). Israel did not decorate their pottery, nor did they paint, write secular poetry, or write secular themed plays. In fact Israel was almost devoid of any artistic output save for religious writing. Religion was the art of Israel.

Also depictions of kings would have come across as idolatrous. This was true into the 1st century. When the gospels refer to Jesus as a Jew, that is all the imagery they needed back then. Most Jewish men had short hair, beards, brown eyes, and a dark complexion. All that was needed was for the author to bring that image into the minds of gospel readers. By telling the reader Jesus was a Jew, that image would have sprung to mind and really no more description was needed. He was also a carpenter and was probably physically fit.

Now as I began to explain this to her, she became sorry she even asked. The answer was too much for her to care about. She wanted to be able to read a short concise description of Jesus and leave it at that.


This is a product of people becoming less familiar with biblical study. We neglect the details that illuminate scripture. Being ignorant of Israel's history leaves one wanting in their search for Jesus. Why did Jesus need to be a sacrifice? Why was sacrifice important? What is sin and why does God hate it? Why was Jesus Jewish? Why did he claim to be God? To often people want to read scripture and come to their own conclusions so it can fit what they want rather than what the writer intended. Simply cherry-picking scripture so as to "describe" something is very very dangerous and has brought us to our current problem of division. For too long we have neglected the context of scripture to find a quick, easy, and concise description( and thus answer) to some problem.

A more important question we should ask is what should the Church look like? Should it be an institution that tends to neglect circumstance and context in favor of a quick answer? Or should it be an institution willing to take the time to think, love, and act regardless of the conditions. Jesus never regarded the conditions of people that he came into contact with as anything more than a chance to reveal Godly love to them. If we can do the same, with God's help, that will be a good start on making Jesus real in our lives, so he can be seen as real to others.