In class today as we were looking at various peoples' depictions of who Jesus is...I remembered a statue that I saw once in front of a church on the side of the interstate in Ohio. I remember seeing it from the road and wondering who decided that this church needed a gigantic Jesus in front of the doors! (My second thought was that maybe this church could have helped feed some hungry people or build some wells for people in Africa...rather than spending thousands of dollars on a huge Jesus!)
What Jesus looks(ed?) like doesn't actually effect our worship of God. Building gigantic statues or painting hypothetical portraits of him don't really help anything. Who Jesus is is not a huge white guy with facial hair. The early church didn't even want to write God's name because it was like an idol...why should we try to guess what he looked like?!
I recently found out that this statue of Jesus in Ohio was struck by lightning and burnt down. I do think, however, that the church decided to rebuild it (costing even more money)....
I agree with you. Having a big statue of Jesus is ridiculous and completely against what I believe Jesus really is. Whenever He would heal people, the Bible records Him assuring them that it was their FAITH that healed them and not His touch. I think the real picture of Jesus is depicted by one's faith in Him, not someone's speculation of how He may have physically appeared.
ReplyDeleteI second that agreement...and by what you said it reminds me of another Lewis book I read, The Screwtape Letters. There was a section about prayer that, well...referred to our prayers to God. In general, not speaking from the perspective of a demon, the idea was that when you pray to an image of God, are you not praying to something that is less than God? For who has seen God, and who can possibly think of what God looks like? Why not just pray to the invisible presence of God within the room? Bla, its late, i dont know if i am making sense =)
ReplyDeleteOK, butter Jesuses (did I spell that right) aside, are images never important? We were created in the "image" of God, according to Genesis. What "image" is that? Is it important that we be able to see, touch, hear, taste, and smell the "image"?
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