IN THEORY:What Jesus looks like doesn’t matter

Pope Benedict last week visited Veronica’s Veil, which some Christians say was used to wipe the blood and sweat off of Jesus’ face on his way to his crucifixion. It was a pope’s first visit to the shrine in Manoppello, Italy, where the veil is said to bear the true likeness of Christ’s face — a likeness that reportedly resembles the likeness on the Shroud of Turin. The pope stopped short of endorsing the image as that of Christ.

But do you believe this likeness and others, like the shroud, are true depictions of Christ? What are your thoughts on what Christ looked like?

After the legalization of Christianity in the fourth century, early Christians recognized the significance of places where Jesus walked and preached and spent his life. Saint Helen, mother of Roman Emperor Constantine, traveled to the Holy Land, and in her zeal to preserve those places known to the Lord, she built the first basilicas, namely in Bethlehem, where Jesus was born, and in Jerusalem, where he died and rose from the dead. For 2,000 years pilgrims have traveled there to trace their spiritual roots and see first-hand the places familiar to the Lord.

Many people felt a need to bring back to their places of origin remembrances connected to the Lord and his ministry. We have no way of knowing how many of these “relics” are authentic or not. Some of these objects are shrouded by legend and it is understandable that Pope Benedict stopped short of endorsing as authentic the veil of Veronica.

There has always existed a hunger by the faithful to know what the Lord looked like. This is assuredly a way for people to connect to the humanity of God in Jesus. While we can assume the Lord resembled people of his own land and time, we can never know exactly what he looked like. Scripture gives us no description of height, build, color of eyes or hair. Many cultures of the world have given the features of their own peoples to the Lord in artistic imagery. In that, Jesus resembles all of us.

FATHER PAUL J. HRUBY

Pastor

Church of the Incarnation

Jesus had long hair, a beard and eyes that pulled you in. He had soft but strong features; handsome but not seductive and he donned a perpetual look of contentment. At least, that’s how Hollywood has presented him to us and that Jesus has found his way into many of our churches.

A quick glance at the ethnic churches will paint a bit different picture. In our Armenian Church, his eyebrows and beard may be a bit more pronounced. In the African church his coloring is much darker, just as he’s much fairer on the walls of a Russian church. And the beauty of all the art is that each of these depictions is an exact rendering of Jesus.

According to our faith, Jesus is God personified, that is, Love incarnate.

Love does not have a face, but a heart. It is in the expressions of the heart, through helping, caring, healing and living that we witness God. And that is what Jesus looks like.

For 2,000 years, people have been picking up cloths, veils and other objects trying to identify the Christ. And I imagine the search for a connection to the historical Jesus will continue. The real search begins by looking within and seeing the image of Christ etched on our hearts waiting to be released in our love and care for others.

FATHER VAZKEN MOVSESIAN

Armenian Church

In His Shoes Ministries

Bahá’ís believe that the great prophets of all the major religions were sent by God to progressively further man’s spiritual understanding, as well as his understanding of the nature of the Creator, who would otherwise remain unknowable.

The reflection of God in Jesus, as in Bahá’u’lláh and the other manifestations of God, is perfect in a spiritual sense, not in a physical one. It is the Word of God emanating from these great teachers that is proof of their divinity and of the truth of their revelations, not simply their appearance among us.

There is nothing wrong with finding inspiration and comfort in artistic images of Jesus. For some Christians, they are reminders of His love and sacrifice and give a feeling of his real presence in their lives. However, it is best not to be preoccupied with the earthly appearance of the manifestation of God. For this reason, Bahá’ís refrain from displaying likenesses of Bahá’u’lláh. As for the authenticity of miraculous appearances of Jesus’ face, again there can be nothing wrong with the positive feelings they engender for some. But in reality, as Bahá’ís believe, science and religion must agree because they come from the same point of truth. Without science, religion becomes superstition and loses its meaning. God’s teachings provide the real proof of His existence beyond that which could come from any supernatural sign or vision.

BARBARA CRAMER

Secretary

Local Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of Glendale

Amazingly, the most specific accounts of Jesus’ ministry, the four gospels, never describe what Jesus Christ looked like.

Our clearest descriptions of Him come from Isaiah who, 700 years before Jesus’ birth, prophesied that His appearance would not be stately or majestic. Physically speaking, Jesus was not an attractive man.

This was especially true at the climax of Jesus’ ministry. Having been brutally beaten, and being crucified in payment of our sins, “ … His appearance was marred more than any man, And His form more than the sons of men.” (Isaiah 52:14).

I suspect the majority of us are curious about what Jesus looked like. But I doubt that any ancient shroud can ever be conclusively proven to bear the likeness of His face. To know what He looks like, we must stop looking to the past and by faith look forward to His promised second coming.

Here is the hope and the confidence of Jesus’ followers: “Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we shall be. We know that, when He appears, we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him just as He is.” (1 John 3:2).

PASTOR JON BARTA

Valley Baptist Church

Burbank

No one can possibly know what Jesus Christ looked like. I doubt very seriously that any future discovery will bring light to the subject. All conjecture is simply wishful thinking. If I had to guess what he looked like, I would suspect that he was a fairly dark-skinned man, probably a little over five feet tall, with a demeanor that commanded attention. It is pretty obvious that he wasn’t blue-eyed, blond, and tall. That description wouldn’t have fit the typical man in that time and place.

As for the shroud the pope examined, my guess is that it is only another fake religious relic. Shrouds with impressions, weeping icons, and visions of the Virgin Mary and/or other religious figures are plentiful, but practically all are believed to be authentic only by the most gullible people among us.

I once had a woman declare me to be too skeptical and that I ought to be more open-minded to religious phenomena. I told her that I am open-minded, but not so much so that my brain is about to fall out. I also told her she shouldn’t be so gullible as to believe in so much of it. That would be my advice for everyone. Let’s let the mysteries of the past be just that, and live by the instructions Jesus Christ and other great religious and philosophical figures have given us. Living the Truth is far more vital than religious parlor tricks and mind games.

THE REV. THOMAS E. WITHERSPOON

Unity Church of the Valley

La Crescenta

I wish I knew what Jesus looked like. I’m sure that, given he was born in the Middle East more than 2,000 years ago, he bore Semitic traits. I grew up with very Teutonic images of him, including the blond hair and blue eyes of a Northern European.

I find it thrilling today that with the access given by the Internet we are open to images of Jesus from cultures around the globe. For Jesus the man carried a very specific countenance. But the countenance of Jesus the Christ is much broader.

There is danger when these images are made concrete in our minds and hearts. They can become for us idols. They can make it difficult to see the face of Christ in our brother or sister from a different culture, thus deepening the “us” and “them” mentality of our currently divided world. This broad range of representations of Jesus can give to us a door to understanding and dialogue. What Jesus looked like I don’t know, but I see him looking back at me whenever I meet someone.

THE REV. GALEN GOBEN

Foothill Christian Church

La Crescenta

Does it really matter what Jesus looked like? Pardon my Protestant bias, but to think that there is an actual image of the face of Christ on an ancient piece of cloth borders on a voodoo concept of religion.

Do we worship the Living God or a relic of questionable authenticity? One of the big planks in my religion platform is to get rid of the magical aspects of the Christian faith. This is why I have never been particularly interested in any kind of search for the Holy Grail. Assuming Jesus actually drank from such a cup and assuming that we could find it and identify it, I would say, “so what?”

True religion doesn’t not involve venerating things. True religion involves healing the sick, giving to the poor, alleviating suffering, standing up for the powerless. Skepticism regarding relics is nothing new; Erasmus of Rotterdam once said that if all the claims about pieces of the actual Cross upon which Jesus died were authentic, a cross would exist that would stretch halfway across Europe.

As to what Jesus looked like, I’d have to assume that he looked just like any other first-century resident of Palestine. In fact, when he was arrested, the authorities had to have somebody (i.e., Judas) point him out to them. We live in the show-biz capital of the world, so perhaps it’s no surprise that looks matter to us. But they don’t matter to God, because God looks upon the heart (I Samuel 16:7).

THE REV. C.L. “SKIP” LINDEMAN

Congregational Church of the Lighted Window

United Church of Christ

La Cañada Flintridge

It’s an interesting subject, contemplating the visage of Christ, and how He might just appear when He greets us at Heaven’s portal. Unfortunately, nobody during the first century drew any pictures of Him, so we can only surmise from the Hebrew fashion of the day.

We know the men wore beards and followed Old Testament regulations about facial hair (Leviticus 19:27), and perhaps they donned longer locks than your average American, but Veronica’s Veil will hardly contribute anything to our imagined image.

There was no actual Veronica mentioned in the Bible, and that’s why Protestants don’t include her in their “Stations of the Cross” during Holy Week, if they use the stations at all.

The name Veronica likely hails from the Latin and Greek vera iconicus, meaning “true icon/image,” as if calling it such made it so. It later became merged into a personal name. Since the name is obviously a conflation of words, the veracity of the Veil is dubious and explains why the pontiff refrained from lending his imprimatur.

The Shroud of Turin is altogether different, and while it too may never provide certainty, it depicts accurately the aftermath of crucifixion, it emanates particulates from ancient Israel and it was wrapped around some dead guy who apparently no longer needs it. Hmmm.

The Bible foretold that the Messiah would not be movie-star handsome (Isaiah 53:2), and there was never anything recorded about Jesus looking attractive, yet people were certainly attracted to Him. His ancestors had red hair (Genesis 25:25) and were ruddy (1 Samuel 17:42), so make your guess.

If the Shroud is genuine, it would validate many renderings we’ve seen of Jesus since its discovery. If not, it hardly matters. Friends from high school hardly look the way I remember them anymore, but they are “verily” the people I knew.

THE REV. BRYAN GRIEM

Senior Pastor

MontroseCommunityChurch.org