“….For he hath no form or comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.” Isaiah 53:2
August 22, 2022 - From the time Christian children settle into Sunday school classrooms, an image of Jesus Christ is etched into their minds. In North America he is most often depicted as being taller than his disciples, lean, with flowing, light brown hair, fair skin with light-colored eyes. Classical European painters usually portray Him as tall and thin and with delicate, almost effeminate features. The Original African Heritage Edition of the King James Bible has a picture of Jesus looking like a man from Central Africa.
He was a Jew and very likely resembled the Jews of Israel today.
For centuries some have believed that Jesus was under a Nazirite vow. According to Numbers 6:1-6 the person taking a Nazirite vow pledged to abstain from wine and grapes, to avoid touching a dead body and to not cut his or her hair until the end of the vow's duration. But the Gospels record occasions when Jesus drank wine, which means He would have broken a Nazirite vow had He been under one. Samson, John the Baptist and Samuel were “Nazirites”…but Jesus was a “Nazarene” meaning only that he was from Nazareth. There is absolutely no way that we can determine how long his hair was proving that hair length isn’t a definitive measure of anyone’s worth.
The New Testament emphasizes Jesus’ sinless life and moral teachings, but has almost nothing to say about what He looked like. The mob that came to arrest Him that fateful night could not tell Him apart from Peter, John or any of the others - Judas Iscariot had to actually point Him out (Matthew 26:47-49). Jesus was an ordinary-looking man.
So maybe it's time for us to dust off the Gospels and discover the real Jesus. We could find that not only did Jesus look different from what we have believed, but that the Gospel contains many other truths about Him that we’ve never heard.
