As I was driving to work this morning and listening to my favorite Christian radio station, they ask the question to listeners, “What do you think Jesus looked like?” The responses that came in were interesting, some Biblical, some not. If you attended Sunday School as a small child you continually saw pictures of Jesus with long wavy hair, olive skin tone, and a very handsome face. We all know these pictures are all artists interpretations of what they think Jesus looked like. I decided to research it on my own using my favorite research book, The Bible.
Nothing I could find in my favorite books of the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, mentioned anything about Jesus looking “different” than any other boy or man of that time. In the scripture in the Gospel of Matthew, when Jesus was arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane before the Crucifixion, Judas had to point out to the soldiers which one was Jesus because they could not tell him apart from his disciples.
I do believe that He must have had a rugged appearance due to the physical labor he endured. Back in those days the building industry involved very strenuous physical labor with heavy stone and wood and of course there were not power tools, no back hoes, no tractors in which to use. His appearance would have definitely been that of a muscular, physically fit, dark from the sun, man just as any other ordinary man would have been during those days. Most of the pictures we see of Jesus is a man with long hair, however, the apostle Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 11:14, “if a man has long hair, it is a disgrace to him”, so that leads me to believe that Jesus did not have long hair because I don’t think Paul would have made such a statement.
The Bible says in Isaiah 53:2 "....He had no form or comeliness (magnificence); and when we see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him." Does that mean that physically looking he was not pleasing to the eyes? The picture above, in my dreams, when I'm praying, when I'm singing songs of praise, is my visual of Jesus. I do not believe any two people have the same visual of Jesus. Yours may be quite different.
We all know there will never be anyone “like” Jesus, but by reading and studying His word, we can understand who Jesus really was, His mind, His wisdom, His love, His humility, His courage and His goodness.
We may not have been given a physical description of Jesus because it is not important what He looked like. What is important is that we look like Jesus!
Blessings to all!
Kelly
I'm surprised that 99 percent of the time pictures of Jesus have him depicted with long hair. Was that standard back then ? Or are we to assume that Jesus, being Jesus, did not want to care about his pesonal looks and keep a short, neat hairstyle ?
ReplyDeleteThank you for your comment.I really ahd not thought much ot if until the day I heard people calling in the radio program about their opinion. God bless you and thank you!
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