Nazareth

It was very interesting visiting the place where Jesus was raised as a boy- not necessarily the town of Nazareth itself, but what it has become. One of the most striking things to me was the church we visited that was near the home where Jesus grew up. There was an outer courtyard with many mosaic tile paintings from around the world. Apparently it was requested from the church that many countries should submit artwork to display Mary and Jesus in a mosaic. What I saw at first was beautiful, then perplexing, then sickening. As I went from each country’s mosaic I started noticing that each one was different. Not just because of artistic style, but because I noticed that Jesus was different. Each mosaic representing Jesus took on the form and look of that culture. There was a Korean Jesus, an African Jesus, a French Jesus, etc., all looking like the people from those different countries. Some would probably think that it was art, but in fact that depicts our human nature. We forget that WE were created in God’s image. We didn’t create God in our image. We forget that Jesus was not from our culture, He did not look like us, talk like us, and in many cases think like us. He was Jewish, He spoke Hebrew, He thought like a Hebrew, He lived and acted in the customs of Judaism. His message was preached from the Torah and the prophets and even the Oral Torah and traditions. Continuing in our Greek worldview, from our roots, our ancestors have always wanted to make the gods in their image. It seems as though times haven’t changed much.