Relating To Jesus

I am a member of a website called Churchmedia and part of the website is dedicated to sharing media between members. I got this image from that site and while I like the image it was the comments about it that got me thinking.

It was noted that it is nice to see a nativity scene where the participants are not of Nordic origin. Very true. If one were to go by the evidence of all the religious art ever produced I think one would have to conclude that Jesus was from Sweden. It's not that I have anything against the Swedes, some of my best friends are Swedes. (I actually have really known only two Swedes well enough to call them good friends and both where wonderful people.)

Every now and then I see art that depicts Jesus of a few other ethnicities. There is a black Jesus, an Hispanic Jesus and an Indian Jesus to name a few. There are probably even a few Semitic Jesus' around. But most are Nordic.

Maybe we do that because it helps us relate to Jesus. We feel more comfortable falling in love with someone like us. Thinking of Jesus being a different race makes us feel uncomfortable. We are afraid of people who are not like us. There are too many unknowns.

Our preference for a Jesus of our own race is probably a reflection of the racial problems we still struggle with today. If there were no racial problems in the world maybe we wouldn't have all these different ethnic Jesus' around. We would totally comfortable with being saved by someone from a different race. Just a thought, anyways, and I won't even go into how we make Jesus pretty despite what the Bible tells us.