The other day I was sitting in a classroom at a local public high school. The first thing I noticed was how beautiful and welcoming it was. The walls were painted a light rose color and there was even an accent wall of pale blue. The back wall was filled with bookshelves and along the far wall were two leather couches. It was the nicest classroom, the least institutional room I had ever seen.
But when I sat down, I was in for another shock. On the wall opposite the couches, not visible to anyone just walking into the room, was a giant, practically floor to ceiling, picture of Jesus.
Specifically, it was the face of Jesus as he hung on the cross, crown of thorns in place, blood flowing.
I was staring at it for the longest time when a friend of mine who was sitting next to me, leaned over and said, “Wow, I wonder if she has a problem with cheating in here.”
I was immediately of two minds about this picture. On the one hand, I thought how awesome it was to be able to display one’s faith in a public school. The teacher was the sponsor of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. But on the other hand, that particular view of Jesus, Jesus at his lowest point, a broken and battered man, moments from death, is not the most uplifting thing to have in your classroom.
If I ever meet that teacher, I will ask her why she chose it. Perhaps she had another meaning behind it that I couldn’t see.
But it did get me thinking about images of Jesus in culture. Quite frankly Jesus is everywhere. Even an episode of South Park featured a boxing match between Jesus and the devil. For the record, I believe the episode ended with the devil throwing the match. What would you expect from the devil but cheating?
In Christian culture, though, how is Jesus most often represented? Obviously, we see him most on the cross. Occasionally we see him gathered with children or preaching. On rare occasions we might even be treated to the laughing Jesus. Somehow, for me, it is laughter that makes him most human. And it is humanity that makes him approachable, someone I can turn to, someone I can share my deepest heartache and my most profound joy with.
But most often it is the image of Jesus on the cross that is seen in churches. And it is this image that causes me the most distress. I understand that without his death there could be no resurrection. I understand that without his death there could be no freedom from sin. But in the end, the image of Jesus on the cross fills me with sadness. It is as if that image freezes time to the moment where the world felt most hopeless.
If there is an image of the divine Jesus that I want to see that I haven’t yet, it is the image of Jesus standing with Mary Magdalene outside his now empty tomb. That was the moment when the world flipped its axis, when the whole of creation changed forever. That was the moment that made Jesus the son of God.
There is another image of Jesus that has moved me. It was one I saw as a teenager when I was spending the summer with my mom. It was both an exciting and difficult summer. I took Driver’s Ed. I met my would-be boyfriend. I spent the summer hanging out in downtown Binghamton. I did a lot of walking, a lot of reading, and a lot of enjoying the summer. But it was hard too in the ways I suppose that it’s always hard to be a teenager.
Sometimes I would walk down to the park at the end of the street. It wasn’t a great park. There was a swimming pool there, but I didn’t swim. Instead I would walk under the bridge overpass down by the river.
And there above my head, impossibly graffitied on the underside of the bridge, was a picture of Jesus.
No crown of thorns … just a graffiti version of Jesus.
And it was beautiful and somehow every time I walked there, it felt like God was watching over me, watching over us all, the ones who came out there during the day and the homeless and drug addicts who came out there during the night.
Maybe that is why that teacher has the picture of Jesus on her wall, not to deter cheaters, but to remind us that he is there even when we can’t see him.
And he watches us not to judge, but guard and guide and love.
