Who Is This Guy?

Some children see Him lily white,
the baby Jesus born this night.
Some children see Him lily white,
with tresses soft and fair.
Some children see Him bronzed and brown,
The Lord of heav'n to earth come down.
Some children see Him bronzed and brown,
with dark and heavy hair.

Some children see Him almond-eyed,
this Savior whom we kneel beside.
some children see Him almond-eyed,
with skin of yellow hue.
Some children see Him dark as they,
sweet Mary's Son to whom we pray.
Some children see him dark as they,
and, ah! they love Him, too!

The children in each different place
will see the baby Jesus' face
like theirs, but bright with heavenly grace,
and filled with holy light.
O lay aside each earthly thing
and with thy heart as offering,
come worship now the infant King.
'Tis love that's born tonight!

Those are the words from the 1951 carol from Alfred Burt. Our church band is doing an arrangement of it this Sunday in church based on one done by Stacy Sullivan that is just wonderful. She doesn't have a clip on her page but you can listen to it and purchase it on Napster (I didn't check Itunes) or at Amazon. Check it out.

Along with the song, I'll be showing a bunch of paintings of Jesus through the years that show him as everything from a rock star to a rastaman, a homeboy to Che Guevara, an icon to a boxer. You get the picture. It all has me thinking... when does it become a bad thing to identify Jesus with ourselves? When is it bad to make Jesus one of us? I've always loved Some Children See Him and deeply appreciated the history behind a last supper painting at the cathedral in Petionville Haiti that has one white character - Judas. It is good to identify Jesus with ourselves but it does take us outside of the particularity of the incarnation. Jesus was a Palestinian peasant living at a particular place and a particular time and that particularity has everything to do with God's self-revelation in him. God's self-revelation is as contextual as it could possibly be. Of course, if God is revealed only as a Palestinian peasant from that time, he becomes irrelevant to those of us here in the 21st century. The Jesus of faith must break out of the particular confines of a single place or time in history.

Which brings me back to my conundrum... when is identifying Jesus with ourselves too much? I'd be the first one to cringe at those who turn Jesus into a flag waving Republican but tears ran down my face as I listened to Stacy Sullivan sing Burt's words.

FWIW, that's what I'm preaching on this Sunday. Any thoughts?