REPORT: “Reports later surfaced that police jailed suspect Isaiah Cantrell, who, according to the court affidavit, said Jesus’ ‘skin color of the statue was the wrong color.” Cantrell added that ‘Jesus was Jewish and therefore should be a darker skin color.”
My comment: Dearest Isaiah, you’re right, of course, about the outside thing, you know, the skin color thing, the melanin thing, sure, gotcha, I’m with you on that, totally. And the ol’ whiteys don’t like it, they just need to get over it. The Word of the Father become flesh, the Divine Son of God, the Divine Man, entered our fallen history in a very specific time in a very specific place by way of a very specific mother, bearing all those characteristics of that time and place and person. You’re right on emphasizing that: Jesus is a Jew, and salvation, as He said, is from the Jews. Yep. Great! That insight puts you head and shoulders above revisionist historians.
But you effectively kill off the statue of the very One you proclaim to respect? You got yourself some deep misunderstanding, deeper than just skin deep.
Here’s the deal: Jesus said that when He would be lifted up on the Cross, He would draw all to Himself, so that what He validated in one particular place and time as God-Incarnate with all those historically unrepeatable circumstances He validated, in Himself, for all particular individuals of all particular places and cultures and for all time, from Adam until the last man is conceived. Saint Paul speaks of this as the “Body of Christ” with Jesus being the Head of the Body and we, all of us, Jew and Gentile, slave and free, man and woman, are members of that Body of Christ. All lives matter to Jesus. He proved it. He laid down His life for all of us. We find our redeemed identity in Him, not in mere skin color.
As it is, I’m a lily-white white boy, lots of Russian, lots of Baltics, lots of Polish, lots of German. I rejoice that when Jesus reached down into this world at great cost to Himself he stretched out His hands on the cross so far that He was able to grab me, the lily-white white boy, and draw me to Himself, He having pardoned me my many sins, He inviting me to be in humble thanksgiving to Him. I rejoice that unlike what we do, He reached across skin color, across borders, across time, to do this. And for all those reasons I have much for which to be humbly thankful.
Don’t take all that rejoicing away from me, Isaiah Cantrell.
Don’t take all that rejoicing away from Jesus, who was happy to do this for us all.
I find my identity in being brought to life by Jesus. I’m a lily-white white boy, and Jesus is a Son, the Son of Abraham.
Dearest Isaiah, it’s a mistake to reduce Jesus to skin color. But Jesus died for you too. You can repent of all this foolishness. Go to Confession. I do. Jesus loves you, even to die for you.
You might notice, art critic that you are, Isaiah, that Jesus and His blessed Mother have been depicted with the skin color and cultural characteristics of all peoples right around the world right through the centuries, right through the millennia, not to claim Jesus and His good mother as only their own and to hell with everyone else, but to rejoice that Jesus’ redemption – good Son of His mother – has reached even as far as them.
I’m happy for Jesus and His mom to be depicted as a white, as Jewish, as black or brown or yellow or olive or whatever. This is our Jesus!
From the Apocalypse, 1:7:
- “Every eye will see him, every one who pierced him; and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of him. Even so. Amen.”
ARISE! LET US BE GOING! 