SUNDAY THOUGHTS: JESUS ON THE MOVE?

"...The hair of his head was white like wool. as white as snow, and hie eyes were like a blazing fire. His feet were like polished bronze refined in a furnace." ~Revelation 1:14-15

"He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him." ~Isaiah 53:2


Here we go again with people using sexy Jesus to mask their insecurity, and cloak obvious bigotry. 

I guess they've been waiting 8 years to trot this one out, in favor of some weird Christian nationalism. 

I don't know why people aren't more afraid when they misrepresent the Lord this way, and take insensitive jabs at the people they hate, but forget that He loves.

"On my way back to the White House", the meme says. 

From where? Rancho Mirage? 

Making sure Barack, Michelle were settled in safely? "On my way back" to do what? 

Make sure someone doesn't accidentally tweet the United States into World War III?

SMH.

 

True colors are shining through with a vengeance these days. 

People are confident that they can now be free and careless with their previously latent bigotry and insensitivity, and they're trying to drag Jesus into it as if he condones that nonsense. 

The fierce defense of the indefensible; loss of reason and discernment, denial, and just plain craziness only seem to be the order of the day. 

God is neither asleep nor away from the controls. There's a lot of mercy being extended that shouldn't be taken lightly.

Jesus said (the real Jesus, that is, not the Jake Gyllenhaal/ Dave Franco look-a-like in the picture), "...just as you can identify a tree by its fruit, so you can identify people by their actions".

 
I'm just wondering which actions people have witnessed throughout the presidential campaign that can be characterized even remotely as Christ-like? 

Which actions indicate that anyone was walking closely with God, representing, or consulting Him on even an intermittent basis? 

I don't remember reading about any negative accusation against Jesus that was true. 

I don't recall reading about Jesus lying incessantly, not thinking before he spoke, mistreating the poor, inciting fear, slandering people, being unfaithful, failing to pay taxes, (Read Matthew 17:24-27), mocking the disabled, going back on his word, or grabbing women inappropriately--and Jesus went to at least one party where there was drinking going on and two kinds of wine, but he wasn't a drunk.

Someone whose career has been overwhelmingly supported by Black people, shared this illustration online. 

I guess they thought all Christians would rally around it. 

Someone heard the name "Jesus" a couple of times at the inauguration and got happy, as if it hadn't been heard before; 

as if invoking his name would cause amnesia to blanket America, and erase all memory of everything that occurred prior to the inauguration; 

as if people wouldn't remember that once again, the person being sworn in actually lost the popular vote in an election fraught with criminality. 

Just saying or borrowing the name "Jesus" is not a convenient band-aid, magic eraser, or blindfold. Saying and using it, but not embracing the Lord's penchant for caring for his fellow man, is useless. One might as well say "Rumplestiltskin".

The Bible teaches us about a tree and its fruit. Matthew Henry wrote, "...it will not be enough to own him for our Master, only in word and tongue. 

It is necessary to our happiness that we believe in Christ, that we repent of sin, that we live a holy life, that we love one another." 

In the words of Roberta Flack, "Where is the love?"

Jesus (the real one, not the Hugh Jackman look-a-like in the picture) said, “Not everyone who calls out to me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ will enter the Kingdom of Heaven".

Frankly, for a long time, there hasn't been much love being shown to a lot of people. 

Women, minority groups, the sick, the poor, and immigrants have been spoken of, and treated abominably. 

Many across the country are anxious and fearful today. 

They heard the empty rhetoric. 

They heard words that, no matter how anyone tried to spin them, have been like weapons; words that in no way were indicative or reminiscent of anything Jesus ever said.

  
Some people think Jesus is their personal flunky, and his love is reserved for those who look like what they've decided he looks like. They convince themselves that he's on their team, condones their divisive behavior and angry rhetoric, and is okay with them twisting his Word to suit their agendas.

 

They are as misguided and wrong as spam-flavored ice cream on a stick.

Perhaps from a visual standpoint, someone actually thought this Caucasian-Christian Bale-looking-Calvin Klein-ad-Jesus would be an endearing, and encouraging image. 

I mean, the dude in the picture is cute, but really? Did someone really think this was a good idea? 

Are they implying that President Obama actually had the power to chase Jesus away? Jesus?

 
Sure. I get the gist. They've been biting their tongues, and donning fake smiles, and pretending to be tolerant, inclusive, and color-blind for 8 long years. Their bigotry has been simmering, and with the result of the election, it erupted all willy nilly. 

Now they think they can break out all of the crap they've been dying to share, and wear, and shove it into the faces of people who will only look at them with pity, and see them for the deceived souls they obviously are. 

Why does anyone think they won't be called on their BS? 

Why do people ever think they have a right to throw a rock, but cry foul when they're hit with one? 

Who thinks their gloating won't get a response?

  

(By the way. That red, white and blue "revolutionary" Gucci, British Tribute coat someone wore, conjuring images of The Nutcracker crossing the Delaware, was inspired by France, covered with cat-faced buttons, and made in Italy. 

So much for "America First", but I digress.)

They didn't like Obama. 

They couldn't stomach the country being led by him. He didn't look like them. 

He was a supposed foreigner. 

He couldn't have been a Christian. 

He was the uppity Negro who didn't know his place. The narrative of their upbringing said he didn't have a right to hold the highest office in the land. 

Now, they're trying to undo everything he accomplished without their help, forgetting that much of it helped them.

Since we're being Christian all of a sudden, Barack Obama is the husband of one wife. 

His children respect him.

His presidency was scandal-free. 

So-called Christians have relentlessly questioned his religion, scholarship, ancestry, sexual orientation, and citizenship, and even compared his family to apes, but he never lost his cool. 

His terms are over, and they're still poking at him. 

Now that a German descendant is in the Oval Office, the notion is that we can all breathe a sigh of relief, feel like true Americans again, and reinstall God as if he's been on hiatus. 

The notion is that we can dust off, and wave proudly our paintings, drawings, calendars, bookmarks, and church fans that depict a man who bears a striking resemblance to Bradley Cooper, Adrien Brody, James Franco, Jonathan Rhys Myers, and Downton Abbey's Dan Stevens all rolled into one. 

That image makes some people feel better, unfortunately, that's all it is--an image--the display of which, in no way indicates an actual relationship with, or understanding of God.

News flash: The next time Jesus comes back, he won't be toting old, beaten up luggage, and tiptoeing through a field of flowers like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz.  He won't be starting his comeback tour at the White House, but the church house.

"For the coming of the Son of Man will be like lightning striking in the east and flashing far into the west." ~Matthew 24:27

The representation of Jesus as a buff, tall, lean, chiseled, white guy with hair right out of an Herbal Essence commercial is nothing new. 

I'm a Black woman in America. I've seen artistic representations of Jesus all my life, and the first ones, on the kitchen or living room walls of every elderly relative, were blonde, blue-eyed Fabio types. The first mural I ever saw depicting Jesus, was on the wall in the basement of my childhood church and Jesus, being baptized by a brunette John the Baptist, was also a brunette-- and there was a big white bird perched on top of his head. 

I was almost an adult before I ever saw a representation that looked like me, or anyone in my family, or that was even remotely close to the Bible's brief description of him. I have never, however seen an image portraying him as some exiled pedestrian who's on the comeback trail...and where is this field he's walking through? The side of the road along I-95 North? 

Where is he coming from? 

King's Dominion? 

What's in the luggage? 

His power suit? 

The Ten Commandments? 

The new president's tax returns?

My first response to the illustration was laughter. Somebody really thinks this dude is Jesus! 

Why is the Savior of the World carrying his own luggage? Why is he walking? 

Seems to me, if he was "on his way back to the White House" Jesus would have been in one of the luxury vehicles that transported the newest occupants of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. 

Is Jesus (the real one, not the Casey Affleck-looking guy in the picture) just an incidental, random someone that's only trotted out for Kodak moments and speeches? 

The implication is that God has been eerily and obviously absent from the White House. 

I'm not sure what that's based on other than racism, bigotry, mis-education, and melanin percentages.

One of the first big words I ever learned was "omnipresent". 

If one believes in God at all, one believes that he is just that--all enveloping; everywhere at the same time. 

So how is it that anyone thinks he wasn't in the White House? 

Since when does God need our permission to occupy and oversee any place? 

Where do we get off thinking we can direct him, send him, or exclude him from one place or another? 

I don't know about anyone else's Bible, but mine includes Psalm 139:7-10: 

"Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; Even there shall thy hand lead me..."

 

So...exactly where do the people who are so proud to share this illustration through social media, think Jesus has been? In hiding? On retreat? In exile? On vacation? In some undisclosed location planning post-Obama strategy?

Sometimes, the joke isn't funny. It simply exposes utter ignorance. 

I'm glad God is already at the White House, and in spite of who's occupying the seat of power, he in no way eclipses the One who sits high, and looks low. 

One of the promises of God is that he would be with us always. 

I'm so sorry some people think he left them for eight long years. Perhaps they were the ones who left him while they burned with hatred over the fact that He allowed a brilliant, impressive Black man to be the leader of the Free World. 

Perhaps that's why they hoped and prayed he'd fail, and did everything they could to discredit him. He flew in the face of their narrative.

He didn't reflect their idea or image of God.

Funny, but people in Jesus' day did the exact same thing to him.

I don't know what God some people serve, or what Bible they're reading, (or editing) but God is no respecter of persons. 

This construct called "race" has so many people bound and confused, that they've draped God himself in their skin color, and seek to hijack him in order to oppress others, and elevate themselves. 

They can't fathom that God's only begotten Son did not, and could not have looked like them, given his geographical location, while on Earth, but they need him to. 

It boosts their egos. 

It supports the lie that they're superior to others, and who is more superior a man than Jesus?

 
Is his great, unconditional love not enough? 

Isn't there enough of God's love and stuff to go around? 

Does "whosoever" still mean any and everyone, no matter what their nationality?
I guess not. 

We'd better all hope Jesus IS in the White House--and not for the reasons some people want. 

If God was not omnipotent and omnipresent--and intelligent--we'd be screwed.