Before Jesus was given a Face

  Throughout history Jesus has been described and depicted as many different things. There have been records of him being white, black, middle eastern, skinny, muscular, and just about every other physical trait and color that can be imagined. Now imagine a time before Jesus had any set physical appearance. Many people don’t think about this because they were raised with some sort of visual of Jesus already instilled into their mind by the church they went to or perhaps from family and friends who influenced them. 

What people don’t realize is there was a time before people had a relative idea of what Jesus looked like. One well known historical event that shows us of a time before Jesus was given a physical appearance was The Salem Witch Trials. During this time many people were were accused of taking part in witchcraft and other practices that were considered devils play. The Color of Christ speaks of only one person, Sarah Bridges, who claimed to have seen Jesus and then later on changes her statement and says it was just ‘the devil in disguise”. This shows us that even the devil had began to be described as many different things while Jesus had still not been given a physical appearance by the majority of people.

The question is why? Why had people not started to describe Jesus with some sort of characteristics even though the teachings of Christianity are said to have began over a thousand years ago? Some people say that he had not been given any set appearance so that no one would consider themselves more closely related to him and so that no particular race or color would be considered above any other. Perhaps Jesus without a physical appearance would be a better thing. In church it is not taught to follow the white jesus or to try harder to be more physically as he was, but to follow his teachings and do as he has told us to do through his teachings in the bible.