Preview(S): I think I know that guy...

    So, this happens to me about once a week but the most recent example is, by far, the most glaring.  I was mowing my lawn, driving up and down in my riding mower (I have a couple of acres to mow) and I noticed a green car in my driveway.  So, I aimed the mower toward the driveway and went over to see what I could do for the stranger in my drive.  As I got off the mower, took off my hat and safety glasses, and walked over to the fellow...he had an increasingly confused look on his face. As I began to introduce myself  he gave me this odd look and says, "Sorry, you looked like a friend of mine who mows lawns... I thought you were him."  We did the friendly thing and introduced ourselves, shook hands, and he got back in his car and left.  Now, when I say that this happens to me once a week please know that this is no exaggeration (OK, it is usually in the grocery store and not my front yard, but you get the point). Apparently I look like someone everyone knows.  

    I don't mind.  I get to meet lots of new people this way, and it is nice to know that I seem to have a face that says, "Hey! This guy is your friend!"...even if I am not the friend they think I am.  It's better

than no one ever noticing my face.  Did you know that there are people out there in the world who never notice a face? It is called Prosopagnosia, or "face blindness".  Individuals with this disorder literally cannot tell one face from another.  All faces look like a vaguely familiar, but ultimately unknown to folks with Prosopagnosia.  Your best friend in the world could be sitting across a table from you and there would be no way for you to tell who they were until they spoke.  I once read a fascinating story about a detective who had mastered the art of deductive reasoning because he had Prosopagnosia and needed to be able to deduce who people were based on their mannerisms, habits, and fashion sense.  As odd as all that seems, we all have a touch of it ourselves.  

   Mind you, most of us are pretty sure of our ability to recognize faces and may feel that we are immune to Prosopagnosia...that is until we have to recognize people of a different race. Yep, it isn't racism, it's biology.  People of different races than you have different facial topographies that the ones that you imprinted on as an infant.  Members of minority races almost always are more skilled at facial recognition than those in the majority because they are more exposed to the facial features of the majority race. But even then there is a limited capacity to recognize different faces.  If you go to China just know that on

some level all white people look pretty much the same to them. If you go to Africa, most Asian people all look pretty much the same to them.  It is simply how our brain learns facial recognition in our infancy, something the brains of folks with Prosopagnosia never do.    

    One way cultures can overcome our race specific facial blindness is to expose ourselves to more faces that don't look like ours.  I recommend that you give a try to spending worship on a Sunday in a congregation of a different race than yours just to see the differences.  

   If you do go,  be ready for one little odd feature. Not all congregations have this picture of Jesus on their wall.  Warner Sallman painted this image in 1940, it is called "The Head of Christ". At best estimates this portrait has be reproduced nearly half a billion times making it the most popular artistic representation of Jesus in contemporary history.  That does not mean that this is the actual way that Jesus looked.  In fact it is a very, very, very European interpretation of what Jesus might have looked like. If you find yourself in a black church be aware that the chances

exist that the image of Jesus hanging on their wall may not look like Warner's image and may look much more like this one on the right. Now, if you find yourself looking at "Black Jesus" and thinking that "well of course that isn't how Jesus looked," just remember that Sallman's version is no more realistic.  Jesus was a great many things, but on a strictly literal level, he was a Palestinian Jew. Anthropologically he probably did not look like either of those two pictures. Recently, anthropologists have taken a survey of all the most commonly held facial features of people of Jewish descent living in, and around, the town of Nazareth. The composite image of what the most

common facial features would look like on one face is the picture to the left.  While this may not look like what you or I see in our hearts and minds when we think of Jesus the truth to the matter is that Jesus does not look like the prototypical Nazarene in the picture, nor does he look like the Sallman painting.  He does not look like "Black Jesus" nor does

he look like "Buddy Christs" (the image at the top of the post). He does not even look like Asian Jesus here.  Jesus is the Son of God the Father.  He is an eternal being of infinite divine power and majesty.  

The Author of 1st Peter 1:1 says "He was destined before the foundation of the world, but was revealed at the end of the ages for your sake."  

A being that comes from the foundation of the world, hardly seems likely to look like anything we think he ought to look like and so the notion that he looks like any human image is preposterous.  When he went up to the mountain with his disciples and was transfigured into a shining being of power and light he was quite different from when he was just walking around Judea.  So, in the book of Luke when some disciples meet the resurrected Jesus walking on the road to Emmaus it is not surprising that they fail to recognize that it is him.  After all, us humans hardly seem able to recognize other humans if they differ from us slightly, how are we able then to recognize God among us when he is so far different from us.  After Jesus explains some confusing scripture to them they invite him to stay for dinner, still not knowing who he is:

Luke 24:30-33 When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight. They said to each other, "Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?" That same hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem; and they found the eleven and their companions gathered together. 

     The disciples needed the breaking of the bread to see Jesus in their midst. What does it take for us to see Jesus in our midst? We so often fail to recognize the face of Christ in our day to day life and I am not talking about finding the face of Christ on your grilled cheese...that's not a miracle... unless you were using Miracle Whip instead of butter or mayo to toast your grilled cheese, then it is a miracle...whip.  What would be a miracle is if we all learned to look for Christ in our day to day life; realized that Jesus walks with us every day; finally accepted that the eyes of Christ look back at us from the faces of the every day saints of God's church.  If we found God not on a retreat, not on a mountain top, not in a cloistered monastery but if we found him where he always has been: walking right beside us down our personal roads to Emmaus what a miracle that would be. 
    Like the disciples we often fail to recognize the face of Jesus in our lives, but that's OK God knows our face blindness.  So, when Christ was still with us he gave us ways to catch a peek at his presence that is perpetually with us. He gave us the church so that we might perceive, no matter how imperfectly, the hands of Christ. He gave us the scriptures so that we could come to understand, no matter how imperfectly, the thoughts of God.  He gave us the sacraments of baptism and communion so that we might, no matter how incompletely understood, encounter the touch of God. Like the disciples our eyes are opened for the briefest shining moment in those seconds and we see and recognize the face of Christ.  All of those black Jesus portraits, white Jesus portraits, Asian Jesus portraits, etc...may not accurately portray the face of Christ but they do remind us of one important thing:  The Son of God the Father became one of us so that we might know that he is one with us...never leaving us, always beside us.  We just need some help recognizing his face from time to time. 

Thank you for reading and, if you enjoyed it, please hit the "subscribe" at the top of the page. As always, please remember to share and leave a comment. Thanks again. God Bless.


Pastor Rus.