Living in the United States, where we are free to believe in the Christian faith, is a blessing. There are countries like Nigeria, India, Pakistan, or Japan where Christians are persecuted or killed everyday.

However, being a Christian in the United States has given us–or at least me– a warped perspective of Jesus Christ.

For example: in the little kid’s Bibles with pictures. What does Jesus look like? Well, most of them have Jesus portrayed as a white man (kind of European-looking), with longish light brown hair and beard, and wearing a white robe with a blue, purple, or red sash.

This is so insanely inaccurate, it’s actually laughable.

We don’t know what Jesus actually looked like, but we can make a guess: he likely looked like many other Middle Eastern man, wore dirty tunics or clothing (not the stark white robe), and did not have pearly white teeth. In fact, Jesus was probably really gross just because they were constantly walking everywhere in the hot desert and it was just a really dirty time.

And, it says in the Bible that Jesus was fully God, but fully man. I’m pretty sure being fully man also means that he was included the following:

1. He had to go to the bathroom.
2. He sweat, probably stank at some point.
3. Because of the sweat and constant outdoor exposure, (and they didn’t have skincare products like we do now) had zits or sunburnt skin.
4. Crooked, not pearly white teeth.
5. He needed to bathe.

He was human. But our “whiteness” makes Jesus seem white to us and his appearance perfect.

Fun fact:

Jesus wasn’t white.

And he wasn’t physically perfect appearance-wise.

I think that we need to stop thinking of Jesus as a white man and stop thinking of God as a white God, and realize that Jesus was from a place in the Middle East called Nazareth (Matthew 2:21-23) and that God says many times in the Bible that he is the God of Israel. (Psalms 68:35)

(Israel is in the Middle East if for some odd reason you did not know that.)

But, the Bible also makes it clear that God can be everyone’s God, male or female, no matter what nation you are from. (Galatians 3:28, Colossians 3:11, Roman’s 3:22)

Of course, there’s nothing wrong with Jesus being from Nazareth. (Although people back in his time did think so.) And there’s not really anything wrong with being incorrect about Jesus’s physical appearance or image. It’s just another thing that our brains do!

However, I have realized that I often think of Jesus as a white dude instead of the God of the Universe.

So, I invite you to take the time and recognize how our American or white culture might impact your perspective on Jesus. After all, Jesus was not white. 😉

~Willow