How remarkable is that? For starters is how remarkable it is that God have any physical appearance in the first place, but that is what happened when The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. From that instant, God had a unique and recognizable physicality that resembled but was distinct and different from every human being ever before or since.
Also remarkable is that we know and recognize that physical appearance with confidence even now, so far away in both time and distance. There are so many physical characteristics that do not belong to him that we can reject out of hand: curly hair like Saint Peter had, for example, or great height like an NBA starter. Such things we wave away as preposterous.
Without photograph or portrait, how have we achieved this confidence? We have clues from items whose provenance is less conventional and less convicting; the Veil of Veronica venerated at Saint Peter’s in the Vatican; the Holy Face of Manopello; the Shroud of Turin. All concur about the essentials; all are equally optional and unnecessary to the life of faith and love of the Lord in His Holy Church. Make of them what you will. Even less necessary are the various visions granted to holy people across the ages, however much they tend to agree as well. Saint Faustina shows us the vision of His mercy, not His hair.
What for me has long been a source of wonder is that however Jesus did look, He does still look, but not entirely. What do I mean by that? Consider that after Jesus’ resurrection, He appeared to a number of people, all of whom had known Him well before his crucifixion. Sometimes they did not recognize Him, like Mary weeping in the garden, or the disciples on the road to Emmaus. And then they did recognize Him – though Mary recognized His voice, mainly. Others knew Him immediately by sight, as the apostles in the upper room, though they couldn’t say how he got in past the locked door. What is the same, what is different? I think the characteristics of the Risen Body have almost everything in common with the body nailed to the cross and laid in the tomb, only somehow they’re better. I’ll have to think more about that.
Yet we do know a lot about how Jesus looked and looks. His dark, long hair parted in the middle, that beard that somehow parts into two, as well. His eyes open, dark, and lively. A surprisingly small mouth for someone whose speaking is so transformative. No shortage of nose. The halo, however painted on, is almost always unnecessary in every rendering for the past two thousand years. We know.
Jesus is God made visible, not a projection or imagining. So if any artist change his appearance too much in one way or another to resemble some group or even an individual, it doesn’t take a professional to spot the false steps. We know.
Jesus has everything essential to us in common with us, except for sin. That means He looks very much like all of us but not exactly like any of us, just as you or I resemble our forebears and our children but only up to the point of distinction that is individuality. Not because of any technology or talent, but because He wants it, His is a form, a figure, and a face we know, recognize, and love. We all know what Jesus looks like. So look. At Him.
Monsignor Smith
