Portraying Jesus, by Eve Lockett

I’m thinking today about how Jesus is portrayed in the gospels and in fiction. Some of you will have thought through long before now how to write Jesus as a character in your books, such as The Well is Deepby Ros Bayes. And you could say that every time we preach, give our testimony or witness to Christian faith, we are describing Jesus in some way as a person.

So what do we make of the character of Jesus in the gospels? I have spent nearly all my life as a believer, and have read, studied and spoken on the gospels many times; and yet strangely there is something about his manner that I find stern, abrasive, critical and impatient. If I met him, I think he would frighten me.

Does that make him less convincing? Or in fact more authentic? If I had been a gospel writer I might have been tempted to tone him down, soften him up, make him more diplomatic, more palatable. What a disaster that would have been! The Jesus of the gospels is a man championing and identifying with the oppressed, the poor, the victim, the lost and the outcast. He is confronting head on the regime that has exploited them and distanced them from God’s mercy. If I find him unsettling, perhaps it says something about me and my life.

And then we come to the portrayal of Jesus in fiction, film or visual art. I can’t say I have ever found any film actor’s performance spot on, and maybe that’s not surprising: the imaging of Jesus in art, literature or drama is a tricky business. As writers, we may well want to depict Jesus in a meaningful and convincing way. How can we avoid the sentimental, the banal or the religious cliché? It’s a huge subject, and I can only touch on it here.

One way it’s been dealt with over the years is stylistically, as in icons, mystery plays or through allegory, rather than realistically – certainly not the super-realism of kitsch Christian art with Jesus as a perfect white male with great teeth, strong jawline, virile beard and the body of a Greek god. 

Another approach to portraying Jesus is to show the impact he had on those who encountered him. I came to Christian faith through reading a novel that described those who were transformed by Jesus rather than describing Jesus himself; which also happens to be a very effective way of discovering the Jesus of the gospels.

Christ et enfants, Georges Rouault

It’s pretty clear that children were drawn to him, they trusted him, they recognised who he was and believed in him. Women also loved him, they were affirmed by him and felt free to talk to him. They were even confident with him on their own. And he counted women among his friends, his equals if you like. Here was someone who was safe, not because he was harmless but because he was holy.

Ordinary, honest men trusted him and followed him. So did the rascals and rogues who lived by fraud, but who found their souls and their salvation when he called them by name.

Gentiles and foreigners discovered him to be inclusive in an exclusive culture. Those in authority, both Jewish and Roman, recognised in him a teacher and a leader of integrity, and ended up in his service. And a tormented, dying thief saw in him a shining guide to Paradise.

The ones who hated him were the power-hungry, the spiritually self-satisfied, those whose status he threated. Power, pride and self-importance are challenged, not gratified, by encountering the authentic Jesus.

So if we choose to portray Jesus for any reason, we have a wealth of material in those men, women and children he brought to such a radical place of faith, life and healing. Their stories reflect him, just as our own personal stories and the stories we create can reflect him, showing how often it is through the lives of others he is made known.