The Black Nazarene

Being driven home tonight I asked Freddy, our Filipino driver which route he would take, the normal one which seems to have been very slow lately or EDSA (a massive 4+ lane highway in each direction) which it seems everyone avoids like the plague as the traffic is even slower, although our recent attempts in desperation have been slow but not nearly as slow as the route to avoid EDSA. Traffic is always slow in Manila! Well at least always EXCEPT if you leave just over 2 hours to get to the airport two days before Christmas because "the roads will be crazy as well as the airport" only to find the journey was in record time leaving an extra 90 minutes in the airport before I could even check-in!

Freddy quickly told us he would go the normal route as EDSA would be very busy and gave a reason why. We had to get him to repeat a few times before we worked out there was going to be a procession from the Catholic church of a statue of a black Jesus (the Black Nazarene). For details of the celebration which I had to look up later see Description of the Feast of the Black Nazarene and a few photos Photos of the festival.

There was Freddy, me and two other Brits in the car, which made for one "slightly religious" Catholic, a Christian of non-Catholic background, a Muslim and an agnostic. As it happens the life-sized statue of Jesus wasn't black to begin with but got charred when it was caught in a fire on the boat bringing it from Mexico, but I didn't know that until my Google searching later, so we had quite an interesting conversation on why a black Jesus and how it was no less realistic than the many very European/Caucasian portrayals of him that fill our consciousness. After all Jesus came from a Arab region of the world. Freddy made the good point that no-one knows what Jesus looks like and I surprised my Muslim colleague when I referred to the Biblical prophecy of Jesus that described him almost as physically ugly yet so many artists have tried to portray him with a glorified physical beauty.

He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. (Isaiah 53:2)

So if God who had the choice to give Jesus any kind of body he may have wished to do chose to give him one "which had no beauty or majesty to attract us" why are some people so determined to change Jesus to make him more "attractive" to people and why are many Christians as influenced by public appearance and vanity as those who are not Christians?