The Not-So-Striking Jesus

It really strikes me to think of how un-striking Jesus most likely looked to the people who saw him.

Up until this point in my life, when I read and thought about the stories in the Gospels, Jesus was so stately, so tall, so commanding, and well, striking to behold. But based on everything we now know of the people who lived during that time and in that place, Jesus was likely extremely average looking, even underwhelming in so many ways.

“For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him” Isaiah 53:2.

But really, this just adds to his beauty even more.

I look forward to reading the Gospels now through this new perspective of a Jesus more human than I had ever thought of him.

More gentle and truly lowly than I had ever pictured him.

More humble than I had given him credit for.

He had no advantage of status, family, wealth or even extreme good looks to go before him or to fall back on.

He was all God, and strikingly, decidedly still, all man.