Pam Ford Davis

What does Jesus look like? We each form a mental picture shaped by our culture and personal experiences. Likely pictures or paintings of Christ we viewed at an early age contribute to our character sketch. Some are drawn to pictures that portray Christ as a rugged man of the outdoors. My favorites are Jesus with children on his lap or crowed around his feet. Others that I find very moving are Jesus carrying a lamb on his shoulders and one where he knocks at a door with no outside latch. It represents our hearts which we alone must open to His saving grace.

The truth is we have no pictures or paintings that give us an accurate portrait of our loving Lord. I’m quite sure He would not resemble those in circulation. “Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not (Isaiah 53:1-3 NIV).” The portrait of my love reveals a suffering Savior!