If God had a face, what would it look like?
And would you want to see?
If seeing meant that you would have to believe
In things like heaven and in Jesus and the saints and all the prophets?

Joan Osborne (1995)

Christology in images

Osborne’s (1995) song calls to mind a profound and poignant question: what does the face of God look like? Furthermore: what does the face of Jesus, as God incarnate, look like? Does he look like me? Is he Māori? I recall images of Jesus in the homes of whānau and friends. One such image was of a 1950s-style Jesus, with a European profile and baby blue eyes. He looked quite content in this image; this Jesus had not anticipated what was to come. This Jesus was white. In another illustration of Jesus, he is suffering, crowned with thorns, with a look of anguish and annihilation in his eyes – the weight of the world’s sins, past, present, and future, crushing him. This Jesus was also white. Another such image is the iconic Sacred Heart of Jesus. In this image, the heart of Jesus is understood, by some, as a representation of Christ’s love for humanity. The heart, pierced and bleeding, surrounded by thorns and crowned with the cross, radiates divine light. Again, this Jesus was white.

In the wharenui at my marae in Waiohau, there was a brass cross inside a wood and glass case which sat upon a small, high, shelf affixed to the central poupou at the back of the whare. The cross was old and tarnished. Below it was a very old, weathered, framed, picture of Jesus knocking on a door illustrating Revelation 3:20: “Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me” (KJV). Jesus stands dressed in a light-coloured alb-like tunic, with an elaborate cope, a gold crown, and a garland of greenery illuminated by a halo. Besides the crown, Jesus appears to be wearing liturgical garb. He holds in one hand an elegant lamp, and with the other hand knocks on a door, covered with overgrowth, suggesting that this door has been closed for a long time. Interestingly, the door does not have a doorknob. This old image was a battered print of William Holman-Hunt’s 1853 painting (there were three versions painted), Light of the World. Concerning the absence of a doorknob Holman-Hunt (1905) declares that this represents “…the obstinately shut mind” (p. 350). Jesus knocks, but the individual must open the door from the inside. However, this Jesus is white.

Image 1: Holman-Hunt’s, Light of the World, 1900-1904 version, Middlesex Chapel, St Paul’s Cathedral, London

(Holman-Hunt, 1904-1905, n.p.).

None of the images of Jesus that I have seen look middle-Eastern. It seems that Christological iconography reflects the culture of the artist: European artist = European Jesus.

Christology in words

If Jesus comes to us in a way that we can recognise, what of a Māori Jesus? James K. Baxter’s poem causes me to reflect on what a Māori Jesus might look like.

I saw the Maori Jesus
Walking on Wellington Harbour.
He wore blue dungarees,
His beard and hair were long.
His breath smelled of mussels and paraoa.
When he smiled it looked like the dawn.
When he broke wind the little fishes trembled.
When he frowned the ground shook.
When he laughed everybody got drunk.

The Maori Jesus came on shore
And picked out his twelve disciples.
One cleaned toilets in the railway station;
His hands were scrubbed red to get the shit out of the pores.
One was a call-girl who turned it up for nothing.
One was a housewife who had forgotten the Pill
And stuck her TV set in the rubbish can.
One was a little office clerk
Who’d tried to set fire to the Government Buldings.
Yes, and there were several others;
One was a sad old quean;
One was an alcoholic priest
Going slowly mad in a respectable parish (Baxter, 1988, p. 347).

Brown’s poem is a response to Baxter.

I am the Māori Jesus

i AM the Māori Jesus

And i don’t like

mussels and parāoa

Give me fish ‘n’ chips

with tomato sauce

Fresh white bread

and loads of butter

Butter makes this country great

So feed my whenua

to the cows

for all i care (Brown, 2014, p. 48).

Contextualising my Christology into a Patuheuheu hapū (one of my hapū) milieu, this is my response to both Baxter and Brown.

Patuheuheu Jesus

I am the Patuheuheu Jesus

I go eeling and hunting

My knife is always sharp

My hīnaki is always bursting

I don’t eat wild pork, cos I’m a Jew

But I give it away to the old people

They make boil up and

pāpākiri thick with butter

At Easter time I walk

through the Horomanga

looking for a big fat kererū

In the pot it goes for Aunty

She’s sick – even I can’t heal her

It’s her last supper, no wine

Just waikōhua and kūmara

Too sick to chew flesh

I salt and dry the eels in the sun

I don’t eat eels, cos, again, I’m a Jew

Koro and Nan eat it with rīwai and pūhā

I’m all about that manaaki life

Sometimes I scrub the shit

out of the toilets and unblock

the drains

Working at the marae

is hard work at times.

References

Baxter, J. K. (1988). Collected poems James K Baxter. Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press.

Brown, B. (2014). I am the Māori Jesus. In R. Whaitiri & R. Sullivan (Eds.), Puna wai kōrero (pp. 48-54). Auckland, New Zealand: Auckland University Press.

Holman-Hunt, W. (1900-1904). Light of the world [painting]. Retrieved from: https://www.stpauls.co.uk/history-collections/the-collections/collections-highlights/the-light-of-the-world

Holman-Hunt, W. (1905). Pre-Raphaelitism and the pre-Raphaelite brotherhood. London, United Kingdom: Macmillan.

Osborne, J. (1995). One of us. Relish. Philadelphia, PA: The Crawlspace.