How ugly was Jesus ?
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How ugly was Jesus ? Of course I can say that! The Bible says it. When was the last time you considered it? Jesus was ugly or worse. Let’s look at the relevant scriptures.
How ugly was Jesus ?
Just as there were many who were appalled at him—
his appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any human being
and his form marred beyond human likeness— [Isaiah 52:14 NIV]
Oh, but that was just on the cross. Where does it say that? It is possible but not certain that this is talking about his appearance on the cross, but it is also possible that he was deformed in some way.
His flesh was not desirable
He has no form or comeliness; And when we see Him, There is no beauty that we should desire Him. [Isaiah 53:2b NKJV]
The lexicon says that the Hebrew word for “form” means beautiful form or good looking. The word for comeliness is beauty or glorious majesty. Jesus had none of this. He was not attractive or impressive in the flesh. In fact, Isaiah goes further than that.
He was despised and rejected—a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief. We turned our backs on him and looked the other way. He was despised, and we did not care. [Isaiah 53:3 NLT]
When you think about it, this makes obvious sense. God could not send a man who was attractive. He needed us to be attracted by the content and power of Jesus—by the truth. God had to make sure that Jesus’ flesh did not get in the way. I doubt if he was crippled or radically deformed until He hung on the cross. But it is possible. It is certainly more possible than thinking he looked like James Bond or the sexiest man on the planet. He certainly wasn’t white nor black.
We do have some images to give a sense of his appearance.
Early Byzantine Christian images of Jesus are quite consistent. There are many images from that era and they all have a long straight nose, bronze skin, and straight hair.
One of the most interesting images is the one from the Shroud of Turin. I don’t know what you think of that, but the evidence is pretty good that the image was “burned” into the cloth by the power of His resurrection.
Interestingly enough, it looks remarkably like the man we see in the earliest images. In fact, it is almost identical to some of them even though there is no way any of these images could have been seen by the artist or creator.
Of course, Jesus had to learn how it felt to be a nobody
How could he understand and help us in our trials if he didn’t know what it felt like to be despised, rejected, the brunt of bigotry (from Nazareth, remember), and all of that.
You need to think about these things.
