Jesus in the middle East

Reflection

Pointing out that Jesus lived in the Middle East is a small but useful corrective to centuries of Western art and imagination that have often pictured him with features and colouring far removed from a first century Galilean Jew. Jesus was born, raised and ministered entirely within the region now made up of Israel and the Palestinian territories, shaped by Jewish culture, language and religious practice throughout. This detail matters not for the sake of trivia but because it grounds the incarnation firmly in real, particular history rather than an abstract or borrowed setting. God did not become a generic human figure, he became a specific person, in a specific place, at a specific point in time, among a specific people with their own long story of covenant and promise. Remembering that geography helps guard against reshaping Jesus into a comfortable reflection of whatever culture happens to be doing the imagining, and instead meeting him as he actually was.

Questions to sit with

• Has your own mental image of Jesus been shaped more by art and culture than history?
• Why do you think the specific historical setting of the incarnation matters?
• What difference might it make to picture Jesus within his actual first century context?

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