One Friday evening as I was leaving from work, striding diagonally across my building’s plaza and approaching a busy intersection, my eyes latched onto a bizarre sight.

It was a man dressed like Jesus, crossing the street and carrying a cross over his shoulder.

It was hot that day in early April, one of the first that actually felt like spring, a season in Chicago that tends to be fleeting, slipping in between a freezing winter and sweltering summer. And in the midst of people wearing suits and shorts, short sleeves and khakis, here was this guy covered in a long, sack-like garment, with shoulder-length brown hair and a beard, wearing what looked like a crown of thorns and carrying a cross.

It took a moment for his image to register in my mind, to cut through the “automatic pilot” mode I typically assume when going to and from work. The sight caused me to glance at him with surprise. Yet within seconds, my surprise morphed into dismay and anger. Almost as soon as I saw him, I glanced away. As I kept moving toward the other street corner, a wave of negativity washed over me. “Great,” I thought in disgust, “That’s all we need, another nut to give the world excuses to write off Christians as fanatics and morons.”

I quickly pushed the image of the “Jesus freak” out of my mind, and kept walking toward my destination.

Ironically, in the same moments I had dismissed the man dressed like Christ, I was on my way to meet my friend Maria to see several student art exhibitions, one of which had a spiritual theme. I had been looking forward to the latter for several weeks, reading a blurb about it in a brochure, and having marked the opening date on my calendar.

Despite my enthusiasm, I wound up being disappointed. The exhibition didn’t move me. Though it featured various works, most Christian, some styles contemporary and others traditional, none spoke to my heart. As I strolled the wooden floors of the small, square gallery space, studying works that rimmed the walls, I felt disconnected and as if something was missing.

Suddenly it hit me.

I didn’t see much joy.

I didn’t see much victory.

What I did see was the crucifixion of Christ but little about His resurrection, which was the reason why Jesus died in the first place.

What I wanted to see was the fact that Jesus won - a display featuring the triumph, the unshakable hope, the reason to believe that He scored the final goal for all those who believe on Him as Lord and Savior.

I had come to the exhibit with Maria, an art curator who happens to be Christian. After we made our way through the artworks, exited the room and the building, and started heading several blocks south for dinner at a Russian restaurant, I asked Maria what she thought of the exhibit, while noting my disappointment. She commented that it’s harder to visualize Jesus’ victory than His death, and the latter also is what many expect to see.

While the explanation made sense, at the same time it sounded like an excuse begging to be body slammed.

In my frustration, I kept wondering why there aren’t more artists today using all kinds of media - from paintbrushes to computer pixels - to not only showcase the pain of Jesus’ death, but embrace the challenge of showing the joy and power that exists in Jesus’ eternal victory over the cross?

How awesome it would be to see artists who know Jesus as God and love Him, putting their hearts, minds and spirits toward creating new images of what Jesus’ eternal victory means to them and others.

How exciting it would be to see modern-day masters being bold with those images, taking them to people in creative, appealing ways that inspire and empower them.

It’s been done before. In fact, that kind of thing used to be the norm. Michelangelo, da Vinci, Raphael, Titian - their works glorifying Christ still are amazing to behold, among the most captivating in the history of art.

So why not today?

My question to Maria, and the related questions it led me to ask myself about possibilities for depicting Jesus in today’s art, lingered in my mind. Yet as the days passed, and memories of the art exhibition grew fainter, for some reason thoughts of the man I saw dressed like Jesus started growing stronger. At first I couldn’t figure out why. Hadn’t I dismissed him as some irrelevant weirdo? Then I realized that seeing him, and on that particular day - April 10, 2003 - should have meant something to me. That day, a Friday, was two days before Palm Sunday, a week before Good Friday, and a little more than a week before Easter.

• Palm Sunday honors the day Jesus Christ entered Jerusalem, to the praise and adoration of multitudes as the long-waited-for Messiah.
• The following Friday, Good Friday, marks the day those same crowds joined with Israel’s religious leaders and the political powers of Rome to crucify Christ
.
• Easter is the day Jesus rose from the dead, to triumph over sin and provide eternal life for all people who believe in Him as their Lord and Savior.

The more I considered the man dressed like Jesus, the same person I had rejected almost instantly as a nut case, he eventually impressed me more positively than anything else I experienced that Easter season. He was a living, breathing, walking reminder of the fact that God chose to live as a Man, to walk in our shoes, to feel what we feel, to love each of us so much that He willingly suffered for us in ways we will never fully understand.

And somehow, as I kept thinking about that walking tribute to Christ, I could see more than pain.

I saw joy.

Slowly, my heart grabbed hold of the fact that Jesus emerged from His tomb as The Conqueror - the Man with the Plan with all power in His hands! I started thinking about the hundreds of prophecies that spell out exactly who Jesus is and the details of His sacrifice - prophecies reaching back more than 4,000 years. I focused on the fact that Jesus Christ lives forever, and those who decide to trust Him as their Lord and Savior can live with Him right now and always, in ways more real than what we see with our eyes and touch with our hands.

I don’t know exactly how I reached the point of seeing joy in that man’s walk when I couldn’t spot it in the art show. Maybe it was the man’s courage - to do what he did publicly and boldly, while knowing that many, as I did, would reject him as a fool. Regardless, seeing him walk across a busy downtown street during rush hour was a personal wake up call for me. In a place I wasn’t looking, at a time I specifically expected to find spiritual inspiration somewhere else, God jolted my complacency about the cross. It was a reminder to not take the pain of His death or the power of His resurrection for granted, no matter how many Easter celebrations I celebrate.

Whoever that guy dressed like Jesus was, I thank him for taking a walk that early Friday evening.

©Copyright 2003 Ann Pinkney. All rights reserved.