Giant Jesus

Anonymous Today I had the marvelous opportunity to visit the Daphni monastery and stand on scaffolding mere feet away from the face of its Christ pantokrator mosaic. It was breathtaking. There is no way to do justice to standing in semi-darkness under an 11th century giant, mosaic Jesus. Awe-some. The day also included various adventures involving public transportation, elderly Greek church ladies, closed/not closed monasteries, "expensive" gifts, and Greek pizza. It also included a lot of laughs. I attribute this to two reasons: the first is, that, when faced with insurmountable odds (or just minor inconveniences) the best thing to do is laugh. Can't understand the elderly ladies arguing over how to get to where you want to go? Laugh. Unsure if the bus is ever coming? Laugh. Discover the monastery you have been struggling to find is closed? Laugh. Discover it is really open? Smile and laugh. Crouch down to hide the fact that you are the fifth person in a four-passenger taxi? Laugh. The second reason, is, quite frankly, that it feels good to laugh, and sometimes it is good to be goofy.
People who spend a reasonable amount of time with me usually consider me to be a serious person. People who spend an inordinate amount of time with me discover that even I have to let the silliness leak through (usually in the form of obscure Nacho Libre references or unnecessary sound effects while walking) occasionally. Today I felt, in addition to over-awed at Giant Jesus, a little bit goofy... and it felt good. While sometimes it can be lonelier to be with a whole group of new people you haven't yet gotten to know, it can also be refreshing. Expectations are off, or at least different, and you can make of them what you will.
Everyone knows it... people know you differently in different contexts. Your friends from high school know a slightly different 'you' from your teammates, who know a slightly different 'you' from your coworkers, who know a slightly different 'you' from your roommates. If I may be so bold as to say so, I think this is true for Jesus too. The more I study the Gospels and the Christian traditions, the more I am amazed at the many ways that you can 'read' Jesus. I recognize that not everyone might agree with me, but in my experience, context makes all the difference. There are a multitude of ways in which people 'know' Jesus, and the scholar (not to mention the believer) is presented with a variety of possible portraits. In the Gospels alone can be found (at least) four slightly (or sometimes more than slightly) different takes on Jesus. Whether you find this frustrating or enlightening, it makes some sense: we are multi-faceted people.

This is not Giant Jesus, but another fine example of a (smaller) mosaic Jesus.

For this reason it is nice to be reminded that who we really are consists of more than the image other people have of us; that there is more to us than what others have come to expect. I, for example, am a serious student, and often a serious person. But I am not only a serious person; I can also be goofy. There are pieces of my identity that people sometimes don't suspect, and each time they are revealed I am both pleased and a little annoyed at their surprise. Pleased that I am no longer a prisoner to their incomplete image of me, a little annoyed that they held that image less flexibly in the first place. Not that anyone is to blame; expectations are part and parcel of how we order the world, but frustrated by the fact that people do not always fit our categories.
Just as there is Athena the wise, Athena the virgin, and Athena the victorious, and in the gospels you can find Jesus the healer, Jesus the preacher, Jesus the social revolutionary, and more; there is also Jessica the serious, Jessica the silly, Jessica the thoughtful, Jessica the adventurous, Jessica the home-body, Jessica the religion major, Jessica the black belt, Jessica the sailor, Jessica the Bainbridge islander, Jessica the lute, and more.

Today I was reminded that identity is a complex composite of many things. Our class categories (Gender, Nationality, Race, Religion, Self-Sacrifice, Mortality, and Social Justice) are a good start, but by no means exhaustive. Identity is like a puzzle, except some pieces are bigger than others, some are brighter colors, some are only occasionally present, and some are invisible, even to ourselves. And the context in which we look at that puzzle greatly affects the way we understand it. Pictures of Giant Jesus often give the impression of Angry Jesus, but perhaps, once again, context is to blame. Giant Jesus in the picture might look angry, but Giant Jesus a few feet from your head looks freakin' awesome (once again, in the true sense of the word).