Let the Mystery Be

For Wilshire Baptist Church

Do you know what God looks like? On a recent Sunday morning, a little girl in LeAnn’s Pre-K Sunday school class said she had drawn a picture of God. LeAnn asked if she could see it, and the answer was “no, I’m taking it home.” I think that’s a pretty good answer.

Perhaps from the beginning of time and certainly for the last 2000 years, humans have tried to picture God, along with Jesus and the Holy Spirit. We’ve mostly tried to recreate God in our own image, which often has resulted in renderings of stern old men in beards. We’ve seen everything from Michelangelo’s God reaching out to Adam on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel at the Vatican in Rome, to George Burn’s depiction of God as a frumpy little man in a jacket and loafers in the film, “Oh, God!”

Nobody has seen God’s face, of course, but the Bible tells how the presence of God appeared in a burning bush to Moses and a column of fire to the Israelites. The Holy Spirit mostly gets the dove treatment in paintings, which comes straight out of the Bible. I’ve also seen it depicted as shafts or balls of light, and I’ve heard it described as being like the wind, but that’s hard to draw or paint.

Jesus has gotten the most attention in art because he actually lived as a human so that provides some direction. I grew up in the 1960s and ’70s when Warner Sallman’s famous “Head of Christ” painting was still prevalent in Sunday school rooms. Warner, who created the portrait in 1940, was of Finnish and Swedish descent, and his Christ seems to reflect some of that heritage with a thin nose, thin lips, sharp chin, tanned complexion and long light-brown hair.

Another popular image is “Prince of Peace,” dubbed by some the “Kenny Loggins Jesus” because of his likeness to the 1980s pop star of “I’m Alright” and “Danger Zone” fame. The portrait was created in 2003 by then-eight-year-old Akiane Kramarik based on visions she began having at age four. Whether or not you believe the origin, it’s a remarkable work of art from someone that young.

With the advent of AI, it was just a matter of time before someone would use the technology to bring life to the photo-negative image of Christ from the Shroud of Turin. I saw a new one this week on social media where the shroud image morphs into a full-color, animated rendering that stands, crouches, looks you in the eye and reaches out his hand. I find it unsettling; seeing it felt like more than I wanted to know or even was supposed to know.

My personal favorite is the original painting we have in the narthex at Wilshire created by Texas artist Robert Summers. It depicts Jesus at the Sermon on the Mount. He’s tall and strong, rugged and weathered, and looks like he might walk off at any moment “to straighten something out,” as we’d say here in Texas. He’s the total opposite of the Warner portrait.

I’ve never tried to draw God, Jesus or the Holy Spirit, at least not that I recall. I’ve tried to “paint with words” what I believe God is doing in the world. But those “images” are just my opinions, and they’ve changed over time.

Which brings me back to the little girl’s answer of “no” when asked if she’d show her picture of God. I liked her answer because it’s her picture, based on her knowledge and understanding of God today, and it’s not finished. It will change as she lives more, experiences more, comes to know and understand more about who and what God is to her.

Singer-songwriter Iris DeMent has a song called “Let the Mystery Be.” It talks about folks trying to figure out the details of heaven, and I think her philosophy might be well applied to all our “pictures” of God: 

Everybody is wondering what and where

They all came from

Everybody is worrying about where they’re going to go

When the whole thing’s done

But no one knows for certain and so it’s all the same to me

I think I’ll just let the mystery be.