Jesus Wasn't Handsome

I’ve been meditating on Isaiah 53:2 recently. It’s taken me some interesting places.

That chapter is where Isaiah is describing the coming messiah, Jesus, and that verse says, “…He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.”

Prophesying centuries earlier, the prophet says that Jesus “had no beauty.” He wasn’t a handsome man.

And I realized that this makes sense. If he was built in the form of Chris Hemsworth or Brad Pitt, people would be following him for reasons other than his teaching and his ministry. God wasn’t setting this up so that people followed Jesus because he was a good-looking hunk.

Science's best estimate of what Jesus might have actually looked like.

In fact, his physical attributes aren’t even part of the story. As far as I know, there is no physical description of Jesus in the New Testament, and other than getting murdered, nothing that he did required strength, dexterity or endurance. Being the messiah was not a particularly physical job description.

Now hold on a minute. Just saying that “If he was built in the form of Christ Hemsworth or Brad Pitt….” assumes (and correctly, I think) that Chris and Brad were actually more handsome than Jesus. In fact, it’s likely that a whole lot of the human race was likely “more handsome” or at least “more beautiful” than the messiah who “had no beauty.”

In fact you probably know a whole lot of people who are more beautiful than Jesus. You may be yourself more good looking than the Son of God, but that’s going to trigger a whole lot of people’s false humility buttons, so let’s not go there right now.

Manifestly, the Son of God came with different strengths than his physical beauty. Does that diminish what he did or who he was? Is his incarnation, his crucifixion or his resurrection less meaningful because Brad Pitt is better looking?

A side note here: have you ever read how the North Korean press describes their fearless leader? [https://nwp.link/KJUFacts] It’s a hoot. Clearly, that is not the model Jesus is operating under.

But if there are humans alive today (and over the centuries) who are more handsome than Jesus was, then are there people alive today who are smarter than Jesus was?

Are these uncomfortable thoughts? They’re consistent with Scripture. Jesus himself declared that “Whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do.” He’s saying that we’ll do more than he does, we’ll do greater things than he did.

I think we think too little of ourselves.

I think Father wants heirs, not servants. I think Jesus is looking for brothers, not slaves.