Jesus Wasn't White.

"Jesus wasn't Black!" Why not? I mean, theoretically, why couldn't he be? If you take away the historical and regional evidence that Jesus certainly wasn't a white man, and wasn't fair or light skinned at all, what we're left with is an idea of a human who, according to the Biblical texts that tell the story of his life, was born to show mankind God's love and to eventually be murdered by the Roman Empire as punishment for being the living embodiment of love, kindness, courage, passion, and grace. If we are to be like Jesus, why is it such a terrible thing if Jesus were Black? Or Brown?

Again, take away the historical and regional evidence of what human beings from that area of Earth looked like at that time. Strip that away if you need to, and focus just on the concept.

Why can't you admire, adore, learn from, and even worship a man with a dark complexion? Where is the hang-up? Why do you need your diety to look just like you, but you have no problem demanding others who don't look like you to worship and revere him as well? Are you conscious of your hypocrisy? Can you entertain the possibility that your faith is weak if you require your God to be white? Does it not give you pause that you're limiting a being you claim is omnipotent to one particular skin tone?

Why can't you worship and love Jesus as a being who wasn't white? Faith is believing without seeing, but that you need to believe something so incredibly bizarre and inherently prejudice is very sad to me. I think perhaps you would look down in that manger at a dark-skinned baby, a teenage mother, and a man who is not that baby's father, and you would have turned them away as well. It breaks my heart that the Son of God and Man might have walked through your lives, healing the sick, defending the poor, fighting the oppressive system of government that eventually got him killed, and you would have sided with Pontius Pilate and not the Disciples.

"Well, he shouldn't have flipped the tables at the temple." "He should have come to Rome legally." "He ran around with whores and thieves."

Where have I heard this all before...

Today is Christmas, a holiday in which we celebrate the birth of Jesus and his story. The story of a dark-skinned baby who changed the world with his example of courage and love that will always be near and dear to my heart. Because Jesus was Black. And that makes total sense to me.

Merry Christmas, friends. May we all look inward and ask ourselves the hard questions this holiday season.