Erin and I went on a road trip to Kentucky last weekend to see Mike pitch for the first time in nearly two years. Easy trip from Michigan-take 23 south to I75 south and keep going for about 4 hours until to see the ‘Florence Y’all’ water tower. About 40 miles before we got to Cincinnati she said, “We gotta be getting close.”
“Close to what?” I asked.
“The giant Jesus,” she said. “There’s a church with a giant Jesus in a pool.”
Yeah, my reaction was about the same as your’s. “You gotta be kidding,” I said.
“Nope.” So she googled “Giant Jesus I75″ on her Blackberry and the first thing to pop up was Giant Jesus, Interstate 75, exit 29 (just in case you want to go see it for yourself).
Ten miles later there we were, passing a giant (62′ and it’s only from the chest up) Jesus, looking like he was carved out of a giant block of Philadelphia Cream Cheese, either sinking into or rising up out of a big reflecting pool. In fact, if you click on the link, there is an option to save giant Jesus to you desktop or wow and wow again, get him for a screen saver. Then I remembered the Heywood Banks song “Big Butter Jesus” and knew this is what he was singing about. Right next door is Traders World, a big theme park and flea market, and right across the freeway is another giant flea market. I had the eerie sensation that the temple needed cleansing.
Lawrence and Darlene Bishop (looking very televangelistic) began pastoring the Solid Rock Church of Monroe, OH in 1978. You can go to their website and find out what’s for sale in their online store, how to iTithe, sign up for free Christian Dating, read about their son’s (Lawrence II) Christian rock band and rodeo star accolades, get the giant Jesus stats (how big, where it was built, who the artist and designer was) and anything you might want to know except, WHAT WERE THEY THINKING??????
Erin and I discussed the rationale for building the 16,000 pound, steel and Styrofoam covered with fiberglass anchored in concrete, 62 foot giant Jesus bust. Some possible reasons could be: People driving on I75 would see it and think, “Gee, look at that. A giant Jesus! I need to go to that church over there and find out how to become a Christian.” Or, there are a lot of people heading to or from Cincinnati praying for a sign, see giant Jesus and think to themselves, “Now I know what to do.” Or, “Wow, a giant Jesus. That church must have all the answers. Let’s stop in and gets some. I mean, we were going to the flea market anyway.”
It’s just my opinion, and Lord knows it’s worth about what you paid to hear it, but I have no idea what they spent on this thing but I can think of a bunch of different ways to spend a mega-messiah sized chunk of change that might, maybe just maybe, have a bigger (at least less embarrassing) impact on showing the nature of God. Missionary work, feeding the poor, visiting the sick or imprisoned, helping widows and orphans, taking care of the homeless is just a short starter list.
Our attempts to personify God are pathetic at best. Ah, you say, but we have seen Jesus. He was on earth. Yes, at a time when he could not be digitized, YouTube’d or Twitter’ed. Instead people see Jesus in a tortilla or potato chip . They see the Virgin in a cornflake or on in a shadow on the side of a garage. Or we make pictures or statues of Jesus: friendly Jesus, rugged Jesus, macho Jesus, concerned Jesus, Jesus the Hunk, etc., etc., etc., all pitiful attempts to reduce the Creator of the universe to human terms. I mean if I could communicate with animals I would communicate in terms that they were familiar with. I wouldn’t talk about it’s hand, depending on the animal it would be hoof, or claw or paw. So when God’s hand or heart or head is mentioned, I think those terms are used to bring things down to our meager understanding level, not because God resembles a human. And even though Jesus showed up in human form, it was because of who he came to relate to and what was necessary for that to happen, not because He and God the Father are guys who hang out in heaven.
Just imagine a pottery warehouse. Late at night all the pots come to life. Some of the pots surmise that someone made them. They didn’t just happen. Therefore, there must be a Potter. So they decide to make a Giant Pot to worship. Well, logic dictates that they would make their Giant Pot a version of what they believe to personify their ideas of the Great Potter. Since they’ve never seen any potter, let alone the Great Potter, their Giant Pot god will look a lot like . . . a pot. Maybe with pot hands. Sort of laughable when you think about it.
Our attempts to humanize God, to make (our idea of) his likeness, or define him in visible terms, diminish him, reduce him, make him less than who he is. At best. There are a ton of good reasons that God forbade making graven images. We don’t need to go into the embarrassing, mockery and ridicule temptations or just plain pathetic nature of the things. The second commandment (the of the famous ten) says, You shall not make for yourself any graven image, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. Exodus 20:4. It gets repeated in Deuteronomy 5:8. You gotta figure that means God was serious about it. If you look at Commandments 1, 2 ,and 3 God seems pretty serious about who he is and what our response should and not be. There were some pretty nasty consquences when the Isrealites made the Golden Calf. I couldn’t find any fine print under the Ten Commandments that says, COMPLIANCE WITH THE ABOVE COMMANDMENTS IS NEGOTIABLE IF YOU HAVE REALLY SPIRITUAL INTENTIONS WHEN VIOLATING.
No graven images. I guess the Bishops just sort of overlooked that verse.
