And Who Do You Say That I Am

Three times in the New Testament, Jesus asks his disciples, “Who do the people say I am?” He would then turn the tables and ask, “And you, who do you say I am?” The answer was usually Elijah, Jeremiah, or some other Old Testament prophet. Once, Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”

More often, however, Jesus would refer to himself using simple visual symbols and metaphors from everyday life in Palestine: a broken reed, a shepherd, a lion, a lamb, bread, a cornerstone, a fountain, and a serpent. His desire was to help the rural people understand his message about the imminent coming of the Kingdom of God.

In the painting above, I have arranged several of these metaphors over the surface of the canvas to provide a collective impression of how Christ explained himself to the uninitiated, as well as a reminder of how simple his message could be.