December 25th 2 B.C.E.: a few words about that Jesus guy.

By Chris Stevenson

It's that time of the year again, the time to focus on the one man who saved the world and preached salvation and peace. But before we discuss Ron Artest, lets talk about Jesus the Christ. It always seemed strange to me that a good percentage of people on this planet are obsessed about focusing so much attention on the infancy of someone who performed all of his phenominal tasks while in his early thirties. But I recently saw the Christmas episode of the "Bernie Mac Show," and it brought back a certain feeling in me. Coming up as a Jehovah's Witness, it's well-known we didn't celebrate holidays, I however had Christmas Spirit through the simple prohibition of Christmas-as had many other JWs-it's well known now that Jesus wasn't actually born on 12/25/02 BCE (at some point a pre-Christ-era pagan festival called "the birthday of the unconquered sun" was observed on that particular day, and was then promoted as Jesus birthday years after his crucifixion. "Unconquered sun" no-doubt becoming confused with son), and other ethnic-based movements have since made themselves a Christmas alternative, based mainly on the same principle of sharing and giving that many see as being overshadowed by selfishness and commercialism with Christmas. My feeling today simply is, who cares about the nitpicking over dates, changing Santa's name to Satan, and all the other lame excuses? Buy your kid a Big-Wheel this week and shut the hell up ya cheapskate.

I detect a little apprehension of dealing with Jesus while he was an adult. Some of this is due to the economic and educational status of those who choose to revere or worship Jesus. If I ask you to think about a car, those used to driving luxury cars will picture a Mercedes, Cadillac, Lexus, or an expensive SUV, those of us who are poor, will picture a used Ford Escort. So too with historical representations of Jesus, most people even today don't like to ponder the words of the Christ, as a result the poor will permanently relegate Jesus to permanent infancy, because in many ways most of us are permanently childish ourselves. Others among us more educated will deal with a more adult Jesus, but only on our own terms. The rich have little or any dealings with Jesus at all, except they're the ones who produced the last pigmentation of Christ.

While many issues surround Jesus in regards to his actual date of birth, the true origin of the Christmas holiday, whether Christ was a separate being or 1-in-3 of a triumvarate, and of course, what was the actual skin color of Jesus while he was on the earth, one thing is certain; Jesus walked the earth 2000 years ago, he's been White now for roughly a thousand years. Mel Gibson's controversial film "The Passion of the Christ" was just the latest in a long line of passionately gratuitous White Christs, it made him go from playing a suicidal cop seen sticking the business end of his automatic in his mouth, to arguably the most powerful man in Hollywood. Few realize whose image Gibson specifically based his on-screen character on. It was Anne Catherine Emmerich's novel "the Dolorous Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ." Emmerich (1774-1824) was a 19th Century German nun.

One reviewer described "Passion" star Jim Caviezel's casting as stereotypical: "I submit to you that a White European Jesus is nothing but a sellout...Jesus wasn't a six-foot-plus White anglo-saxon male model from Great Britain... but more accurately a short-to-average height middle eastern arimitheic Jew (think Arabian in appearence), much darker skin, hair which was probably cut short, and calloused hands-a carpenter living in the Middle East 2 millenia ago." Columnist William Rivers Pitt asked a burning question: "Why would Mel Gibson make a movie about people in the ancient Middle East and cast it with so many White people?... Now to suggest that Jesus shared a genealogical heritage and physical similarity to the people sitting in dog cages down in Guantanamo is to dance along the edge of treason." One female talk radio host on Baltimore's WOLB had what I thought was an interesting Oprah-esque take on a lot of Black callers concern as to whether Jesus was Black: "Black people are not interested in seeing their own blood like that, we see it every day. Do you think Whites are interested in seeing Blacks suffer like that onscreen? Blacks weep when Whites suffer, when Blacks see Blacks suffer, we say, 'he must have done something.'" In other words the Sister enjoyed the flick, and refused to let some trivial skin color issue stand in her way.

As I've written before, Jesus skin color is not really of prime importance, except that Whites have changed it, and historically used it to add more weight to the structure of institutional racism. This is very sad when you consider what Jesus was all about, most religions like to note Jesus evagelizing skills because it benefits the churches, but Jesus never belonged to a church or religious organization. Nor was he trying to build one. Some of his more notible lesser-known qualities was that of the following, Child Advocate: [Catholic Bishops take Note]"But Jesus said, suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven." Motivational Speaker: "And the Jews passover was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem, and found in the temple those that sold oxen, and sheep and doves, and the changers of money sitting, and when he made a scourge of small cords, he drove them all out of the temple, and the sheep, and the oxen; and poured out the changers' money and overthrew the tables, and said unto them that sold doves, take these things hence, and make not my father's house an house of merchandise." Financial Auditor: "And he saith unto them, whose is this image and superscription? They say unto him. Caesar's. Then saith he unto them, render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's." Nationalist: "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gatherest her chickens under her wings, and ye would not." And just plain Dissin' Jesus: "Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can you escape the damnation of hell?"

I leave it to you to figure the scriptures I used. I really don't think any Christian or Jewish faith has the complete truth regarding what Jesus wants us to do, mainly because most religions always figure out a way to ask for more than what God asks for. These faiths are so scrambled today, that even if their basic doctrines are correct, they are losing out on the human relations end. Christmas on the other hand is constant, it never changes, only the consumer has changed. Please have a happy, and safe holiday. If you don't observe, have a happy day off.

Stevenson is a columnist for the Buffalo Criterion and TheBrownWatch.com. Pointblank can be read at www.voiceoffreedom.com