Perhaps, we are relying a little too much on our cellphones, especially as cameras.

For example, I needed a new part for a toilet, so I took a cell phone photo of the faulty part inside the tank, and took it to the hardware store. I showed the picture to the hardware salesperson. Now, I thought I was being quite clever, as normally I would go to the store, thinking I knew exactly what was needed, and then, facing a bevy of possible variations, inevitably I would buy the wrong part. (This is a longstanding source of humour in my family, as I have done this most of my life, choosing the wrong thing even if there are only two choices.) She recommended that she thought would work  -  truth was that it wasn't a great picture. I  bought the part, although, to be honest, I wasn't certain it was the right part.. (It wasn't! I keep my reputation in tact! That was close!)

Then, I realized, afterward,  it was really quite simple and easy to remove the old part and to bring the actual part along with me for comparison. I didn't need a picture; I had the real thing. I went to another store as the first store didn't carry this particular part, and I found what I wanted. It works. Sigh!

I remember when I went to the Middle East, many years ago, with a tour. Some of my fellow travellers were so busy taking hundreds of pictures that I wondered whether they were seeing Jesus' homeland only through a camera lens.  They were missing out on the real thing.

It is possible to read the gospels and get a certain picture of Jesus of Nazareth. we see him through our personal theological lens. Sometimes, we "freeze"  him in that shot and that's the only picture we ever have of him.  Some folk like the close-ups of Jesus. Others like to put him in crowd shots. Some like his baby pictures. Others are mesmerized by what happened on Golgotha.  Some are fascinated by the fiery preacher; others, the social or religious iconoclast, and so on. No one picture tells the whole story by itself.

I find it interesting that none of the Gospels ever tried to describe Jesus physically. If anything, the Gospels are more like a movie rather than a photo album. That means we get to see Jesus in action, rather than just a bunch of still shots.

But even so,  as dynamic as the Gospels are, I doubt that they give us the whole picture.  At the end of John's Gospel, he concluded, "Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written," (John 21:25). One can envy the disciples who had the real Jesus every day walking and working among them. However the Gospels originated, who borrowed from whom, it must have been very hard to decide what stories to tell and what to leave out.

So we work from these pictures and try to touch the soul of the "Real Jesus". One doesn't create a relationship with a picture, but needs to  find the person behind the pictures. Pictures alone do not a faith make, but when we emotionally, spiritually, tangibly engage the person in the picture in real and meaningful ways then we truly identify the person and come to know him and find him very real.

A pictures may be worth 10,000 words, but why settle for a picture when there is the real deal?

Dale