The people of Rocky Mount, N.C., have a problem. They cannot decide what one of history’s most famous leaders looks like.
In 2001, city officials commissioned a sculpture of Martin Luther King Jr. to be erected in a city park, near the site where King addressed an audience in 1962. It was there that he first delivered the remark, “I have a dream,” later made famous in his speech in Washington.
The statue was completed in 2003 and unveiled, only to be pulled down, covered, and stored in a corner of the municipal warehouse. What was the problem?
Apparently the citizens of Rocky Mount have diverse opinions on what the civil rights leader actually looked like. And most claimed that the statue did not resemble the famed leader and orator.
The various opinions that the citizens have about the appearance of King stem from their equally varied experiences with him. Their memories are, literally, circumstantial.
As city council member Lamont Wiggins said, “How you perceive a person, especially a person such as Dr. King, depends on at what point in time and at what era in his life and in what medium you actually met him – .” City officials hope to overcome this problem soon. They have enlisted another sculptor. They’re starting over.
A similar problem arises when we try to define God according to our circumstances. What does God look like? How should God behave? How should we behave toward God? And Christmas is perhaps the time of the year when this confusion is most rampant. Is God like Santa, there to give us all we want? Or is He like a benevolent granddaddy, or a malevolent dictator, or an uncaring master? Or, worse, just an excuse to buy more stuff?
So how can we overcome this confusion? Simple. If you want to know what God is like, ask Him. That’s what the Bible is for. It gives us the clearest sketch of God in the person of Jesus. “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father,” Jesus told His disciples (John 14:9).
So what does God look like? A baby. A teacher. A Savior. The King. Our Lord Jesus. Can’t get much clearer than that.