THE FIRST TIME I recall seeing Jesus, I was in Mrs. Schlaeger’s K-4 class at Mt. Olive Lutheran School. My family wasn’t Lutheran, but they decided I could pass. As a preschooler, I did my best impression of being a cool customer. I made miracles out of Tinkertoys, and cut a dashing figure in Captain Kirk shirts and dingo boots. Inside, however, I was a frightened child. When the teacher assigned impossible tasks such as spelling our first names, I panicked, wishing myself back home on the couch, watching Mike Douglas with my mom. It was then that I first noticed him, framed in some sort of gauzy glamour shot, hanging alongside the American flag. The portrait was a knockoff of Warner Sallman’s “Head of Christ.” Jesus was staring into the distance, as if he’d just spotted tranquility over the horizon. Even underneath all that facial hair, he didn’t look like a swarthy Mediterranean, but rather patrician, WASPy–as if he’d prepped at Groton, taken a wrong turn, then joined up with the Pagans motorcycle gang. It brought me great solace. Several years later, my parents left the Catholic and Russian Orthodox churches of their upbringing in order to enlist as low-church Protestants. (Down with smells ‘n’ bells. Up with potluck.) Here, they weren’t too big on Jesus icons, except in junior church, where my teacher would illustrate Bible stories on flannelgraph. With velcro stuck to his back, Jesus would meet up with Zacchaeus, Mary Magdalene, all the regulars. This was probably my favorite depiction of him. He had none of Caravaggio’s gloominess, and none of Picasso’s absurdity (Pablo made him a bullfighter). Even in a white frock, blue sash, and open-toed shoes, this Jesus looked hale and hearty, like Dan Haggerty as Grizzly Adams–minus 50 pounds and the friendly bear. All this is to say that I have a pretty high tolerance for Jesus iconography. I refuse to snicker when people stamp his likeness on hot-air balloons, poker chips, or as one Venezuelan artist did, on 70 slices of Texas toast. Neither do I mock those who claim to spot Jesus’ face unexpectedly, on a halibut egg, on a charred tortilla, or as one Wisconsin woman recently reported, in the trunk of her backyard tree. (“At first, I thought it was Brett Favre,” said my Milwaukee-bred colleague, mimicking the woman in a honking ‘Sconi accent.) But every man has his limit, and mine was crossed when someone sent me a link to catholicshopper.com. As if Catholics don’t have enough PR problems these days, someone has elected to sell inspirational Jesus Sport Statues. The Man of Sorrows is featured in hand-painted resin, running track, skiing, even biking and rollerblading, in order to show that he is a “friend in everyday activities.” The point is well taken. The statues are not. All of them feature Jesus playing sports with tow-headed youngsters. There’s Jesus modestly dribbling a soccer ball, doubtless holding back on his deadly bicycle kick. There’s Jesus officiating at a karate match. The kids have pink belts and blue belts. Jesus is stuck with a rope belt–but one suspects he could still wipe the floor with them. In every setting, Jesus wears his standard rig (white robe, Nazarene flip-flops), except when playing hockey. On the ice, even he might go down like a sack of wet cement if he wasn’t fitted with rocker blades. BASKETBALL JESUS appears to be a terror on the boards. And Baseball Jesus has his arms instructively wrapped around a batter who has an incorrect stance, but who will likely have little trouble laying heavy lumber with the carpenter’s carpenter at his back. One might expect Football Jesus to be reenacting the Immaculate Reception or, as the song says, drop-kicking someone through the goalposts of life. Instead, he looks about a half-second away from drawing the sack, but he still has the presence of mind to dump the ball off to his fullback (the benefits of omniscience). The obvious problem with over-familiarizing the divine is, where does it all end? Will the next Basketball Jesus throw metal folding chairs across the court? Will Boxing Jesus munch off a hunk of his opponent’s ear, then restore it, as Jesus restored a cut-off ear at Gethsemane? One can easily visualize Sports Jesuses becoming the next must-have ironic tchotchkes, like snowglobes or Chairman Mao refrigerator magnets. But I still have confidence that the real Jesus will escape with his reputation intact. As the Book of Hebrews says, it’s one of his better qualities that regardless of passing fashions, he remains the same “yesterday, today, and forever.” That applies whether Jesus is multiplying loaves and fishes, or blasting the second baseman into center field, breaking up the double play. –Matt Labash
