Last Sunday we celebrated the Baptism of Jesus, reflecting on our own baptisms and the calls associated with them. On the front of our bulletin was this graphic. I thought it was a beautiful image of Jesus' baptism. But members of my church were appalled that we would put on the bulletin cover an image of someone holding up John the Baptist's head that had just been chopped. I still see Jesus' head (they swear it doesn't look like Jesus -- as if we know what Jesus really looked like!) but they see John the Baptist. Guess it's all in the interpretation.
4 comments:
Yeah, I totally saw the severed head, too. Maybe that says something about who I am, though...because my first glance at the second cover in the following link also led to shock, followed by shame at my gutter mind. (Okay, I'm just saying that there was shame to try and make myself look a little better. Really, I just laughed at the unfortunate artistic choices.)
http://judgeabook.blogspot.com/2007/12/bigumwhat.html
cagey c, you are so bad for me. I opened the link and OF COURSE I saw what you were thinking. Had it not come from you I might have retained my innocence about the whole thing . . .
Looks like a severed head to me, too. The passage to the left clues you in eventually that this is not John the B, but where are Jesus' neck and body? I even clicked the image to see the larger version -- and still, Jesus is a floating head!
I'm thinking this says more about Katie than about her congregation...
I used that picture too. And I didn't think John the Baptist's severed heat, but others in my congregation did. i just thought someone pulling Jesus up by his hair.
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