Good morning. He wouldn’t have turned heads. In fact, everything we read about Him from a human standpoint tells us that God went out of His way to make Jesus as typical an example of humanity and of His ethnicity as possible. Isaiah prophesied about His appearance and said this:
He grew up before him like a tender shoot,
and like a root out of dry ground.
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. Isaiah 53:2
The little baby laid in the manger looked like any other little baby that would have had the misfortune of being born to parents who didn’t have the financial means to ensure a more reasonable setting for His birth. As a child, He would have been a skinny kid, almost certainly with olive brown skin and a head of curly, black hair, just like every other little boy in Nazareth. As an adult, if He was an example of the average Jewish young man of the first century, His skin and hair would not have changed. He would have been between 5’1” to 5’4” tall, would have weighed between 100 to 120 pounds, and His face would have likely been a little more broad than a typical European person of that era. If we are comparing Him to a European model, His ears would have been a little smaller and His nose a little larger than the average for other ethnicities.
When Jesus passed people on the street, He wouldn’t have been noteworthy. He wasn’t overly handsome nor was he overly plain. He was exactly as God intended for Him to be…typical.
God’s plan was not for His Messiah to be noteworthy in physical appearance. His plan was for the Messiah to be noteworthy for His words and His actions.
But the angels knew. They knew that the ordinary looking infant placed in such a poor place for His first rest was everything but ordinary. They knew that the little baby who tipped His head back and cried, bawled, and howled would one day ask His true Father to forgive those who were murdering Him. The little baby being nourished at Mary’s breast would one day feed thousands…miraculously. The angels knew that the little baby held in Jospeh’s strong, carpenter’s hands would one day heal the lame, the blind, and those plagued by demons. The angels knew that this infant in Bethlehem would possess power that was…extraordinary.
The angels knew, and they rejoiced.
We know too the truth of Him, and may we too rejoice with the angels in this season of joy!
Vern