I have a feeling this is a trick question. Why am I feeling uneasy about trying to take a stab at it? We’re all citizens of Planet Earth, right? All created in the image of God, right? Am I nervous because I have a fear of being exposed as a rascist? That’s rediculous!! I’m no rascist…am I? No one reading this has even a hint of rascism hiding anywhere in thier heart…do they? Am I afraid of being viewed a certain way by my brothers and sisters in Christ? How WILL they view me? Will I be cast in a bad light no matter how I answer the question?
I shouldn’t feel guilty because God chose to make me white…should I?
Soooo…..why does this question make me feel uneasy? Why indeed.
I’ve decided I don’t like the question, so I’ll cop out and just say this…since Jesus is God the Son, and we are all created in His image then the color of Jesus is…….. a crazy quilt!! Patches of red, brown, black, white, rich, poor, short, tall, fat, thin, smart, dim,young, old and on and on…ad infinitum! Let’s see someone try to be more evasive than that!

Are you talking skin color? When he was on the planet in person? or now that HE is indwelling the believer? HE is the same color as the living sanctuary from which HE is outpoured/deployed…
Will this be on the test? Opaque/Translucent/Clear/Glowing perhaps?

Tim, you better check with Les ’cause his favorite son is named Brian. (He just told me!)

Jesus is the color of water – self reflecting.

I think a lot of people who are convinced Jesus is a certain ethnicity or skin color are going to be very surprised and humbled when they get to heaven.
There will be a lot of jaws dropping but mostly every knee will bow every tongue confess that he is Lord regardless of his physical appearance their will be no doubt He is Lord and Father of all his children.

Since Jesus was a real human in history and has a certain genealogy, etc., then one could probably make a good guess as to what he generally looked like. But I’m not versed to know, though from what I’ve picked up he wouldn’t be lily white, or ebony black.
On the other hand Jesus identifies himself with the entire human race. So if he happens to be depicted as African, hispanic, oriental, Scandinavian, etc., well that’s okay, because in a sense he is everyone since the entire humanity is taken up in him as the second Adam.

One other note I’d like to add: There’s no way we can really know all that is in our genealogy. So how can we know for sure what Jesus looked like? He may have been very dark, the darkest in his family. Or whatever.

Jesus is the color of love.

Jesus is the color of love.

So I actually stumbled across your site. I am taking a theology class at a university and we had a discussion about the color of God and Cone’s writings. And I found you. I would love to understand if God truly has a color at all, and if he does, if it’s relevant. Would his having a physical characteristic such as skin tone change his relationship with people? If He was black, would he love black people more? Or is his love equal no matter his color? Does he come to the poor and helpless on an individual basis no matter their color, or is Cone talking about coming to a poor and helpless group of people? If his purpose is to set them free, could all of mankind since the Fall be the poor people that he will one day return to?
I would love to hear your thoughts! Can’t wait till you post what you think!
Emily
P.s.
“I never liked jazz music because jazz music doesn’t resolve. But I was outside the Bagdad Theater in Portland one night when I saw a man playing the saxophone. I stood there for fifteen minutes, and he never opened his eyes.
After that I liked jazz music.
Sometimes you have to watch somebody love something before you can love it yourself. It is as if they are showing you the way.
I used to not like God because God didn’t resolve. But that was before any of this happened..”
-Prologue to “Blue like Jazz”
..You said God was kind of Blue, and it reminded me of how much I loved this quote.

Since black is the presence of all colors, he’s got to be black.

I have to say that my thinking is much along the lines of Ted Gossard’s above. I believe since Jesus was born of the flesh, he had to have some very specific physical characteristics and my guess is they would correspond to the region and ethnicity he was physically born in to. But it doesn’t matter what color Jesus is, but rather WHO He is and what His message is.
There is only one race – the human race. There are different ethnic groups within the human race but ALL were created in the image of God, therefore, He does not show partiality to one ethnic group over another. Neither should we. Additionally, God only ever differentiated between Gentile and Jew (with no regard to ethnicity or color) and Jesus “himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility” between the two so that “whosoever will” can have eternal life. He never grouped people as a result of their color or ethnicity but rather who or what they worshiped.
Too much emphasis on color or ethnicity, apart from celebrating God’s amazing creativity in diversity, can be a futile a exercise and can also be a distraction from His real message of unity in diversity, by grace, through faith in Jesus Christ!

I am going to go with the logical olve due to the area of the world. However, this is also an assumption that the climate has pretty much stayed the same for 200 years in theat region.
My second guess is….. It really doesn’t matter.

Not yet having read the comments above yet, I think that Jesus is the entire spectrum of the rainbow–even the colors that we cannot perceive with our limited vision. Complete within himself, he has the perfect balance within almost any scale available. Ora et labora. MBTI. Whatever. No wonder that almost anyone from any side of any issue can easily persuade themselves that Jesus stands with them. The problem is that our vision and our balance are not so perfect. We can’t perceive or at least have difficulty perceiving that Jesus also stands with those who are way different from us. That does not make Jesus wishy-washy or flimsy by any means. He is more solid and more firm than we could ever imagine. He walks through the walls of the upper room as though they were vapor. He walks into our boxed up lives as though our barriers aren’t even there.

What an awesome evening of worship. Our color on the outside is just the beginning of many shades that extend to the inside. Perchaps life brings us the grays,the black and whites and of course the blues. We are many colors and the outside is just one reflection.
God sees all the shades.