In honor of our Aussie Olympic hosts, this Jesus of the Week is a submission from one of our Sydney disciples. Rick Benitez, a senior lecturer from the University of Sydney, writes, "Perhaps you didn't realize that already in the 13th century, a very progressive, quasi-Jamaican Jesus was being depicted on icons in Macedonia."
Yes, perhaps we didn't. And perhaps we didn't know that Jesus was in the habit of carrying around giant doobies. OK, OK, it's probably just some sacred scroll the Lord is holding -- or an early papyrus copy of High Times.
The picture is actually an icon known as "Christ Pantocrator," painted by a Greek artist working for Archbishop Constantine Cavasilas, in Ohrid, between 1262 and 1263.