Here is the first in series called ‘Erasing Jesus’ by P.S. Tryon. Bible Rebel publishes guest pieces, including research articles, opinions, and other assorted material as a regular feature. If you have something that fits with our mission that you would like to submit, please feel free to contact us for consideration.
The flea market was packed with men and women with babies in backpacks and strollers and family dogs, older couples carefully negotiating the crowds, some with canes, the serious junkers hustling and pushing their way to tables, hawkers with the usual handmade crafts trying to appear oh so unusual, food trucks selling coffee, coffee milkshakes, those amazingly delicious mini-donuts, tamales, Asian food, and good ol’ hotdogs. I’m never hungry ‘till I smell it.
I come not just to find hidden treasure but also the vibrancy, the bustle, the cacophony of sounds. I can ride this river anonymously, flow along the ever- changing current and savor its fair flavor. Be unnoticed in a surging sea of humanity.
So I was unprepared when the old man, stained fisherman’s hat sitting sloppily on his long grey hair, hunched in his chair next to some mediocre paintings, singled me out.
You there! he called. I tried to ignore him but I couldn’t push through the slow crowd. You there! He yelled more insistently, pointing a gnarled finger my way. As I tried to step away from his small tent set-up, someone pushed through on my opposite side and shoved me closer in front of him.
Yes, you! he said roughly, in the manner of someone used to speaking with authority. I want to show you something. You are the one!
Puzzled and amused at this point, I gave him my attention. He rose shakily from his chair and said, Over here! Humoring him, I followed him toward the back of his tent where a picture of the face and shoulders of the typical American Jesus was perched on a chair, cheap gaudy gold tinted frame and all.
I want you to have this, he said. He picked up the frame with care, and held it out for me to take.
I’m sorry, I don’t….He ignored me and winked.
No charge. It needs a good home. But I have one suggestion. Hang it where you will see it every day. Will you?
It was the urgency in his voice, the smile and the congenial wink that motivated me to accept the picture. As far as I know, there was never a picture painted of Jesus of Nazareth while he was on earth, and I was not a believer in hanging imagined renditions of him in my house. I could pitch it in the dumpster when I got home. But when I did get home, I actually hung it my bedroom, giving the memory of the old man at the flea market a little bit of honor before I got rid of it. Maybe not the dumpster. Maybe the second hand store.
To be continued…