ART AND JESUS
APRIL 13, 2023
I.THE CROWN OF THORNS
Kendrick Lamar during his Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers Tour
Is it sacrilegious or can we respect the artistic integrity. I was watching a recent Kdot performance during his Mr. Morale and the Big Steppers run and was noticing he was wearing a diamond crown of thorns, which I believe he wore on the album cover.
As I was watching it, I scrolled through the comments and was noticing a lot of people were concerned about Kendrick’s crown and felt like he was making a mockery of Jesus. The crown look aesthetically cool but I started having the same concerns. I think in order to crack this we have to go back what the crown of thorns actually meant in reference to Jesus.
In the Bible the crown of thorns were definitely a symbol of mockery.
28 And they stripped him, and put on him a scarlet robe.
29 And they platted a crown of thorns and put it upon his head, and a reed in his right hand; and they kneeled down before him, and mocked him, saying, Hail, King of the Jews!
30 And they spat upon him, and took the reed and smote him on the head.
31 And when they had mocked him, they took off from him the robe, and put on him his garments, and led him away to crucify him.
Matthew 27:28-31
As you can see the crown of thorns meant no good when it was placed upon Jesus’ head. Yet you see images of Kdot, the Makaveli album cover (which did it says it did not intend to be a mockery on the cover), and even the Kanye Rolling Stone cover where he was depicted as if he were crucified. I think I can understand what these artists are at least trying to portray.
I think each artist is expressing the criticism and trials that comes with their position of influence. I guess extreme public criticism could in essence feel like a crucifixion. Which is probably a logical/sensible comparison since crucifixion was a common way of public humiliation back in the day.
I believe the issues become though nothing they go through can compare to THEE crucifixion (Jesus’ ultimate sacrifice) and it is probably unwise to compare anything to it. Jesus was completely without fault, unjustly destroyed, and decided to make the ultimate sacrifice to save the world from itself.
II.UNJUST COMPARISON
Stop me if I’m wrong but does any of the artists I named contributions amount to something like that?I’ll answer for you, no! So it begs the question why do people continue to do stuff like this? Every generation has an artist and will have an artist that tries to recreate something related to the crucifixion of Jesus but I can’t understand what pushes people to do that besides the earlier point I made. So back to my earlier question, do we respect the artistic integrity or classify the things these artists do as a smack in the face to Christ himself? Bottom line, I can’t find myself that the artists I named had deliberate ill intent in their heart but I know there are other artists out there who have done the same thing who had full intentions to be a mocker!
Though I cannot find deliberate ill intent I can stand on the fact that things like this may be best avoided. Our hardships and criticism just simply don’t compare to what Jesus suffered, even though we can use his suffering as teaching tool on how to deal with suffering, we should never think we have paid ultimate price of suffering as he did especially when it comes to music & arts.
Even I had a line that went “… five stars where they keep us and I wear the same crown that they gave Jesus” and I pretty much meant what I said earlier, the line was meant to show people mocked and criticized me and didn’t think I wasn’t as esteemed as I portrayed myself. But today I probably wouldn’t say a line like that after going through the process of writing this article and realizing what I was saying. So yeah moving forward lets probably stop using Jesus’ execution as a metaphor for our life’s suffering because the comparison is really nonexistent when you think about it.
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