Co-missioners, 

I preach extemporaneously, which has the disadvantage that I cannot share my manuscript with anyone who didn’t hear the sermon live. But sometimes I take notes, such as this past Good Friday. And sometimes I flesh them out after the fact. So here are my thoughts from that day.  

Once again, I want to give credit to David Kukelhan’s wonderful Zoom text study group for probing and improving my thoughts.

I hope you find this helpful. 

Peace & joy, 
Co-editor Robin Lütjohann 
for the Crossings Community

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Ugly Jesus vs. the Law of Looksmaxxing

by Robin Lütjohann  

INTRO: Was Jesus good-looking? 

Was Jesus good-looking? How would you rate Jesus on a 1-10 scale?  

Colmar – Unterlinden Museum – The Isenheim Altarpiece 1512-16 by Matthias Grünewald (ca 1470-1528) – Details from the Crucifixion panel.
From Wikimedia Commons

I think it’s interesting that we always make Jesus look pretty in artistic depictions. Kind of strange, especially since we nowhere hear a description about Jesus’ appearance in the Gospels. Nothing about his height, hair or eye colour, smile (crooked teeth?), built, or style of dress. You’d think someone would have recorded those details, given his importance! But no. Nothing. So we usually just default to depicting him as conventionally handsome according to the taste of our particular cultural sphere. But was he? 

Part I: The “Law” of Looksmaxxing 

It makes sense that we would depict Jesus as attractive. We often attach a kind of moral value to attractiveness. (E.g. we are used to the heroes in our movies being attractive, we are more likely to vote for a politician if they are attractive, etc.) This is precisely the point made by the recent phenomenon of “looksmaxxing” and its prime avatar, the 20-year-old internet phenom Clavicular. He leads a movement of young men striving to “ascend” (i.e. rise in status) through improving their appearance. The goal is to “mog” (from AMOG = “alpha male of group”) in every interaction and group setting, i.e. to appear better or higher in status than others, especially through altering one’s appearance to be more conventionally attractive. Much of the advice Clavicular and others give for improving one’s appearance is familiar – diet, exercise, grooming, cosmetics… – but some looksmaxxers also go through extreme means to “mog” more effectively, including questionable practices like bone-smashing, leg-lengthening, or taking methamphetamines to suppress one’s appetite. This comes at a time when the use of plastic surgery among celebrities is increasingly bizarre, when political elites strive for homogenous and artificial looks (such as the “Mar-a-lago face” of women in the Trump administration), and when after years of celebrities promoting body positivity, there is now a new skinny chic movement, resembling that of the early 2000s, made even more achievable through the widespread availability of GLP-1s. 

One may be tempted to see all of this as pure vanity, just another example of narcissism and superficial preoccupation with externalities. I think that misses the mark. Quite apart from the clinical definition of psychological narcissism, which surely doesn’t apply to most looksmaxxers, the mythical example of Narcissus as someone enamored with his own reflection is in some ways the opposite of what looksmaxxers are concerned with. While Narcissus is excessively drawn to himself, a looksmaxxer is looking outward at how others perceive them. It is precisely not an excessive love of self – if anything, it’s a hatred of oneself and one’s appearance, alongside a concern for how others perceive you and for being able to compete with them. Underneath this lurks a kind of terror about losing in the competition, falling behind, missing out – being out-mogged in the ruthless competition of a cold and calculating world in which everyone is pitted against everyone else.  

So, looksmaxxing is not stupidly superficial – it is a defensive response based on a set of real experiences about competition for attention and status in various marketplaces (job, dating, etc.). Note also: In trying to bolster their apparently neutral and objective (scientific?) perspective, looksmaxxing influencers like Clavicular often cite scientific studies proving that attractive people have countless advantages, not only in romantic, but in professional and other aspects of life. In other words, they appeal to a kind of LAW – one in which they intend to succeed (in their lingo: “ascend”). In a way, it is a kind of twisted and secularized version of Jesus’ command: “Be perfect…!” (Matt. 5:48) 

If we are honest, we have all attempted to abide by and master this Law, and we all fear its accusation. Unlike God’s Law, the law of looksmaxxing does not give life when it is performed. I expect that even succeeding in it would leave one feeling empty and unloved. I feel sad for its heroes, and I can only imagine the amount of pressure and suppressed pain Clavicular and his acolytes are dealing with daily. [Seeing as he has been recently hospitalized, let us unironically pray for this person beloved of God.]  

It is not a divine law, but like God’s Law, the law of looksmaxxing is always accusing us. It never stops. I remember some time ago there was a chance that I might have to undergo an operation that would leave me with a very visible and unattractive scar. There was plenty to worry about regarding my overall health and comfort, but those concerns were not forefront in my mind. Instead, I was worried about how I would look and how others’ perception of me would affect the way they treated me. I was terrified of breaking and failing the law of looksmaxxing and thus failing to reap the (false?) promises of its reward: being wanted, accepted, desired, and cherished.  

Speaking as someone on the cusp of middle age, there is something poignant about the way that aging forces us to reckon with the fleetingness of our physical appeal – we are all born to fail the law of looksmaxxing. There is no way to mog in perpetuity. With every passing year, you are more and more likely to fail at this losing game. Biology and time are against you. I have heard this experience described especially vividly by the women in my life. Society ruthlessly commodifies women’s physical attractiveness and reduces their value to this one fleeting currency. As a result, many women experience themselves as going from being inundated with attention for their appearance (much of it unwanted) in their youth – to getting no attention at all as they get old, becoming invisible, their voices and presence disregarded. 

And there, ultimately, is the terror behind the “law” of looksmaxxing: The prospect of being rejected, deemed irrelevant, forgotten, thrown away, abandoned. The ultimate hell.  

Part II: Ugly Jesus 

And that is precisely what happened to Jesus. Even though the Gospels say nothing about his physical characteristics or their attractiveness, the Bible does tell us something about what he looked like: In the Old Testament reading assigned for Good Friday from Isaiah chapters 52-53, we finally do get an indication of his appearance and how people responded to him: It says, they were “astonished at him, so marred was his appearance, beyond human semblance” — i.e. he had been beaten and tortured so badly that he barely looked human anymore and people couldn’t stand to look at him. They turned away in horror and disgust. It says, “he had NO form or majesty that we should look at him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him”.  

Today I almost brought my grandparents’ crucifix for the ritual adoration of the cross, but I felt that it was too stylized, his abs too chiseled, the Jesus depicted on it was too conventionally beautiful to be identified with the Suffering Servant in Isaiah in our first reading. Whatever attractiveness, physical or charismatic, that Jesus might have had — he no longer had it on the cross. “He was despised and rejected by others; a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity; and one from whom others hide their faces….” Jesus ended up so beaten up that people couldn’t stand to look at him. He had lost all appeal, as his friends ran away to abandon him — the very thing we fear and try to prevent by making ourselves appealing. He even felt abandoned by God, crying out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me!” 

In short, he did not “mog”.  

Part III: God Sees You 

Has someone ever turned away from you? Rejected you? Have you ever felt unattractive or unwanted or discarded and put on the trash heap? Worthless? Alone? Yeah. Me too. 

From Canva

Jesus went around picking up people like you and me, who had been rejected and despised by others. He intentionally hung out with the people who weren’t all that desirable or impressive (1 Cor 1:26-31, “where is the wise?”), even though his culture, like ours, says to turn away from what is ugly or unappealing, so as not to diminish one’s own status. He went to the cross for all of us rejects, to share in this experience with us – and to rescue us from being utterly defined by it!  

And also to help us re-learn the way we see others and ourselves: A few weeks ago, our OT reading on Sunday was from that story in 1 Samuel. Here the prophet is called to Jesse’s house in Bethlehem, to anoint the new king. A series of 8s, 9s, and perfect 10s are paraded before him. But each time, the voice of the Holy Spirit swipes left: no thanks. Finally, an unexpected choice: The shepherd boy, David. Why so? Because “the Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.” (1 Samuel 16:7) 

Now, I could stop here on a sweet, moralistic note, and we could all agree that “beauty is only skin deep” and we should “not judge a book by its cover” and some such. And then we could all feel good about ourselves and pity those silly looksmaxxers who are young, after all, and still growing up, and they’ll learn, won’t they? “God looks at the heart,” we could then say with a smile. “That’s what really matters.” Aw. That’s nice. 

But is it? The fact that God sees us – and sees us beneath the externalities of appearance – sees our heart – is this necessarily good news? Knowing the contents of my heart, I have very mixed feelings about someone looking around in there, let alone shining a light into the crammed drawers where I’ve shoved my least desirable qualities and behaviours. I think we (ALL of us) have a way bigger problem than the human-made law of looksmaxxing – namely, the divine Law of God: “Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect,” says none other than sinless Jesus himself.  

If you thought the “law” of status and attractiveness is merciless, wait till you read the Sermon on the Mount: Don’t despise anyone, don’t lust, don’t retaliate, don’t worry…! Who can do this??? At least in looksmaxxing there is something I can do to alter my appearance however minimally and get a little bit better, “ascend” a little higher on the scale. I am given at least a fighting chance. But when it comes to my heart? My deepest motivations and fears…? I mean, yeah, I can work on myself, and maybe tinker with some of my behaviours, and act like a better person and work through my trauma, become aware of my triggers, get sleep, eat, well, and go to the gym – but what I can’t do: I can’t change my heart. So, if THAT’s what God ultimately looks at: I am, as the kids say these days, cooked.  

And now we have arrived at an even deeper terror, haven’t we? Of being truly seen – within. I wonder if looksmaxxing and similar phenomena are, at least partly, an attempt at covering up the ugliness we know is inside of us: Perhaps by appearing appealing to others and getting their validation, I can prop up the charade of my own inherent worthiness of attention and love. Perhaps if I hide beneath enough layers of self-presentation and “mogging” others, no one will take a peek inside. And maybe if I am preoccupied constantly by what others think of me and how well I am competing on the marketplace of status, I will be distracted enough to not look inside either.  

But, as Hagar reminds us, God is “the God who sees” (Genesis 16:13). What was good news for her is bad news for me, because I know myself! If anyone knew me – really knew me – they would turn away in disgust and horror. And God, who really does know me, has no reason to do otherwise, seeing as I have continually turned away from God’s love and, like the people who crucified Jesus, spat upon God’s grace, ignored Christ in others, and left my neighbour hanging time after time.  

And yet, God looks at me and does not turn away. God sees all of me, even the parts that I would never show anyone, and loves me no less. Jesus likes me so much that he keeps spending time with me: He embraced me with water and washed me clean, even though I wasn’t. He bids me come to his table every week, an honoured guest. We remember: “Taste and see that the Lord is good!” And his goodness becomes part of me, his Body in the very cells of my body, rewiring my brain, filling my heart, and spreading, taking over my ugliness.  

Part IV: Strange Beauty 

Photo courtesy of Robin Lütjohann

One of the ugliest things I’ve ever seen was the ruins of my church’s building after it had been destroyed by arson. It looked like the charred carcass of a giant beast, slain, smoldering and hollow. The sweetly pious fresco of Jesus the Good Shepherd that was above the altar had melted down to a chalky outline with gaping holes revealing the slats of wood beneath. The ground was covered in blackened ceiling beams and toppled light fixtures. Amidst the rubble stood, remarkably unscathed, the baptismal font, still filled with water from the fire hoses. What had been a warm and comforting sanctuary bathed in the soft sideway beams of light coming through stained glass was now a gashing open wound exposed to the open sky, the ceilings having disappeared.  

When I first walked into the building, I took my place where I had usually stood to preside at the altar (now smashed by a fallen beam). I was struck by how bright it was, as the noonday sun mercilessly blasted down on the debris and on my uncovered head. I looked up, squinting to see something I could have never seen before from this vantage point at the altar before the roof disappeared: The gold-coloured cross at the top of the steeple. 

That same cross was taken down ever so gently and with remarkable reverence by the burly demolition guys who deconstructed our roof a few days after the fire. It now stands right behind me in our new temporary sanctuary. Today on this Good Friday it is veiled, but in a moment we will unveil it and say together: “Behold, the life-giving cross on which was hung the Savior of the whole world.”

Behold the cross. That is what we are enabled to do now: Look and not turn away. Because Jesus has beheld us, we can behold him. He truly looked at us and saw us as we are with our ugly hearts and impure motives, but he did not turn away. Instead, he turned TOWARD us in mercy, and took the sting of sin and death as he hung there underneath the hot noonday sun. That is why we can now look at the cross and all the crosses in the world without fear. We can turn toward our suffering neighbour. We can take the heat of criticism and repent. We can look at the truth without defensiveness or shame. We can behold the cross in Gaza, in Ukraine, in Haiti, in our governments and board rooms and detention centres, in our families and relationships, and in our hearts. We can look now. It’s okay. We can look and still be okay.  

Behold the ugliness of the cross, and “behold the beauty of the Lord” (Psalm 27:4b) who is on the cross with us. And behold how beautiful you are to him and always were.