self-portrait as rod

I followed the homepage link from “Jessi’s” comment to find A Broken Beauty. There, I saw a “self-portrait as Jesus” that really moved me. This is something that I’ve thought about a lot lately, but I haven’t really known what to do with my thoughts. I’ve practically camped there in thought land since my Holy Week experiences in March. Last night, I was thinking about it while watching U2 on Conan. I remembered a friend telling me about a U2 concert he saw shortly after the WTC attacks, in which Bono picked up an American flag that had been tossed onto the stage, and gently folded it, cradled and rocked it in his arms. I've thought about it as I've watched Bono go about the globe seeking justice, pleading for the widow, and defending the fatherless, while being criticized by Christians for not using his platform to further the Kingdom.
This morning, I was thinking about it again as I thought through a song, mentally preparing for a chapel I’m working on, and saw images in my mind that I thought would go well as video with the song. I was playing the part of Jesus in the in-my-mind video.
Where do we get these ideas of self-depicting Jesus symbolically? It is quite different than depicting him by operating like him, by being incarnational in our lifestyles, attitudes, service and love. But I’ve imagined myself in a self-portrait as Jesus holding my wife. Kissing my children. Crying with my friends. How else would I be capable of these things?
Can we remind ourselves that we are to look like Jesus in the way we interact with others, by imagining ourselves portraying him? Can we better identify with and share in his suffering by imagining ourselves portraying him? Did he imagine himself as me when he took upon himself all my ugliness and suffered death that was meant for me?
I remember that once, Jesus was walking along with and amongst a crowd of people when a woman who had been sick for a long time touched his robe and was healed. He stopped and asked who’d touched him, because he felt the power go out of him. Of course there is no power in me to go to anyone, but have you ever felt power surge through you? Have you ever given something that you didn’t even have?
What of Jesus can humans possibly see? Anything in me? Kindness? Caring? Healing? Accepting? Forgiveness? Service? I have none of these to give had he not posed for a “self-portrait as Rod”. I am so grateful that he depicted me.