Recognising Christ is not always as straightforward a theological or spiritual task we would like it to be. For reasons that may become apparent, I have myself had difficulties in the past distinguishing Christ from a vicar called Cecil. To my surprise these have recently returned to haunt me.
In the days when I was an Anglican parson, Cecil was the clergyman whom I succeeded on a Croydon housing estate. Originally from Belfast, with his beard and hair worn long – eccentric even for the Diocese of Southwark in the early 1980s – people thought he looked a little like a hippy Jesus. One of his first parochial acts had been to get rid of a rather beautiful crucifix over the communion table. He replaced it with a bronzish sculptured figurine, about a metre and a half in height, (supposedly) depicting the risen Jesus with arms outstretched.
