When I lived in New Orleans I saw Jesus once on the wall of the dorm shower in Carey Hall.  I lived there for three years while attending seminary, working toward my Master of Divinity.  Jesus was always on my mind, in my books, and on the lips of my colleagues and teachers.  His name was written on posters in hallways, his words inscribed into the swirly marble floor of the entrance to buildings where I studied his message of love and hope.  It made perfect sense that he would appear on my shower wall.

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For years people have spotted Jesus in places one might never think to look for him.  In 1977 a woman in New Mexico, making burritos for her husband one cool October night, recognized the face of Jesus Christ burned into the tortilla.  Shrugging off cynical claims of coincidence, the family framed it and made it into a shrine.  Over 10,000 people have visited it to date.  I imagine a line of people waiting outside of the house made of sun-dried clay bricks.  They take turns walking through the small gate and broken sidewalk leading up to the front door.  Upon walking in, there is the smell of last night’s dinner, and a slightly overweight woman greets them eagerly, anxious to show off the tortilla, even though she has done so at least forty times this week.  Her eyes light up as she recounts the story once more.  It never gets old.

Jesus often appears in food.  A man in the Netherlands saw Jesus in his Kit-Kat bar on his morning break at work.  He immediately showed his colleagues, and two of them confirmed the sighting.  One took pictures for proof that have circulated the internet with captions like “Take a Heavenly Break” and “Food of the Gods.”  I find it interesting that he took the time to look at his candy after taking a bite.  I, myself, would simply devour the chocolate, enjoy the taste on my tongue, feel the crunch of the wafer between my teeth.  This man must have felt a pull to glance down at his next bite.  He must have instantly recognized the face of Jesus, or what was almost the face of Jesus.  He might have nibbled on the edges just enough to give more definition to the face, then when it was perfected, he yelled for his friends to come and see.

A father making pancakes for his family one morning almost flipped when he saw the image of Christ on the pancake.  He and his wife listed the pancake on eBay with a starting bid of $500.  I can imagine the conversation between them.

“We should sell it!” He says.

“No one is going to buy a pancake with Jesus on it.”

“You don’t know that, some guy bought a piece of Elvis’ hair for thousands.”

“Well, I guess it can’t hurt to try.  We could use the money.” She concedes.

Jesus continues to find his way into one particular snack food across the nation.  In Missouri a woman found the image of Jesus on the cross in her bag of Cheetos.  After showing it to a local pastor, who agreed with the likeness, but denied any holy meaning, she decided to keep the Cheeto in a safety deposit box for her family to enjoy, but not eat, down the road.  A year later a man and woman in Dallas were sharing a snack when the woman looked at the last Cheeto in her hand only to realize that it looked like a person praying.  Upon further inspection the couple agreed that it looked like a man with long hair and a beard, wearing a robe, praying.  The man admitted that the figure was missing a right arm, but other than that was perfectly constructed.  The couple named the figure Cheesus.  Cheesus had already been coined by a teenager in Houston who gave the name to a lesser snack, a Cheese Curl bearing the likeness of Christ that his youth minister discovered.  The minister kept the snack on his bookshelf as a reminder to himself and others that, “God sends all kinds of signs to remind us of Him.”

There have been many other notable food sightings of Jesus.  One woman upon looking at her banana exclaimed profoundly, “Oh my God!  It’s Jesus on a banana!”  A young woman in Florida found Jesus on a Pringle, and refused to eat the chip due to the symbolic nature of it.  A father fixing dinner for his kids neglected to pay attention to the time and burnt some fish sticks resulting in the likeness of Jesus, Fisher of Men.  On Palm Sunday his picture showed up in a pierogi.  Some foods, such as pita or toast, lend themselves to sightings of Jesus.  Something about Christ seems to be at home in bread.

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When early theological scholars tried to pin down the defining characteristics of Christ they named him omnipresent, omnipotent, and omniscient.  This trinity of ultimate presence, power, and knowledge combine, as if the ultimate superhero, and enable him, among other things, to show up on more than just food.  His reflection was seen in an old refrigerator sitting on a porch in Tennessee.  The woman who put the fridge outside was oblivious at first, busy enjoying the newer, better refrigerator inside.  As she probably whistled and rearranged the shelves in the new fridge to the right height to hold her ketchup and mustard bottles, others were outside staring at her old fridge, unable to understand why she would get rid of such a sacred piece of furniture.  Eventually, a neighbor helped her discover the image, and soon people began to pilgrimage to the porch in order to see his face for themselves.  Of course there are always skeptics.  One neighbor, amused but frustrated by the visitors commented, “When the good Lord comes back, I doubt it will be on a major appliance.”

One woman almost wrecked her car when she recognized Jesus on an oil tank in Ohio and found herself swerving off of the road.  The paint was chipped away to form the image.  She regained control of her car, and the tank was painted to cover the distracting icon. Having never lost control of my car, I am not sure I understand an image so striking that it would cause me to swerve off of the road.  To this day I bet she thinks about it, wishes she had gotten out of the car to take a picture with her cell phone, wishes she had been in less of a hurry, wishes she could remember the way the sun shone on the image and the angle of the tilt of its head.

A college student walked into his apartment one afternoon to discover Jesus on his couch.  The microfiber had shape-shifted to form a 3-D image that “seemed to look at you from any angle.”  Knowing that Jesus was watching him I imagine it altered his behavior.  He probably blocked off the portion of his couch with yellow police tape to make sure no one sat on it, but instead of drinking his beer in front of the TV as usual, he stood by his sink where the eyes of the figure couldn’t see.  Until one day, when an ignorant friend came in and burst through the tape, jumping on the couch, distorting the image.

In 2004 an Arizona dentist clearly saw Jesus glowing in a patient’s x-ray.  The patient admitted to being a devout Christian, but had never seen Jesus in an object before.  His exam was perfect, and how could it not be.  As the dental assistants and dentists stood around the fluorescent light they must have been distracted, unable to notice the cavity creeping up on the left molar.

Floor tiles, fences and curtains, car windows, concrete, and the tailgate of a blue truck, iron, wood, and aluminum have all been mediums for the Son of God.  It seems as though he does not discriminate, but loves them all equally.

Given that his father is the creator of the world, Jesus has a deep connection with nature.  He thought it was good when he made it, and still gravitates toward this natural revelation.  On a hill, overlooking Raleigh, North Carolina, kudzu vines began to climb various surfaces overlooking the train tracks.  The figure was named Christ the Trainspotter.

One woman, while doing her yard work, came upon a maple leaf with an image etched in it.  She likened it to finding a four-leaf clover, an accidental miracle.  The woman could not have been working very hard to be able to spot a single leaf that looked differently than the rest of them.  She could have been taking a break from raking, drinking her watered down iced-coffee, kicking the leaves at her feet around.  I wonder if it inspired her to get back up and keep cleaning, or if she forgot her task altogether and ran inside to tell someone.

A furniture maker in Pennsylvania cut into a tree only to find what he thought to be Jesus ascending to heaven in the tree rings.  Though he debated selling it on eBay, he eventually crafted the piece of wood into a centerpiece to compliment his furniture.  I wonder if this guy remembered that Jesus was a carpenter too.  The similarities between them combined with his finding might have been a complete reassurance, confirmation that he was on the right path in life.

One particularly common phenomenon is to see Jesus in rock.  One woman found a rock in Lake Huron with his likeness.  In Alabama, a boulder embedded on the side of the highway bearing the resemblance of Jesus has convinced locals that the stretch of road is protected. The road is curved and has a steep drop off of one shoulder.  Odds are that the road is not protected, but the face causes people to slow down resulting in fewer wrecks.

The Hubble telescope captured a picture of flowing gasses that formed a nebulous nebula in the shape of Jesus Christ.  The heavenly image is often cited as confirmation that God is watching over the universe.  The scientists who found this were not believers, but could not deny the likeness in the sky.

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The images of Jesus are sometimes confused for other famous figures.  Like a Magic Eye picture from the mid-nineties, one must tilt the head, blur the eyes, stick the tongue slightly out in order to catch a definitive glimpse of the image awaiting recognition.  In Georgia a woman was convinced that she saw the face of Jesus on a Pizza Hut billboard advertising pasta.  He was in the swirled pasta.  Others confirmed a face in the pasta, though some saw Jim Morrison, and of course being in Georgia, many claimed the face was that of Willie Nelson.  The woman who originally saw the pasta Jesus was trying to decide whether or not to pursue her dream of singing, or to give in to practicality and become a teacher.  Upon her sighting, she dropped out of her classes and moved to Nashville to fulfill her dream.

The earlier mentioned maple leaf was viewed by a man who thought it looked more like Bob Marley or John Lennon than Jesus.  The banana image was appropriately mistaken for a monkey, and inappropriately mistaken for Elvis. The earlier mentioned Jesus pancake was removed from eBay and the listing user accused of fraud due to the fact that there is an actual pan with the picture of Jesus impressed into it, known as the Jesus Pan.  Other users complained that it never looked like Jesus to begin with, but much more like Osama Bin Laden.

Because of the fifteen minutes of fame, or in some cases, money associated with finding Jesus in an ordinary object, there have been many fraudulent reports.  These reports are usually more than just doubters, and are often the results of photo-shopped pictures.  One of the oddest of these pictures is that of a dog’s butt.  In the picture the dog’s anus is the head of Jesus, and the white hair leading down the dog’s legs looks like the robe of Jesus.  To the untrained eye the picture looks completely legitimate, but having been passed around on the internet, many viewers have deemed it a fraud.  Photoshop works wonders to create images that are not real, but the question remains as to why anyone would want to create a silhouette of Jesus in the butt of a dog.

In 1980, televangelist Oral Roberts insisted that he has seen a 900 foot Jesus in Oklahoma.  He convinced followers that the giant Jesus demanded eight million dollars or else he would “call Roberts home.”  His devotees answered the demand with over nine million dollars.  There is no proof that Roberts was lying, though no one else saw what he saw, and the demands that the 900 foot Jesus made are inconsistent with the basic character of Christ.  With profit like that to be gained, it is understandable why some people might insist upon having seen Jesus.

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What is unclear is the reason why people see Jesus.  In most instances the discoverer is not searching for Jesus.  As discussed, it is during cooking and eating, cleaning, or driving that he makes his appearance known.  The unearthing of these sacred findings is not limited to religious people, but also shared by those with no faith at all.  They are found by young and old, men and women, and varying ethnicities.  Some people pay homage to locations where the image of Christ has been seen, others pledge money in honor of these visions, or to try to purchase these now holy objects.  Some lock their prize away for a rainy day; others display it proudly as a shrine.  No matter what the object is, no matter how the likeness is depicted, no matter what is done with it in the end, or how many people bear witness, it is unclear as to why people see him.

Some believe this is all coincidence.  These people cling to theories of face recognition, which suggest that our brains are trained to recognize certain iconic or important faces.  While this explains why people mistake Jesus for famous singers and political figures, it does not explain why they notice in the first place.  Our fast paced lives rarely leave us time to stare at the pancake we are cooking, or notice the leaf at our feet.  The combination of the image, the object, and the awareness are a miraculous concoction and must serve a purpose.    I realize this purpose might be different for every person who sees him.  It might serve as a confirmation to pursue a dream, or open doors for fame.  For some it creates a conviction and results in a life change.  Others begin believing that there is meaning in the world, that their existence matters, that someone is looking out for them.  While I am sure that there are some people who don’t associate any purpose at all with a Jesus sighting, I think it is safe to say that those cases are largely unreported.  For the sightings reported, there is always a purpose, otherwise, why bother telling?

I like to think Jesus is the one in control.  That he appears to them, revealing himself at crucial moments in life.  This is, after all, how it was for me.

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The cleaning ladies in my dorm in New Orleans were famous for laughing loudly and eating red beans and rice during lunch break.  They were not known for their janitorial skills.  And so when I stepped into the third grey stall, the one closest to the bathroom wall, I was not surprised to see dust gathered at the top of the shower wall, the part that obviously never got wet.  My cheap Old Navy flip flops squeaked as they came in contact with the remains of the water from the previous person’s shower.  I hung up my towel, and turned on the water, stepping in when the temperature was hot enough.

As the water washed over my hair and face, I thought about the day behind me.  I was not who I claimed to be.  I was a hypocrite at best, and my lack of sincerity made me feel dirty.  I opened my eyes and they landed on the gathered dust.  I stared noticing that the dust made a face.  The eyes were there, a small but defined nose, and a slightly smiling mouth.  The hair around the face was long, and it ran into a beard.  It was clearly Jesus.  He found me even though I felt so lost.  After I made sense of the image, I wanted to touch it.  In dramatically slow motion I moved my hand toward the wall.  My finger swiped the beard and I watched the dust mix with the water on my hand and drip down the shower wall.  I flattened my palm against the face and in a swift motion transferred the dust from the wall to my hand.  The now distorted image stayed in my palm until I pressed it against my chest, over my heart.  The water mixed with the dust and ran down my body, across my stomach, down my thighs, and eventually swirled around my feet.  It was caught up in the current and flowed into the drain, taking with it the dirt from the day.