Yohanna 14:2 “A chikin gidan ubana akwai wurin zama dayawa; da ba haka ba, da na fada muku; gama zan tafi garin in shirya maku wuri.” ( Da ka Litafi Mai-Tsarki a Hausa )
or In English
John 14:2 “in my father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? ” ( New Revised Standard Version)
Growing up in Nigeria my parents encouraged my siblings and I to attend Sunday School, there we learned stories from the Bible and also our teachers emphasized memorizing important scriptures. The passage I quoted is amongst the Bible verses that played a role in how I interpreted scripture as a young girl. After memorizing John 14:2 in Hausa, I was convinced that Jesus was a member of my family, the imagery that the passage created in my head gave me the comfort that I was in fact a child of God.
However, As I grew older, I noticed that the father of the many mansion which the scripture talked about was a long haired, pale skin, blue eyed man, he looked nothing like my family members. I recall asking my siblings while we were watching the poplar “Jesus of Nazareth’ a film that narrated the primary gospels in Jesus’ Ministry: His Birth, death and Resurrection, I asked why is it that Jesus is White and satan a black snake? My siblings told me that, the Jesus in the film was simply a character but then I asked why is it then that He must be “baturi” in Hause (white), the answer to that question was interrupted with a call from mother to help her lift a bag of rice.
The quest to find out reasons as per why Jesus the father in the mansion with many rooms was white contributed to my decision to study Christian theology and Religion in general. As a young girl, I asked tough questions about Christology, desiring to know who Jesus was, why His ministry was important and what that meant for me, a black girl.
Read entire essay @ wehnam's blog
image source: frank hazen
tags: religion, Christianity, Nigeria, rastafarian
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