Prague’s famous Karlův Most (Charles Bridge) is known for being lined on each side with statues of various figures, including this one of Christ. Now, I’m not really one for getting over-excited at statues of Christ on the cross, but this one in particular caught my interest; mainly because of the fact it is decorated with Hebrew letters.

In many ways it is very odd that a statue of Jesus would be decorated in this way; it certainly doesn’t seem typical to me when I think of other such statues depicting the Messiah. What’s even more interesting is the translation of the letters, ‘Holy holy holy, the Lord of Hosts’, a phrase from Isaiah which Jews even today recite in their prayers. When I was researching the origin of this strange sight, I found out according to another blogger, “these golden Hebrew letters were part of a humiliating punishment assigned to a Jew at the end of the 17th century who’d been accused of blasphemy. He was forced to pay for them, and it made it seem that when the Jews said this prayer, they were referring to Jesus.”

Perhaps, given the treatment of Jews in Prague (and everywhere else for that matter) in the past, I shouldn’t be surprised that the presence of these Hebrew letters was originally due to anti-Semitism and an attempt to humiliate and degrade the Jewish people. It has to be said that this statue is still controversial today amongst the Jewish community in the city.

However, despite realising the negative origins of this peculiar statue, it still symbolises for me as a Messianic Jew a much greater and ironic truth, which is proclaimed far louder than the original statement of humiliation it was meant to. For although in some ways the statue is odd, in a far more profound way (in my opinion) it is very fitting: for Jesus is the Jewish Messiah. He was (and arguably, still is) the archetypal Jew, promised through Hebrew Scriptures to be the Saviour of the Jewish people, and of course the Gentiles as well. It is only right that Jewish people should refer to Him as Lord, as it is only right that we should remember his Jewish identity.

When I think about this statue it brings to mind the Jewish community as a whole on this earth. The vast majority of them do not believe that Jesus is their Messiah, and so are still under God’s wrath for rejecting Him, like every other unbeliever, and are destined for eternal judgement. The Apostle Paul displayed genuine anguish at this fact (Romans 9:1-3, 10:1).

However, whilst not wanting to turn this post into a theological debate on eschatology or the relationship between Israel and the Church (on which I respect there are many diverse views), I do believe that there is hope for the Jewish people yet, but that can only be through Jesus. May God bless abundantly the work of Jewish evangelism. I pray that many Jews would have their eyes opened to the Gospel by the Holy Spirit, repent of their sins, and that they would genuinely declare Jesus as their Holy, Holy Holy Lord.