IN HIS IMAGE?

I’m God’s Son, Son of man, Son of Marcus Garvey /
Rastafari irie / Hail Haile Selassie
– Nas

Admittedly, upon first sight of the timeworn painting I thought it to be nothing more than some weathered tribute to Haile Selassie I, the former Ethiopian Emperor seemingly composed in the portrait like the Biblical Messiah, as the Rastafari absolutely believed. Rendered there on the worn wooden plank I thought the likeness was nothing less than an exacting one––of Selassie. Moments later I would find myself stunned into the revelation that the image was not a depiction of Haile Selassie at all, but a 1500 year old icon of Jesus Christ found in an ancient monastery in Sinai, Egypt. Amazed, I gazed long into this forgotten face of Christ completely mesmerized.

The uncanny resemblance between the image of Christ painted on the weathered wooden slab and the former Ethiopian Emperor was haunting. Equally as haunting were the sweeping waves of recollection baptizing my memory; the legendary prophecy credited to Marcus Garvey, the scriptures drawn from the Bible likening Selassie to the promised Messiah, and a convergence of events seventy years ago that converted several thousand Christianized Jamaicans into believers that the emperor of Ethiopia and the Messiah of the Bible were one and the same. And the longer I gazed at the strange and ancient portrait, the greater grew my cause to ponder whether the Rastas had been right.

– St. Paco, In His Image: Haile Selassie, Bob Marley and the Second Coming of Christ