Earlier today a new piece of art was unveiled on the side of a building in the London Bridge area of London, UK. At first folks thought that the new piece was a Banksy as it shared his style, but that has proven false due to a statement by Banksy’s PR folks.

Regardless of who painted it, the art piece itself still shares a powerful message just in time for Easter.

The panting, which you all can see below, shows a fairly famous scene in the life of Jesus – one displayed in churches and homes across the globe. It shows Jesus carrying his cross towards the Place of a Skull while being beaten by the officials and laughed at by onlookers.

The only difference between the tradition paintings of this scene and new one is that the officials beating Jesus are UK police officers and the onlookers are modern day paparazzis. A small but powerful change…

You see, all too often we can dismiss the crucifixion of Jesus and the reaction of the people as something that happened long ago – years before our birth. We like to think that if we were there at that time, we would have stood up to the injustice of the time or at least ran away from the act as to not give our support….

Yet, how many of us stand idly by today watching acts of violence on CNN, FoxNews or the BBC? How many of us walk past the very people loved by Jesus – dismissing the homeless, the sick, the poor and the brokenhearted as some else’s problem?

How many of us cheered when we heard about the death of Osama bin Laden while forgetting Jesus’ commandment to love and bless our enemies? How many of us reject the call of the Holy Spirit because we want to live life on our own terms?

Perhaps we should paint our faces on the bodies of the paparazzis or the police officers, all of which were, after all, just doing their jobs…