A church in Mexico wanted to up its curb appeal and its visibility.
So they commissioned an artist to create a baby Jesus statue to place up on the roof of the church.
What no one expected was that the statue would be:
- an overwhelming 22-feet-tall
- erected up over the church
- and—though Jesus did not appear in the Bible until the New Testament—this Jesus looks a lot like Phil Collins during his Genesis days.
The church La EpifanÍa del Señor commissioned to have the statue made by a local artist.
They wanted the image of the Baby Jesus to be front and center to the church. Not only to make the church more visible for drivers-by to observe, but to emulate the mission of the church with Christ at its center.
But what the church actually acquired at the end of the commission was a 22-foot-tall statue that weighed over two-thousand pounds. The statue wears the familiar white cloth diaper seen in most Christmastime manger scenes.
It is otherwise naked and unapologetically baby-chunky.
Oh, and did we mention that this baby is rocking a mullet-style haircut over a high sweeping forehead?
Throw in some large baby-blue eyes and this statue suddenly looks a lot less like the Baby Jesus and a lot more like Phil Collins.
The priest from La EpifanÍa didn't particularly comment on the facial resemblance of the statue, but he was concerned by the sheer size of it.
The priest said:
"[I only wanted a statue that would] fit the church. [I] never intended to make it the biggest Baby Jesus statue in the world."
Whether or not this is the largest statue of the Baby Jesus in the world has yet to be verified. Just the same, this is a large statue to see elevated over the body of a church.
Since the news dropped about the unveiling of this larger-than-life baby statue—that inevitably will sing "In the Air Tonight" on Christmas Eve—Twitter has not been able to stop talking about it.
Not to mention the Genesis puns.
Though it may not be the statue the church always wanted, there's no question that no one will have trouble finding it now.
Phil Collins The Singles is available here.
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