Christian, Jonah and the Fish

I was at my favorite local watering hole, Lock Yard, last Wednesday night, and I approached a table of three heavily-tattooed gentlemen. One of them, Christian, generously offered up this really cool piece on his arm:

Christian explained the tattoo:

“It’s a character from The Bible. His name’s Jonah. He gets swallowed by a big fish. I really like the idea, in the New Testament, in the Gospels, Jesus says, ‘You guys want signs and wonders and miracles, but the only thing you’re going to get is the sign of Jonah….I’ll be in the ground for three days, just like he was in the fish for three days, and I’ll come out again. It’s kind of a resurrection idea. I like the idea of resurrection and that’s kind of what it means to me when I look at it. And from a human level, I like the fact that God would use Jonah to save a town and then Jonah would sulk about it, be a butthole about it, kinda see a parallel there with just how we are and how God uses people."

He credited the work to one of Tattoosday's favorite artist's Nick Caruso, from Bound for Glory Tattoo in Staten Island.

Christian added, "This is a piece of Coptic church art that I had Nick trace and embellish…so originally it was a painting and I said, you know, make the fish a little scarier."

We joked about how it was not like the big whale in Disney's Pinocchio, which is how I always envisioned the fish that swallowed Jonah when I first heard the story as a child.

Thanks to Christian for sharing this awesome tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!

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