Greeting Holy People of God,
for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. Colossians 3:3
Thank you for sharing your “tiny Jesus” stories with me. And yes “tiny Jesus” is a little cheesy but it does bring a smile to my face and a simple reminder of how close Jesus is to us. And I need the reminder of Jesus’ presence especially when the strains and worries of life invade my thoughts and run rampant.
Last Sunday when I arrived at church, to my dismay, I found two decapitated “tiny Jesuses”. As morbid as this is, it drew my attention back to the Symbolic World podcast by Jonathan Pageau, entitled “The Glory of Losing Your Head”. What a weird coincidence as the Holy Spirit colors in this Easter season.
In his Q&A, someone asked Pageau about the symbolism of decapitation and he shared the symbolism of Genesis 40 where we find Joseph’s prison encounter with the Pharaoh's baker and cupbearer. It is a strange text with powerful and subtle symbolism related to the symbolism of decapitation and it’s resolution in Christ and I kind of felt like Jesus was opening the scriptures to me with a connection I had not made before. I love it when that happens!
Genesis 40:1-23
Some time after this, the cupbearer of the king of Egypt and his baker offended their lord the king of Egypt. 2 Pharaoh was angry with his two officers, the chief cupbearer and the chief baker, 3 and he put them in custody in the house of the captain of the guard, in the prison where Joseph was confined. 4 The captain of the guard charged Joseph with them, and he waited on them, and they continued for some time in custody. 5 One night they both dreamed—the cupbearer and the baker of the king of Egypt who were confined in the prison—each his own dream and each dream with its own meaning. 6 When Joseph came to them in the morning, he saw that they were troubled. 7 So he asked Pharaoh’s officers, who were with him in custody in his master’s house, “Why are your faces downcast today?” 8 They said to him, “We have had dreams, and there is no one to interpret them.” And Joseph said to them, “Do not interpretations belong to God? Please tell them to me.”
9 So the chief cupbearer told his dream to Joseph and said to him, “In my dream there was a vine before me, 10 and on the vine there were three branches. As soon as it budded, its blossoms came out, and the clusters ripened into grapes.
11 Pharaoh’s cup was in my hand, and I took the grapes and pressed them into Pharaoh’s cup and placed the cup in Pharaoh’s hand.”12Then Joseph said to him, “This is its interpretation: the three branches are three days;13within three days Pharaoh will lift up your head and restore you to your office, and you shall place Pharaoh’s cup in his hand, just as you used to do when you were his cupbearer. 14 But remember me when it is well with you; please do me the kindness to make mention of me to Pharaoh, and so get me out of this place. 15 For in fact I was stolen out of the land of the Hebrews, and here also I have done nothing that they should have put me into the dungeon.”
16 When the chief baker saw that the interpretation was favorable, he said to Joseph, “I also had a dream: there were three cake baskets on my head, 17 and in the uppermost basket there were all sorts of baked food for Pharaoh, but the birds were eating it out of the basket on my head.” 18 And Joseph answered, “This is its interpretation: the three baskets are three days; 19 within three days Pharaoh will lift up your head—from you!—and hang you on a pole (tree), and the birds will eat the flesh from you.”
20 On the third day, which was Pharaoh’s birthday, he made a feast for all his servants and lifted up the head of the chief cupbearer and the head of the chief baker among his servants. 21 He restored the chief cupbearer to his cup bearing, and he placed the cup in Pharaoh’s hand, 22 but the chief baker he hanged, just as Joseph had interpreted to them. 23 Yet the chief cupbearer did not remember Joseph but forgot him.
Pageau speaks of the head cupbearer and the head baker and their heads are being lifted up by the Pharoah, one to their salvation and the other to their destruction, one restored to services and one broken. There is a strange eucharistic symbolism with the wine of the cupbearer and the bread of the baker and how will this be resolved in Christ.
Symbolically, Pageau says that heaven sometimes appears as a raptor, as the principle of heaven coming down and picking up what is there and pulling it back up into heaven as we see with the birds as they come down and take what the person has done and lift them up in the negative sense. The baker is hung in a tree or on a pole, symbolizing crucifixion. When the Old Testament talks about someone being hung on a tree, it gets us to think about Jesus’ crucifixion much in the same way the Gospel of John uses the imagery of the snake on a pole being lifted up to introduce us to Jesus’ being lifted up on the cross bringing healing and salvation, like the image of the bronze snake brought healing to those bitten who looked upon it.
In the baker’s dream, birds come and eat out of the basket of bread on top of the baker’s head is a kind symbolic decapitation. Pageau continues with decapitation in the imagery of the dream itself as sleep and dreams in some ways are an image of decapitation and so is death. Death is the separation of the head and the body. Lifting up the head can be the separation of the head and the body and can also be a kind of glorification. This is not completely brought together yet in this imagery, but you see that in the case of the cupbearer, the lifting up of his head is to his glory, whereas with the baker, the lifting up of his head is to his destruction. The separation of head and body in a manner that will lead to his destruction, just like when you go into a dream and you’re separated, the dream can be two things. The dream can be a place where you receive a vision from God but it can also be a place where you lose yourself in chaos. So be careful about interpreting dreams and remember how Joseph is quick to remind us that interpretation of dreams comes from God. God can use this kind of separation of head and body to reveal something very powerful or something very clear, something like an image that is even stronger than the type of image that you can get just by paying attention to life in the everyday. And so you get this very strange image of this relationship between these two aspects of the raising up of the head. Then there is also the aspect of the body that is fleshy and blood that is the fluid of the body.
Do you see the pattern here and in other places in scripture? The book of Esther has a similar symbolism with Mordecai and Haman. Haman who seeks to hang Mordecai on a tree, finds himself on the tree. Haman wants to be glorified by the king and is brought to his destruction. You might find others but what is important to notice is the manner in which Christ smashes it together.
Is Christ the baker who is lifted up and hung on the tree and crucified? Or is he the cupbearer who is lifted up in glory, in the service of the High King? Yes, he is both at the same time. This is the great mystery of Christianity, the transformation of the possibility of death where death becomes a form of glory as we see in Christ’s story.
Christ gives the bread and the wine, his flesh and blood. It joins the symbolism of Abel with the symbolism of Cain. It joins the two aspects of the story of Joseph with its head cup bearer and the head baker who are both offered together and they are both to the death and they are both to the glory. They are both to the flesh and the blood that sacrifice and brings to death, but then also the bread and the wine which is taken in nourishment. One aspect of elevation which leads to separation of head and body in the negative way and in the other way it actually leads to glorification of the body or a participation of the body in that elevation.
The surprise of Christ is that he shows the paradox of how the way in which you encounter death can transform one into the other or can join them together in their symbolism. I hope you are thinking about ascension where we see the head and the body going up into heaven and the body remaining below, like the idea of decapitation or lifting up the head. In the case of ascension, the lifting up of the body and the body lifting up of the head and the body remaining below actually in some way stretches the body. In Christ’s Ascension, we can celebrate Christ as the head and we, the church, the body in a bigger, more full connection with Christ. Christ abides with us as he pulls heaven and earth together and we get to be Christ body in the world.
I’ve learned a lot through our tiny Jesuses this Easter season. God is faithful. I hope this paints a more vivid picture of Christ’s ascension and some of the scriptures being opened up anew. If you want more and a better explanation, please see “The Symbolic World: 449 - Decapitation Symbolism: The Glory of Losing Your Head, May 8, 2026 on YouTube.
Bold Inquisitive Belief Loving Expansively,
Pastor Connie Spitzack
