Showcases: Choosing Your Artist

They are ... the work of my hands, for the display of my splendor. —Isaiah 60:21 (NIV)

One of the last tattoos I got is ... a picture of Jesus's face superimposed over a cross. He's on the same leg with the demon with no eyes. When I look at myself now, I see what I couldn't see then. This was spiritual warfare, taking place subconsciously on my body. The soulless demon. The face of Jesus. The battle had begun. —Josh Hamilton

Tattoos were first introduced to the United States when German-born Martin Hildebrandt tattooed both Union and Confederate soldiers in their camps. Tattooing reached its "golden age" in the 1940s when sailors returned home sporting their new body art. Tattoo popularity spread to include bikers in the 1950s, hippies in the 1960s, rock stars in the 1970s and 1980s, and athletes in the 1990s. Now, tattoos have become part of the mainstream. According to the Pew Research Center, 40 percent of people born between 1961 and 1981 have at least one tattoo.

For the 60 percent who don't have a tattoo, Josh Hamilton has done his share of picking up the slack. But long before the star outfielder for the Texas Rangers ever thought of getting the first of his twenty-six tattoos, Josh was marked by a dream to play baseball. At six years old, he was throwing a baseball at fifty miles per hour—so fast that the other parents complained that their kids were in danger of being hurt. The Tar Heel League bumped him up to his brother's team of fifth through seventh graders.

As a teen, Josh was ranked by Baseball America among the top five high school players in the country. He was so heavily scouted that he even missed his senior prom in order to avoid any potential scandals.

At eighteen years old, just two days after his high school graduation, Josh was drafted—as the number one pick in 1999—by the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. The dream that had marked his early childhood was becoming a reality, and he inked a record $3.96 million signing bonus.

In his book Beyond Belief: Finding the Strength to Come Back, Josh explained that his original ink began to be smudged when he was in a major car accident in 2001, resulting in a back injury. Unable to play the sport he loved and being isolated from his family, Josh began frequenting a tattoo shop in a Tampa strip mall; it became his second home. In tattoo lingo, showcases are people who display on their bodies a lot of work from the same artist. Now, with nothing but time and money, Josh would spend hours in the chair, numbing out, letting the artist decide what he wanted to ink onto Hamilton's body. He was fast becoming a showcase for that artist, and the marks would prove to be more than skin-deep.

Josh's story has similarities to the story of the twelve Israelite spies. When God brought the Israelites out of slavery and was ready to bring them to the land he had promised them, Moses was instructed to select a leader from each of the twelve tribes to go and stake out the land. After forty days of exploring the land, its towns, its people, and its vegetation, they came back and reported this to Moses: "We went into the land to which you sent us, and it does flow with milk and honey! ... But the people who live there are powerful, and the cities are fortified and very large." Only Caleb said, "We should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it." But the Bible says that those against Caleb spread fear throughout the Israelites, saying, "The land we explored devours those living in it. All the people we saw there are of great size.... We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them."

Josh did what so many of us do. We imprint on our minds that we are grasshoppers. Then those around us see that ink and treat us according to the mark we've taken on for ourselves—that we are small, insignificant, a failure. And what does that tell people about the Artist we're showcasing? The Bible says we are "God's handiwork," "the work of [his] hand," and created for the display of his splendor." Do we believe that? What's more, do we really allow it to change the way we identify ourselves? Does it challenge us to live differently, to go forth and take possession of whatever God has promised for our own lives?

Which Artist Is in Charge?

When asked to explain the meaning behind each of his twenty-six tattoos, Josh half laughs. "The truth is, most of the time I wasn't interested in what they were putting on my body ... the artists were in charge." And, left in charge, what they inked included a number of demons on his body. He said that what started out as a release eventually became another master to obey—a master that first showed up in a premonition during his first summer in the pros.

He was playing center field at a night game and a thunderstorm was looming. He describes it like this:

There was lightning in the distance, and the clouds lit up every few seconds as they bounced our way. I watched, interested in the formations and curious about whether they would arrive and wash out the game.

I have difficulty describing what happened next. The clouds kept moving, and suddenly a demon's face appeared, superimposed on the clouds. It was jumping out at me, and it made me rock back on my heels. I got chills. The face was grinning, almost taunting.

The vision stuck with me the rest of the game. I didn't know what to make of it, but I didn't feel I could ignore it. There was something there for me, some message or warning.

After the game, walking back to the motel, he and his roommate noticed a bluish light coming from their room. They both remembered turning off the TV and all the lights. Nothing seemed amiss when they entered their room. His roommate headed straight for the bathroom and Josh went to turn on the TV. What he saw stopped him dead in his tracks. There on the hotel television, Hamilton reports that he saw an image of clouds similar to what he had witnessed from the ball field. Except this time, rather than a demon, he believed he was seeing Jesus, reaching out to him.

Feeling that this was obviously connected with what had happened during the game, Josh felt that he was being sent a message and that it was his job to figure out what it was. "So, with the events of that night providing the push, I lay in bed in a West Virginia motel room and thought seriously about the role of Jesus Christ in my life, and how I was supposed to respond to His message."

It seemed as if he might then begin to choose some different marks for his life, but somewhere between the deep impressions of that night and...