Jesus sniffs loudly. He has a very bad cold. So, it's just as well that he's wearing thermal long johns under his robes. He's dressing in the church of St Mary-le-Strand, just down the road from the Old Bailey. Jesus, who is six-foot tall and built like a rugby player, shrugs himself into a white, floor-length chemise and then waits as two attendants wrap a dark blue drape across his shoulder, like a sash. Out of his backpack he removes a Boots carrier bag. From this, appropriately enough, he takes a pair of sandals. Jesus has a sticking plaster on his heel, half hanging off. There's a hint of pathos here. He takes the hair-band from his ponytail and shakes his long dark hair loose. Now he really looks the part.

Rick Wakeman, the founder of the bombastic 1970s prog rock band Yes - now a TV chat show raconteur, turns to camera and whispers: 'This is really extraordinary, someone who a few moments ago I would have passed in the street, with the addition of a couple of items of clothing, within the space of a few minutes, has become someone disconcertingly familiar.'
Jesus walks towards the glass doors of the church and opens them. He pauses for a second, you can see his breath in the cold air. The homeless people on the step grin and follow him with their eyes as he passes, but the real focus of their interest is the film crew which trails him out into the street.

It's Ash Wednesday and actor Barry Richardson is playing Jesus, but not for the camera, nor especially for an audience. This is art, Fine Art. Richardson is the medium of artist Michael Gough - it was he who was fine-tuning Jesus' appearance before sending him out into the London traffic. The camera is there for a BBC 1 Easter programme 'Looking for Jesus', presented by Rick Wakeman, to be broadcast on Maundy Thursday.

The art piece is called 'Iconography 2004'. Gough says: 'The image is from 1950s watercolour Bible illustrations, it's the common people's Jesus. The idea came off the back of work I was doing as an undergraduate art student about heroes and role models. I wondered what it would be like to take the classic image, the icon, the received image of Christ and juxtapose this with the common day-to-day. To put the icon of Christ against another huge contemporary icon, the city. I wanted to ask whether it was still relevant, engaging.'

What Gough does is to take this mild, sentimental Jesus and place him in a number of locations around the city and get him to pause, striking a classic pose of 'blessing' with one hand raised. He himself then stands at a safe distance, so no-one connects him with the event, and records on camera what takes place. It is ultimately the documentation of this performance, the iconic still photographs, when exhibited, which becomes the art piece.

This is the fourth performance of its kind - it having previously been staged in Soho, in London's West End and also in Glasgow and Edinburgh. Gough was asked to bring 'Iconography' to the city of London as part of Presence: images of Christ for the third millennium, a linked series of art exhibitions in six cathedrals celebrating 150 years of Christian ministry by the charity BibleLands.

The previous day, Shrove Tuesday, Michael Gough had taken Jesus to London Bridge station, one of the capital's busiest commuter hubs. Here, on a freezing rush hour morning, he stood in silent blessing while a current of city businessmen and women streamed around him, like a river round an island.

The most common reaction was no reaction, to ignore him, to pretend he wasn't there,' said the artist. Even when he introduced a second 'icon' a young city business man (played by Gary Collins), complete with suit and sharp haircut, who stood close to Jesus telling an imaginary friend on his mobile phone, 'You'll never guess who's here, it's Jesus,' the Gadarene rush into the city seemed undiminished.

The reaction was very different. In the summer of 1997, the first time 'Iconography' was staged in Soho and other west London locations. 'I had assumed they'd ignore him, but it was the opposite. The moment he walked out on the street you had a bunch of lads walking behind him chanting, 'Jesus, Jesus, Jesus!',' says Gough. Both he and Barry Richardson are of the opinion that Soho on a summer's day and the City on a very cold morning were bound to inspire different reactions. In the first instance there was a great deal more engagement with the figure of Jesus himself. In Soho square a young homeless man, either high or drunk, enfolded Jesus in a warm hug. People stopped and asked Jesus to
pray for them.

The team had discussed how to handle such interactions before they began. Both Michael Gough and Barry Richardson had agreed that, should members of the public want to 'engage with the icon,' then Richardson should step out of character. The illusion of Jesus was in the iconography, there should be no other pretence taking place.

In one notable episode, when the two approached the hostess of a strip club to see if Jesus could enter, the woman was nervous at first, believing, bizarrely that they were undercover police. But she soon 'opened up' to Jesus/Barry about her life and feelings. 'She told me that when her mother, a devout Roman Catholic, had died she had kept only one of her possessions. That item was a picture of Jesus, which she now kept at home on her bedside table. When she had seen me earlier, walking the streets and I met her gaze directly, she saw that picture looking at her.' Adds Gough, 'The icon still seems to
have a charge'.

On another occasion, Jesus was walking along the echoey tunnel which connects South Kensington tube station to the Science and Natural History Museums. 'At the far end a woman was ranting and raving, making a lot of noise,' recalls Gough, 'and then she saw Jesus coming towards her and it stopped her in her tracks. I don't know what she thought she saw, but she immediately became still and quiet until we'd passed by.'

There is no such drama today. Though there is something bizarre about this reporter observing a TV crew which is filming an artist who is documenting the reactions of the public to an icon of Christ. Jesus blesses the traffic on the Strand, he walks across Waterloo Bridge, he poses in front of the Bank of England and stands in the shadow of the Lloyds building.
No-one engages him in conversation. People in the City have appointments to honour, meetings to attend, deals to make, lunch to buy. But there are many double-takes and the observations people make to one another as they walk by are fascinating.
'I bet his feet are cold.'
'It's not him is it? I mean it's not the real one?'
'Do you think he's on some kind of pilgrimage?'
'I could think of better things to do.'
'It's funny seeing him next to the guy with the mobile phone, that's an amazing contrast - kind of ancient and modern.'
'Oh my God, it's Jesus!'

The sheer apparition-like presence of this instantly recognisable figure torn from one context and transported into another does look very strange, a bit like a photo montage. At the centre of this is Barry Richardson who is personally stirred by more radical, powerful and controversial images of Christ, but in the cause of art plays the character this role demands: 'It helps me to think of certain words: serene, passive, almost weak.' And his very stillness does make a certain monumental impact. it is clear that everyone notices, clocks him. Few pause in their stride, but you can almost see in their faces a
pause for thought.
Did Rick Wakeman, a veteran performer at some of the biggest venues in the world think people would be affected by this particular piece of performance art? 'Well, it will make you remember. I mean, when you get home you're hardly going to forget that you saw Jesus in the street.'

'Iconography 2004' the photographic record of Jesus in the City of London will be exhibited at the church of St Katherine Cree, Leadenhall Street, London EC3 from 29th March to 2nd April, as part of Presence: Images of Christ for the third Millennium, celebrating the 150th anniversary of BibleLands ministry.

This article by Malcolm Doney was orginally published in the Church Times and is reproduced by kind permission.