Barefoot 'Jesus' Jogs With a Giant Cross Strapped to His Back During NYC Marathon

ING New York City Marathon runners were joined by an intriguing participant on Sunday: A barefoot man dressed up as Jesus Christ who jogged with a giant cross strapped to his back.

Upon noticing the faux Christian savior, who was also running shirtless with what looked like a crown of thorns on his head, bystanders tweeted, Facebooked and Instagramed the fascinating sight.

Faux Jesus runs the NYC Marathon (Credit: @Milnes123)

Here are just a few of the messages that were shared on Twitter:

[blackbirdpie url="https://twitter.com/Milnes123/status/397101628257353728"]

[blackbirdpie url="https://twitter.com/ESPNMichele/status/397049623774494721"]

[blackbirdpie url="https://twitter.com/donundeen/status/397064124024512512"]

[blackbirdpie url="https://twitter.com/LadyjusticeTine/status/397050304518434816"]

[blackbirdpie url="https://twitter.com/noussommesdieu/status/397051160978526208"]

Yahoo! News reported that the man's marathon number was 55-970 and that he was an official registrant.

The outlet identified the name associated with this number as Makoto Takeuchi, originally from Chiba, Japan. Takeuchi is reportedly a New York City-based photographer.

Here's a 10-second clip showing the Jesus look-alike in action:

The marathon website does indeed have Takeuchi associated with these digits. Based on the current results shown, it appears as though the man The Huffington Post dubbed "Marathon Jesus" actually didn't finish the 26.2 mile race.

The latter part of his chart is incomplete, indicating that he completed just 10 miles of the race. Each of those miles, though, were run in under 11 minutes, which isn't bad considering his lack of sneakers and the big cross weighing him down:

Credit: INGNYCMarathon.org

TheBlaze reached out to Takeuchi via email to learn more about his motivation, but we have not yet heard back.

(H/T: Yahoo!)

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