Wearing beliefs

Throughout my life I have seen this tattoo or one similar to it on several people.  I’ve seen it mostly around my hometown back in Mexico, where the vast majority of people were Catholic (primarily) or another Christian denomination.  This tattoo communicates to those who are seeing it that they (the person with the tattoo) is a believer, but not just that they went so far as to put it on their own skin and wear it for the world to see (assuming it isn’t hidden).  Although this may not be so much proof as their beliefs the individual is willing to tattoo it on themselves to either try to pass on that messages subconsciously or because they are just simply using it as a symbol for their beliefs.  This can communicate that the person who has this tattoo is either a believer in God or is willing to pass him/her self as one.  This person can be of various backgrounds or beliefs but because they have tattooed this on their skin it means they are willing to pass on an ambiguous message of what they believe in. Good or bad, for example they can be saying that humanity is terrible for causing this to happen to its savior. Or they can be saying look at what suffering Jesus went through to save me. Either or, there are different ways to look upon what message is being tried to pass but the overlap is that this person has something to say of Christ.  The belief in this can be used to unify themselves with other Christians and may also be hinting at the culture within their lives. After all a religion can also be seen as a culture or a part of it. Like mentioned above it may be referring to the pain that Jesus went through or suffering that we made him go through. So underlying message is also about the religion in general.