THE WALKING STICK

We fear human reality, you and I. We are afraid of it because we convince ourselves that the world would love us more if we hid behind the theatrical and often comic opera roles we play in life.

When we meet new people, one of the first bridges we cross is to find out what they "do." We are far more interested in that than in who they are -- or, perhaps it is more accurate to say that we define who they are by what they do.

Jesus is the stark contrast to the society of the twenty-first century. He is the great anomaly.

What do you suppose Jesus was doing when he wasn't being Jesus? What about those years when he was growing up?

The last we hear of him as a child was at age 12. The next we hear of him, he is "about 30 years old." What of the intervening 18 years? Any teenager can tell you that a whole lifetime can be lived in 18 years.

While we do not know the incidents which molded his character, we do know the consequence of those years. "Though he were a son," says the writer of Hebrews, "yet learned he obedience through the things that he suffered."

Throughout Christendom believers are enthralled with the wisdom by which he amazed the elders in the temple.

I suspect Mary and Joseph were not so charmed. I can imagine that Joseph took him -- not so gently -- by the arm and said something like, "Father's business or not boy, the next time you choose to drop out of sight for three days, you won't be able to sit down for a week!"

Jesus was not defined by what he did. He was not defined by his miracles -- which we gladly affirm, nor yet even by his teachings -- which we eagerly accept. For the great, cataclysmic event that was his death, burial and resurrection -- for all of which we are cleansed and made whole -- but Jesus was not defined by even this!