We still seem happy enough to celebrate the birth of Jesus, the Christ, at least in most churches, but there isn't much to work with in terms of his childhood from there out. Then Luke tells us that the infant Jesus is circumcised (how Jewish is that?) before he is presented in the temple and recognized by the elders Anna and Simeon. Matthew shares the story of the flight into Egypt (yes, they were refugees) and then back to Luke where 12-year-old Jesus listening and learning with teachers in the temple. That's it for Jesus' childhood though and most of it doesn't provide much insight into who he was as a boy.
It shouldn't be that much of a surprise that the church through the ages filled in what the gospels don't tell us. Some of the stories are outlandish and others downright disturbing. Of course, I had to read an article I came upon by Mary Dzon which describes the legends and myths about the young Jesus, with "holy rascal" in the title. They are entertaining and here are a couple of examples:
In a story summarized by one scholar as “death for a bump,” a boy runs into Jesus. He curses the child, who instantly drops down dead – though Jesus brings him back to life after a brief reprimand from Joseph.
In another tale, included in an Anglo-Norman narrative that survives in an illustrated manuscript, Jesus takes off his coat, places it upon a sunbeam and sits upon it. When the other children see this, they “thought they would do the same …. But they were too eager, and they all fell down at once. One and another jumped up quickly onto the sunbeam, but it turned out badly for them, since each one broke his neck.” Jesus heals the boys at his parents’ prompting.
Joseph admits to his neighbors that Jesus “was indeed too wild” and sends him away. The 7-year-old Jesus becomes apprenticed to a dyer, who gives him very precise directions about dyeing three pieces of cloth in three different vats. Once his master has left, Jesus ignores his instructions, throwing all the cloth into one vat – yet still achieves the desired outcome. When the master returns, he at first thinks he has been “ruined by this little rascal,” but then realizes that a wonder has occurred.
This is the ultimate "time out" imposed on Jesus! Did those stories serve a constructive purpose? Who can say, but I rather enjoy the notion of a rascally kid Jesus riding a sunbeam. Yee haw!
Jesus seated on a sunbeam, while other boys attempt to do so, in a miniature from the Selden Supra 38 manuscript, created in the early 14th century. © Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford, CC BY-NC-SA
No comments:
Post a Comment