Today I had a ‘leading’ that I thought was from God, turn out to be incorrect. Gently tested, no mess, but still, a mistake. Right away knocking on my mental door came Doubt, Embarrassment, Fear and some guy who kept trying to analyse and second guess every other important decision I have been dealing with recently.
I wondered if Jesus ever made a mistake? And I hear you saying ‘Jesus didn’t make any mistakes, he was Perfect!’
But what does that mean? He was a carpenter, so did he make his first table and chairs perfectly the first go? If he did perfect carpentry, business must have been booming! His dad must have been pleased, nothing to teach, no complaints from customers, perhaps Jesus never even hit his thumb with the hammer, would God miss the nail? Was he a ‘know it all’? The Bible certainly says he impressed the Synagogue leaders when he was twelve. Imagine his school teacher: “Anyone, anyone.. ok Jesus has his hand up, anyone else?” Whenever there was a dispute did his mum just tell the other kids to ‘Go ask Jesus’. Was he unbeatable at cards and dice… another royal flush? ‘Jesus!’
He certainly wasn’t ‘perfect’ in his looks…the Bible says his appearance was nothing special. Probably not an athlete then, probably not a girl’s first choice for a date to the Bar mitzvah. Perhaps he even had a flabby tummy, it might have helped with his fasting. I wonder if some Jock boasted how he could bench press more than Jesus…
Being Human is learning from your mistakes. Not learning from your mistakes is being stupid. I guess looking at Jesus we need to equate perfection as ‘without sin’. And if sin and mistakes are different, then perhaps Jesus made some mistakes and was still perfect? Maybe we shouldn’t be so hard on ourselves when we make a mistake. And sins are forgiven, so there you go, no need to beat myself up so much. Tyler Durden has gone.
I think I’ll open the door to some Peace, Humility and Grace.
Knock Knock…Hello Jesus, perfect day… isn’t it.
(Disclaimer: I reserve the right to change my mind and say Jesus never made a mistake, the moment I feel God’s wrath may be on my back as a result of this blog…)UPDATE:
I have been thinking about the story of Jesus's first miracle, changing water into wine. In that story, when the wine runs out, his mother says to the servants "Do whatever he tells you." This suggests to me that indeed Jesus does have a history for knowing how to solve difficult issues. His mother says 'Do', instead of 'try', and also 'whatever', and not 'if it makes sense'. She speaks with authority. She is saying that Jesus may give strange instructions but that they can be trusted to resolve the situation. This spoken authority can only come from previous experiences.
This also leads me to think that while John says this was "the first of his miraculous signs...", the 'first' may actually relate more to 'signs' and thus this act may not have actually been his first miracle, but perhaps his first public 'this is who I am' miracle/sign... His mother may have experienced him do miracles before, or she might just have total confidence in who he is.
Also I wonder about Jesus's feelings and midset at ths point. It is a much more important moment than the writers make out. A nice little story in hindsight, but if no miracle had happened then it would have been 'game over' for Jesus claiming to be the messiah, before it all started. I would have been thinking 'I hope this works...perhaps I'll do a little test in the back room, before I make this a public show...' But he has faith in God and himself (despite the timng not being what he was wanting [a whole other discussion]), and so he was probably thinking 'and were off and running!'
