Jesus
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• the treasure cradled in the ark of the covenant: stone tablets
• the foundation slab on which the ark of the covenant was placed in the temple: stone
• the foundation of Solomon’s temple: stone
Then there are the prophetic words of Isaiah declaring the coming cornerstone of God,9 YHWH, the Rock of Israel.10 Even the propagation language of the covenant can be found in the metaphor of the stone.11 In the Hebrew Bible, references to stones serve both as testimony and signs of the messianic prophesy. Genesis proclaims, “From there is the Shepherd, the Stone of Israel.”12 Daniel described the metaphor of the Messiah as the “stone . . . cut out of the mountain without hands.”13
Throughout the Second Testament and especially in the Gospels, these stones become not only the stones of creation and of the foundation of the physical temple but also the living stones of the disciples of Jesus14 and the living stones of Christ’s spiritual temple. Christ Himself is the incarnated and resurrected foundation and cornerstone, the eternal kingdom, the garden paradise, the covenant.
You also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house.15
You are God’s building. According to the grace of God which was given to me, as a master builder I have laid the foundation, and another builds on it.16
In whom the whole building . . . grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.17
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There is a treasure in the earth that is a food tasty and pleasing to the Lord. Be a gardener. Dig and ditch, toil and sweat. Turn the earth upside down and seek the deepness and water the plants in time. Continue this labor and make sweet floods to run and noble and abundant fruits to spring. Take this food and drink and carry it to God as your true worship.
—JULIAN OF NORWICH (AD 1416)
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In Hebrew theology, the stones can be equated with the seed of the earth, which requires gardening. Both represent the Word of YHWH, the Torah, the covenant. In Genesis, to garden (conserve and conceive) the earth is to garden (conserve and conceive) the covenant. When the covenant is broken, the earth and the stones cry out. All creation testifies to the power of the presence of the Lord, to the indissoluble relationship of God and God’s people.
Jesus, a master of the Torah, was still in the gardening business. In the mind of a Jewish scholar, the words of YHWH were the seeds of the ground. To study the Scriptures is to be a “keeper of the garden,” a keeper of the Word, someone who cultivates and cares for the Word of YHWH. A true disciple is a gardener of God’s Word.
You can’t be a gardener without digging. To conserve and cultivate God’s Word, one has to go digging in the garden.18 And when digging in the dirt, one finds treasures of testimony to the living Christ and to the person of Jesus. Just because some seeds are buried in the ground, some stones are baked and caked in dirt, doesn’t mean they don’t bear fruit or that they display no gemstone testimonial. The Word of Christ as attested in the Gospels bears witness to the truth of Jesus’ identity.
Every word represents the Word. Jesus’ identity cries out from His very language, from the narratives and metaphors (“narraphors”) of His discourse in the Gospels. All four Gospel writers, as well as other writers and disciples of Jesus, recorded only what was relevant to the message they needed subsequent disciples to hear, as a witness to the identity of Jesus. Jesus’ own words and the words of those following Him testify to His identity, both human and divine, as rabbi and Messiah.
Let the stones bear witness. Jesus Himself becomes the Word. In the defining parable of the sower,19 we are to tend the Word of YHWH, the seed of the ground, and to plant it everywhere. You never know where it will take. Jesus is the Torah seed in the flesh. This is one of the “mysteries of the kingdom,” Jesus reveals.20
JESUS’ HIDDEN YEARS AREN’T REALLY HIDDEN
The text of our lives goes on, whether or not it is written down. It is the same with Jesus’ life and His “missing years” from twelve to thirty. What if Jesus’ “missing years” aren’t missing at all but simply hidden in His words, His parables, His actions, His signs? In a sense, the signs around us are like stones, witnesses to the work of the Holy Spirit in our midst. When our text is interrupted, signs shine through what is said and what is left unsaid. We need merely to connect the dots, to fill in the missing words that are not so much missing as invisible to the eye.
As Jesus would say in His favorite phrase, “Pay attention.” Or elsewhere, “Let those with eyes see, those with ears hear.”21 To be aware is to look for the signs in all of their manifestations.
Jesus’ divinity has become a catchword, a rhetorical blindfold rather than the recovery of sight to the blind. The only reason the Gospels and Epistles were written, and the only passages chosen to record, was to witness to the truth of the living cornerstone, the messiahship of Jesus, the divinity of Christ, who was more than the phenomenal and controversial man everyone knew. Without the testimony of the Gospels, Jesus would have gone down in history as the most astute and amazing rabbi in Jewish history.
But to deny Jesus as divine Messiah is to negate the entire gospel story, the purpose of His ministry, the reason for His death, and the magnitude of His resurrection. Truth is not a construction (although truth emanates from Christ in concepts that are communicable and constructible). If Jesus taught His disciples anything, He taught that His identity was the very foundation of His ministry and the cornerstone of our faith. The way, truth, and life for Jesus are themselves the fulfillment of the scriptural promise, the renewal and reconstitution of the original covenantal relationship with God and the return of humanity to the garden.
THE GARDEN RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD
When in a garden relationship with God, humanity had no need of the Torah, for we had the Tree of Life. The Torah was the Tree of Life reborn, and Jesus was the Torah reborn. The PaRDeS22 of the Torah, the Word of YHWH is Jesus Himself. In the act of resurrection, the stones of the temple, which confined God’s favor to a chosen few, are reframed into a spiritual house: the City of God becomes the paradeiso, the garden of Eden, the eternal life.
The symbolism of the garden of Eden as Torah, as ark of the covenant, and as temple pervades Hebrew texts as well as the Jewish spiritual tradition. Even the scroll of the Torah itself is symbolic, with each pole called the “tree of life” and the manuscript its “leaves.” Within those leaves lies the seed of YHWH, buried in the garden of the Torah. The seven-branched golden lampstand known as the menorah,23 hammered out of pure gold into an almond-tree design (which was sometimes called the “awakening tree”), symbolized the Tree of Life. The most common symbolism of Judaism, the menorah stood to the side of the ark, giving it light and reminding the Hebrew people that they are chosen to be a “light to the Gentiles.”24 The little town called Nazareth means “branch.” Nazareth was the dead branch25 that would restore the Tree of Life26 spoken of in the book of Revelation, whose leaves give the nations healing.27
This incarnational presence moves in the new covenant from Torah to Jesus Himself. The living stones become the testimony to the living PaRDeS, the foundational stone of the spiritual temple of God, the garden of Eden, the gateway to the Tree of Life, where there is restored relationship to the Creator and eternal life in God.
The design of Solomon’s temple likewise echoes this garden imagery. The eastern gate models the gate of the garden of Eden. The inner sanctum, where the ark of the covenant resides, is strewn with garden designs. “He carved all the walls of the temple all around . . . with carved figures of cherubim, palm trees, and open flowers.”28 The ark itself is set upon stone and guarded by two angels, like those guarding the eternal garden.
The entire resurrection story is crammed with this garden symbolism. Jesus as the way, truth, and life assumes t
he role as gateway, gardener, garden, and Tree of Life. Jesus not only brings the new covenant; He is the new covenant. The way is through Him: “No one comes to the Father except through Me.”29 When Mary found the empty tomb in the garden, she found the stone had been rolled away (metaphorically, the stone guarding the garden of Eden), and two shining angels guarded the head and foot of Jesus.
The resurrected Christ serves as the new entryway to the garden paradeiso. Mary recognized her master first as the “gardener.”30 When Jesus spoke to the thief on the cross, He told him, “You will be with Me in Paradise [paradeiso, “the garden”].”31 When Mary addressed Jesus, she used the term “Rabboni”: “my most esteemed master.”32 Her eyes were opened, and she recognized Jesus for who He was.
Basalt became basal: the covenant of inorganic stone (the Hebrew Torah, the Law) became the new organic covenant, the fulfillment of the original intent, the living and spiritual stone, the return to the garden: “To him who overcomes I will give to eat from the tree of life, which is in the midst of the Paradise of God.”33 In Genesis God told Cain that a sin offering would be placed at the door of the garden.34 Now Christ, God’s sin offering, was standing at the door. Not only standing at the door and knocking, but He Himself is the gateway for the opening of the door.35 Jesus welcomes inside not only Israelite nor only Gentile but all humanity. With the tearing of the temple curtain, the breaking of the sacrificial body and blood of Jesus, the final barrier between us and God has been broken: “Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body . . .”36
In the Genesis account, Adam (the stones of the earth and the disciples of the covenant) was commanded to conserve and conceive the garden, to watch and ward the covenant. When Adam failed and Cain spilled his brother’s blood, God’s people were variously expelled. Jesus, the Second Adam, broke the seal of the rock, and the entryway was opened once again for humankind and God to commune together.
Only through Jesus the Messiah, the sacrificial offering, can this spiritual temple, this garden paradise, be reestablished. Jesus, the master builder, teaches us that truth is not a construction. Truth is a relationship. It is a garden of relationships. Truth is an organic, breathing, binding covenant relationship with the Master Architect, the Creator of the universe.
Jesus said, “I am the way and the truth and the life.”37 He is the means, the beyond real, the livingness without beginning or end. Every gospel account bears witness to Jesus’ identity: “Let those with eyes see, and those with ears hear.”
Nature abhors a vacuum, and so do historians. When there is insufficient evidence to say anything with certainty, scholars are increasingly using something called “scenario thinking” to present a best-case scenario, worst-case scenario, and status-quo scenario. Colloquially these scenarios are called “the good, the bad, and the likely.” In the next section and in the following chapter, we will present a scenario of what the stones might say about our Lord’s “missing years.” We are keenly aware that any scenario needs to be made with deep humility and tentativeness. And it is with such an attitude that we will explore this piece of Jesus’ amazing life.
THE MAN WHO FITS NO FORMULA
Eduard Schweitzer rightly described Jesus as “the man who fits no formula.”38 N. T. Wright echoed this sentiment, observing that Jesus “burst the boundaries of all expectations.”39
The Gospels tell us that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, He grew up in Nazareth in northern Palestine, and He visited the temple in Jerusalem at age twelve. Beyond that, they are mostly silent on what He did for the eighteen years in between. We say “mostly” because we do have some hints from Jesus’ own lips and from the lips of His contemporaries. It’s not a great deal, but it’s enough to gain some insight into His preparation for ministry.
So the first thing to be said about the so-called missing years of Jesus is that no one can be certain about the details. The Gospels are virtually silent. The same is true for the rest of the Second Testament.
This vacuum of information has become fertile ground for the birth of all sorts of theories, some with more scriptural backing than others. Some of the more speculative sources say Jesus went to India to study under Eastern gurus. Others say He studied with the Essenes. Others even say He visited Great Britain. Some recent studies suggest that Jesus went to Jerusalem to be trained as a rabbi. Many scholars still claim Jesus to be a fringe revolutionary. Still others claim that He was merely a poor, uneducated but charismatic outsider. Not surprisingly, most want to fit Jesus into their own image of His hidden years. But the real question is, which can be most backed up by scripture? What makes for good story doesn’t equate to what actually happened.
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The point is that God has put right down into this world, into the midst of mankind, a new kind of Man, Who is not just better, more or less, than other men, but different altogether from other men; and has, in effect, said,“ That is the Man that I have in view, and eternally it has been My purpose to conform to that image.” How important it is, therefore, for us to understand the real nature and meaning of the life of our Lord Jesus as lived here on this earth. It is not just a beautiful story, about a man living and working and teaching, in a country somewhere in this world, far away and long ago. But, right up to date, a Man is presented to us, as altogether different from us in constitution and yet as God’s pattern for His working in us.
—T. AUSTIN-SPARKS 40
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JESUS’ MISSING YEARS WERE NOT UNUSUAL
We will set forth one scenario of the lost or hidden years based on the data that we have from the Gospels and from other first-century sources. According to the scenario presented in this chapter, the so-called missing years in Jesus’ life aren’t lost or missing at all. They simply didn’t contain the kind of drama that would compel the Gospel writers to write much about them.
Let’s begin with two pertinent texts on the subject:
And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, “He shall be called a Nazarene.”41
Then He went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was subject to them, but His mother kept all these things in her heart. And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men.42
These two accounts are immediately followed by the account of Jesus being baptized in the Jordan by John the Baptist. This seems to imply that Jesus’ baptism was the next significant event in His life (at least in the minds of the Gospel writers). According to Dr. David Instone-Brewer of Tyndale Fellowship, ancient biographers rarely wrote about the childhood of the people they chronicled. Their custom was to detail their births, their lives, and then their deaths. Unless someone had an unusual upbringing, they wouldn’t mention his youth.43
The reason the Gospel writers were silent about these years may be because Jesus’ youth was similar to that of most Jewish boys who grew up in Nazareth. There wasn’t anything out of the ordinary about His upbringing. (At least not on the surface.)44 Perhaps that’s the point the Gospel writers were trying to communicate to us about those years. Jesus’ youth was very human. It was like that of most Jewish boys of His day: “Therefore he had to become like his brothers and sisters in every respect.”45
The fact that the people of Nazareth were taken aback by the way Jesus taught as an adult seems to confirm this:46
And all were speaking well of Him, and wondering at the gracious words which were falling from His lips; and they were saying, “Is this not Joseph’s son?”47
He came to His hometown [Nazareth] and began teaching them in their synagogue, so that they were astonished, and said, “Where did this man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers? Is not this the carpenter’s son? Is not His
mother called Mary, and His brothers, James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? And His sisters, are they not all with us? Where then did this man get all these things?”48
When the Sabbath came, He began to teach in the synagogue; and the many listeners were astonished, saying, “Where did this man get these things, and what is this wisdom given to Him, and such miracles as these performed by His hands? Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon? Are not His sisters here with us?” And they took offense at Him.49
What is more striking is the reaction of the Jews in Jerusalem when they heard Jesus teach in the temple courts:
Now about the middle of the feast Jesus went up into the temple and taught. And the Jews marveled, saying, “How does this Man know letters, having never studied?”
Jesus answered them and said, “My doctrine is not Mine, but His who sent Me.”50
The Jews in Jerusalem were amazed at Jesus’ teaching, wondering where He had gained such knowledge and insight “having never studied.”51 Jesus’ response is telling: His tutoring came from His Father. He was not taught by any man but by God. N. T. Wright has underscored this point, saying,
Teachers in Judaism would normally have studied the law with one or more rabbis. They would have spent years perfecting their knowledge of the finer points of interpretation. Jesus had never attended such classes, and yet he obviously knew the scriptures extremely well and was able to expound them in a fresh and vivid way. Where had he got it all from? . . . In verse 16 [of John 7] Jesus states his response baldly: his teaching comes from God, and he didn’t make it up himself.52
WHERE THE HISTORICAL EVIDENCE POINTS
Jesus’ hometown was a village that resided in lower Galilee, called Nazareth.53 The word Nazareth comes from netzer and means “branch” or “shoot.” The town was called the “branch” town because it was a place where descendants of the royal line of David settled. “A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit; He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground.”54 This could explain why Mary and Joseph settled there in God’s providence.