Happy Friday, friends.
Y’all know my “Bible reading” often takes me outside of the Bible, into various Gnostic texts and other Christian writings that didn’t make it into our Bible’s for various reasons.
This story about Jesus I came across the other days nuts.
Enjoy.
Glenn || PATREON / BUY ME A COFFEE
|| A NEW STORY ABOUT JESUS ||
The other day I told my daughter, Jordan, that I read a story about Jesus that I never read before and that it made my heart so happy and then I asked her if she wanted to hear it.
"Yes, daddy, tell me the story!"
(It was pre-dinner time and she was getting "HANGRY" - hungry and angry - and so I was, in all honesty, just trying to buy myself some time before Mt. Saint Jordan erupted.)
Some background for you that I didn't give her, and we've talked about this before but it's worth repeating because I'm about to share some wild stuff with you. There's a Gospel called "The Latin Infancy Gospels" that doesn't appear in our Bible, but was important to earlier Christians. Scholars believe it was composed somewhere around the mid-seventh century and they aren't sure WHO wrote it or WHERE they wrote it from.
It's called The "Latin" Infancy Gospels because scholars seem to think it's a partial re-working of 2 other Gospels that also aren't found in our Bibles ...
ONE - The Latin version of the "Proto-Gospel of James" written in the late SECOND-century (shortly after our Gospel of John).
And.
TWO - the "Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew" (we talked about that one a week or so ago) written in the mid-seventh century.
Much like those other 2 Gospels, this Gospel contains stories of Jesus and Mary and Joseph that are clearly more legendary than they are historical. Some of the events in the story closely resemble the events from Matthew and Luke's birth story while others seem to be out of a Sci-Fi movie.
Fake.
Clearly not historical.
Fabricated.
BUT.
Like we've said so many times at the What If Project, who cares ... right? Perhaps the point of all of these Jesus stories along with the birth narratives that we share and recite at Christmas time isn't to relay historical information to us, but to inspire us and deepen our own wonderings about the life of Christ so that we may be enlivened to live our lives just as the stories tell us that he lived his.
... to do even "greater things" than he did, as John's Gospel says.
Anyways, so in this story Jesus had just been born and Joseph walks out of the cave he was born in and is in absolute awe and wonder at all that's going on and while he's likely pacing back and forth trying to take it all in, he sees some shepherds coming over the horizon.
They chat for a bit and the shepherds go into the cave to see the baby Jesus and immediately fall on their faces to worship him and then they come out of the cave to tell Joseph the strangest thing ...
"While he (baby Jesus) looked at us, he smiled most pleasantly in manifold appearances, constantly changing form. For at first he revealed himself to us as most pleasant, then as stern and fearsome, and then as most sweet and human, and then again as both small and large. And as soon as he opened his eyes, the great light emanated from his eyes and the sweetest odor from his mouth."
Weird, right?
I told Jordan that when the shepherds went into the cave to worship Jesus, Jesus (as a baby) began to change right before their eyes - first he was SMALL, then he was LARGE, first he was a BABY, then he was BIGGER, then he was SMALL again and at first he SMILED, but then his face was ANGRY, and then SAD, and then HAPPY and then I asked her, "do you know why I think that's a cool story?"
"Nope."
I said I think it's a cool story because "it shows me that Jesus can be whoever I need Jesus to be whenever I need him to be it. If I'm sad, Jesus can be sad with me and comfort me. If I'm happy, Jesus can be happy and celebrate with me. If I'm angry, Jesus can help me find calm and peace. But no matter what I feel, the eyes he watches me with are full of light like a flashlight to guide me and the words that leave his mouth that he whispers to me are sweet and kind and encouraging."
She lost interest, HA!, but I know that some seeds were planted that we can come back to later.
I wanted to share that with you today, that God can be whatever you need God to be, whenever you need God to be it.
God can take on the form of a mother or a father, a brother or a sister.
God can be happy with you.
God can be sad with you.
God can sit with you in your anger.
God's eyes that God watches you with can light your path AND God's eyes that look out of your own eyes can light the paths of those around you.
God's words that speak to you from various places can bring you sweet comfort AND God's words that come forth from your own mouth can make the world around you sweeter.
Yes - whatever you need God to be, God can be it ... and because the Divine is IN YOU, YOU can be God to others in so many different ways.
Ahh, what a wonderful story.
(And yes, I tell my daughter stories of Jesus and relay idea to her that are found outside of the Bible, in Gnostic texts and various other ancient texts as well ... because they are beautiful and full of life. May God have mercy on her first “Bible teacher”.)
Much love, friends.