What thoughts had the four day old Jesus?

Monday, 12/29/14

It was on the fortieth day after his birth that Mary and Joseph presented Jesus at the Temple, so for commenting on the event we will wait until that fortieth day, February 2^.

So, going back to the Christmas timetable, today we would be looking on a Jesus who was just four days old. And the question arises: was that baby all wise? Did he fully comprehend the international politics of his time?

Perhaps I am wrong about this, but I feel that the infant Jesus didn’t know much more than any infant at four days would know. Luke’s Gospel leads me to that conclusion. When Luke later described the twelve-year old Jesus asking questions of the scholar in the Temple was Jesus just pretending not know the answers in advance.

Then, following that incident about the twelve-year-old Jesus in the temple, Luke concluded the account by saying, “And Jesus advanced in wisdom and age and favor before God and men.” 

Jesus could not have advanced in wisdom if there was no room there for an advancement. I feel that Jesus at four days knew no more than any child would know at four days.

That is not to say that there was nothing of value going on in is mind. I love quoting paragraph eighteen of the Constitution on the Church in the Modern World where it says, “The dignity of man consists above all on the fact that he is called to communion with God. This invitation to converse with God is addressed to man as soon as he comes into being.”

The Church is there declaring that Jesus and every four-year-old is non-verbally communicating with God.

It reminds me of a Francis Thompson poem where, speaking to a little girl he met on a walk, he wrote something like this: “Though thou appearest untouched by solemn thought, your nature is not therefore less divine. Thou lay in Abram’s bosom all the year, God being with thee, though thou knowest not.”