The Carpenter

Scriptures tell us much of the life of Jesus from his birth until about age 12. Then there are those “hidden years” from 12 until about age 30 when Jesus is baptized, in which we are not told much of what happened in his upbringing. We are told that Jesus’ Foster Father, Joseph, was a carpenter.  We would assume that Jesus spent much of those years learning about carpentry and about His Jewish faith.

          I have been a carpenter at heart most of my life, and I have often thought about what it would have been like to work as a carpenter with Joseph and Jesus. I have had a little sign on my desk for many years that says, “My boss is a Jewish Carpenter.”

          A carpenter in the days of Jesus was a rough, tough job that demanded a great deal of physical strength and endurance as well as great skill. There would have been two aspects to what they built – one would be building parts such as doorways, windows, and jambs, and the other would be smaller furniture and household items. Carpenters would have had to cut down trees to hew out beams for house roofs. They would also make door frames, window lattices, low tables, and chests for inside the homes.

          Using the hand tools of those days would have taken a lot of time, strength, and patience to form what the builder wanted out of his materials. I imagine Our Lord as a young carpenter learning the patience and time it takes to shape His piece of work into what He knows it can become. Those same attributes would serve Him well later as He started to form and shape His people into the church that we are today.

          I know that when working with wood, sometimes you hit a bad spot or a knot, and you have to change your approach. I also know that not all projects turn out like we first imagined they would. I think that each of our journeys to God is similar to this. We hit bad spots in the wood, chips come off now and then, but Our Lord keeps shaping and forming us until we become the beautiful part of his Kingdom that He knows we can be. He usually doesn’t just toss us aside, but rather re-works us until we take the shape we were meant to be.