‘We too have to make this choice.’ Photo: by PxHere
Problem child? Jenny Webb’s Thought for the week
‘This story captured my imagination.’
In the canonical Gospels we only read about Jesus’ life from the age of twelve, when he is visiting the temple. But we can learn more about his childhood from texts known as the Infancy Gospels. The Infancy Gospel of St Thomas, for example, thought to be written in the second century CE, tells the story of Jesus aged five, playing with his friends by a stream and fashioning birds out of clay. But it was the Sabbath, when such activity was forbidden: ‘So Joseph went there, and as soon as he spotted him he shouted, “Why are you doing what’s not permitted on the Sabbath?” But Jesus simply clapped his hands and shouted to the sparrows, “Be off, fly away, and remember me, you who are now alive!” And the sparrows took off and flew away noisily.’
