Zack Eswine expands on the life metaphor that if you’re going to give shade you have to develop deep roots.
This is a principle he sees in the life of our Saviour, Jesus.
What was he doing in the thirty years before his public ministry began?
Growing roots.
Developing a sense of place.
Which is not the same thing as fulfilling an ambition.
Place exposes limits. Limits repulse the driven. The driven therefore struggle with the sense of place that Jesus had. Amid the aromas of freshly cut woods, the bone and blood in Jesus’ hands would form an alliance. With this, he would shape and sand long trunks and planks of wood into tables and chairs. Jesus knew the names of trees. He built from them what his mind imagined and what his skill learned over time could call forth. He crafted bark during what theologians refer to as his “years of obscurity”…
…I puzzle over what Jesus is doing among the wood chips. What is the meaning of this sawdust caught in Jesus’ beard and dangling from his smile – and all of this for thirty years? Thirty years! Jesus had a world to save, injustice to confront, lepers to touch – shade to give. Isn’t greatness squandered by years of obscurity? What business does a saviour have learning the names of trees?
When “here” seems to be where his future will unfold, and when moving on must stop, a pastor begins to ask such questions. This time will come for every pastor, the moment where he realises, “This is where I’ll be, and this is not what I had imagined for my legacy.”
From Sensing Jesus, Zack Eswine, Crossway, 2013, pp 59-60
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