The King’s carpentry shop

“Why a carpenter?”

High school senior Weston Wax asks over at the Kingdom People blog. It’s a interesting question for those of us who are trying to live out the words of Christ in this everyday world.

Weston says this, “Wood. Nails. Hammers. Frustration. Smashed thumbs. Jesus would have spent hours working with wood, gradually sculpting the raw material into masterpieces. The Divine would have built homes, fences, and other necessities for every day life in the first century. His job for the day might have varied, but his resources did not. Wood. Nails. Hammers.”

We often think of Jesus in a strictly Holy manner. You are well aware of the mental images in your mind, created by paintings or movies: The suffering Christ on the cross, or the Jesus with the lamb over his shoulders, or the kindly Messiah reaching out to a touching a pentient sinner. We have snapshots of Him at the transfiguration, a dove on his shoulder and heavenly light shining like a spotlight on his face. Rarely do we imagine The Holy One, the promised King, as a common laborer.

The Jesus in the carpenter shop, working and sweating isn’t something we often think about. The sliver in the thumb. The shards of the primitive nails scraping the skin. The callous from the lumber. It’s all so, so menial, for the Lamb of God. But Weston reminds us that there is another reason for this chosen profession.

“Surely Jesus had to have thought, while striking the nails into his timber, that one day men would be doing the same, but with his own palm between the cold iron and wood. Surely he passed the tip of one of his spikes over his fingertips and grimaced in the solemn realization of what awaited him.”

Weston ask, “why this profession?” Jesus could have been a farmer or raised goats or been a fisherman. He could have made shoes or worked with fabric. He could have done a hundred other things – but God chose the hammer, the nails, the wood.

Weston says this profession was to remind Jesus of “his great work. He was forced to focus on his task, his purpose, his mission.”

The post reminded me of my own work – whether it is in the communty or my neighborhood or my church or my workplace. All of what I do should be a Red Letter Believer reminder that this world is not my home, that I have another King and another kingdom.

Read the whole of Weston Wax’s post here. It’s a beautiful piece and an excellent reminder of our High Calling.