Did Jesus Ever Ask “Who Me?”

Between Christmas and Lent the little space of Ordinary Time gives us stories of Jesus’ boyhood and young adulthood. Jesus grows up.  And Jesus goes out—away from the carpenter shop, away from his home town. He heard a call or he felt growing pains or maybe his mother said, “It’s time.” Whatever it was Jesus, who is like us in every way, probably asked, “Who me?” Life had been so simple for 28 years or so. Go to school, learn a trade, make a living with hammer and saw. But there it was again—that little tug, that restless drive, that I-gotta-do-what-I-gotta do. Why did that little word “Abba” keep going through his mind with every turn of the lathe? Off went his apron. With surety he packed the tools and left the business in good hands. “Take care of my mom!” he said, a tear in his eye, a firm hand on his friend’s shoulder. A forward look, a forward step, and the “Who me?” became with each mile, with each desert day, “I know him, because I am from him, and he sent me” (Jn. 7:29).