Recently the question came up:
did Jesus always know He was God?
It's something I've never thought about
and I liked suddenly thinking about it,
though I don't think I can ever settle on an answer.
Was there a "Superman moment," as my friend put it,
or was the knowledge always etched in his human-yet-divine bones?
Do any of us start out knowing what we are? who we are?
The cattle are lowing, the baby awakes--
but little Lord Jesus, no crying he makes.
I never held much to that--infant wins out over God, in my book.
Or maybe God completely transforms into infant--
every need, every bawl, every discovery, every chuckle
full of heaven and earth all at once.
Tonight I watched our niece unwrap Christmas for the very first time.
As we surrounded her, savoring her cheeks, her light laughs, her roving eyes,
my husband asked aloud, wonderingly, close to jubilant expectation--
"What are you going to be?"
I imagine, that though they still had imprints of the angel, the dream, the star burned on their brains,
the known unknown that something far beyond them was at work,
Mary and Joseph still looked at their new boy and asked the same question:
"What are you going to be?"