Before getting into Jesus as a teenager, note that the upcoming February 15 is Transfiguration Sunday.

On that note, see On Exodus (Part II) and Transfiguration, a post I did last year at this time.  That post noted that the Last Sunday of the Epiphany season is also – by tradition – known as Transfiguration Sunday.  That’s based on the account of the Transfiguration of Jesus – in its earliest form, in Mark 9:2–8.  (I erroneously wrote that it was in “Mark 9:29.”)

Among other things, that post talked about the movie Exodus: Gods and Kings.  Specifically, it talked of how the movie painted a picture of Moses that was the “opposite of what we’ve been led to expect for other reasons.  For one thing he hears voices, strange and unknown, just like Jesus.”  (Like Jesus):

“I fasted for three months.  I even whipped myself before I went to sleep.  At first it worked.  Then the pain came back.  And the voices.  They call me by the name: Jesus.”

I noted that this was not unlike the idea that “‘Jesus may not have known the minute He was born who He was.”  That is, that Jesus may have “found out some time later in His life” just who He was, just like Moses had to have experienced.

That post also noted that Moses wasn’t allowed to enter the Promised Land, even after leading the Children of Israel through 40 years of Wandering in the Wilderness.  However- with the Transfiguration of Jesus – Moses finally was allowed to enter that Promised Land.  And that, even though it was a thousand years or more after he expected to.  (Which just goes to show that God’s timetable may not be anything like the timetables we expect in our lives.)

But getting back to Jesus as a teenager:  That post asked the musical question:

“What did Jesus know, and when did He know it?”

In other words, did Jesus know that He was the First-born Son of God when He was a teenager.

Which raises a host of other questions.  For example, if Jesus did know that He was in fact the First-born Son of God – as a teenager – He could see into the future.  And He would know – absolutely – everything that ever was or ever had been.

So maybe – as a teenager – Jesus did know everything there ever was to know, and everything possible that ever could be known.  Yet there He was, stuck in that backwater, hayseed town of Nazareth, far away from any possible excitement, like what He might find in Jerusalem.

And, probably the worst thing of all for Him was that He had to take orders from older people, people who He knew didn’t know a fraction of what He knew about “real life.”  Of course:

Since every teenager in the world has felt exactly the same way – since the beginning of time – how could the people in Nazareth know this teenager was any different?

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The upper image is courtesy of James Dean – Wikipedia.  The caption: “Dean in Rebel Without a Cause.”  The article noted, “Dean’s premature death … cemented his legendary status.”

As to the word “redux” in the title, see the notes to On “Job the not patient” – REDUX:

It’s an allusion to the 1971 book by John Updike, Rabbit Redux … about an aging high-school basketball star – Harry “Rabbit” Angstrom – as he went through five decades of life… See Wikipedia [which] added that the word redux means “brought back” or “restored…” Wikipedia also noted, “Rabbit Redux led to a redux in popularity of the word redux…” 

Re: Last year’s post on Exodus … and Transfiguration.  In that post I erroneously wrote that the “account of the Transfiguration of Jesus” was described in “Mark 9:29.”)