Jesus proceeding in full confidence

Jesus was excited. He knew because he was moving back and forth between two things at once. He moved to the future and thoughts about all that. He moved back to the list of things he could need for his journey. Excitement rose from the link between that list and the future. Things were coming together.

His mood was palpable. That is to say, people picked it up. He walked around Nazareth almost singing. It seemed that way to those who took notice.

He was still not a figure who attracted a great deal of attention. Some dominate indoors or out. Not Jesus.

He was still, to all who looked him over, a young man of medium height not light, more dark, who had the manner more of an artist than an artisan, more a poet than man of work.

He did not broadcast exceptional brain power. There was no hint that he had feasted for years at what he took to be the very source of the knowledge and that he was fully confident that he could make the world heavenly.

Jesus carried in his head both memory and dream. He had reached a bend in the road.

He knew that from now, and forward, things were on a course as fixed as the hills and peaks around his home town. Solid and strong. There would be no turning back.

And things were taking a subtle but major turn with Abba. It was no longer the boy Jesus asking, seeking and knocking. It was the human, full-grown, Jesus, fully aware something had taken place, a shift, an adjustment of the heart. It carried the very certainty, a unity, that was now manifest.

The man by the synagogue, Rachel in fact, disparate individuals, were different only in degree.

The man would not see as easily as Rachel. She knew. Jesus and she were united. All would in time be united.

Jesus would go out and there would emerge a community and the truth would be that they would be unified, physically, mentally, in the spirit, in the reality of the reality they were all part of.

He could not think of it without even greater excitement.

He hardly had to go out any more to talk with Abba. It was not that he had changed so much as that he had accepted his human task, even a burden, and he now possessed the bedrock certainty needed to proceed in full confidence.