Osler's Razor

Nothing in Jesus' life was an accident. Every bit of that time on earth was scripted by God, every moment, and each is imbued with meaning. It means something that Jesus was born in poverty to an unwed mother, it means something that he was a criminal defendant, and it means something that he spoke to children and tax collectors and women.

It also means something that he was a carpenter. Imagine the moment when the ceiling was cut through so some men could lower down a friend to be healed-- there is some part of Christ that looked up and saw carpentry, the work of hands like his, destroyed by this act. It probably wasn't funny. He healed the man anyway.

I am in Waco and will get to go back to 7th and James today. I spent the night at a Hampton Inn, though, because I didn't want to spend the night in my empty, unsold house. Still, I went to visit.

Long after dark, I crept up to the attic, and sat on old beams. In an attic, you are surrounded by rough carpentry, the work of our Lord. If there is a soul to a house, it is there in the splinters and beams. Nailheads are exposed, trusses unfinished.

I slipped a note in between a truss and the roof boards, and as I did so I felt that raw wood, the kind that He and his father cut to build houses. Then I sat for a moment in that place full of meaning and love, and let it be.

It was a remarkable week, one of the most memorable of my life. I reconnected with friends who have been better to me than I deserved, I celebrated an incredible victory in a room full of heroes high over the city, I mourned with the brave, I hugged my father and mother with new love and appreciation, and drank good wine with new friends and old.

Now it is time to go back to hammering.