How did Jesus grew up in three months?

That was a question my 8 year old son Rees asked me last week. As I was driving him to school, he mentioned off hand how it was cool that Jesus became a grown man in just three months.

I scratched my head internally. . . . Then it clicked! I had the proverbial "aha" moment. Rees had so imbibed the Christian calendar, and the way I had been speaking of it as our journey with Jesus through his life and redeeming work, that he took it literally. He thought, because it was three months between Advent and Easter, that Jesus actually grew up in three months!

I giggled. I explained to him that we just remember Jesus' life over a three month period. He actually had to grow up like everyone else. Rees giggled too.

Later it struck me that Rees actually "got" the Christian Year in a very profound sense. He took it in hook line and sinker.

I remember a few months ago I had mentioned something in a sermon about how we are called to "become characters in God's story." Turns out Rees was listening that day. After Church that Sunday he told me he was going to help the Altar Team clean up. I asked him why. His reply? "I want to be a character in God's story!!"

That nails it I think. God writes himself into our story so he can make us characters in his story. The Christian year is about that. It is so like God to use an 8 year old to remind me of that wonderful truth.