Suddenly Seminary (hosted by the Tall Skinny Kiwi over at Habbo Hotel) met today to discuss a photgraphy exhibit titled INRI. This was the piece that struck me: Jesus as a child. The table brings images of the “Last Supper” to mind, a pre-emptive reminder of his unavoidable end.

My friend, Tom Fisher, wrote a Christmas song entitled “Even Now.” It’s a reflection on the fact that even as he was being born, Jesus was on the road to his crucifiction. At the very moment of his birth, Golgotha stood waiting to receive him and the tree from which his cross would be fashioned was growing. Christ’s childhood was anything but carefree.

Such has been said of today’s children. Divorce, violence, abuse, disease, etc.: All force children to age prematurely. The term “adultified children” has been coined to describe this phenomenon. You see it in their eyes, age, years, tears, widsom, hardness - all measured far beyond what is right. Christ and the suffering little ones share this in common.

Our Sudennly Seminary conversation turned to Jesus and his un-making of adults, the way he turns us back into little children. More than healing the wounds that “adultify” us, he un-makes them. Jesus re-creates lost innocence and youth. He frees us to stand playfully on the table of the Last Supper, neither oblivious nor fearful of its meaning.