In Movement to the Father

The manhood of Jesus is bracked and defined by two events: his emergence into maturity in the temple and his ascencion to the Father. Both involve a disconnect from the feminine and maternal and a movement to the masculine and paternal. The former event is known as the loss or finding of Jesus in the temple but this wording reflects the anxiety of Mary and Joseph. From his own point of view, Jesus was neither lost nor found. He was exactly where he was supposed to be: moving into his manhood as Son of the Father, gathered with the elders, the patriarchs, the wise men and scholars. His words to his mother are harsh, sharp, corrective: "Did you not know that I must be about my Fathers's house (work)!" A similar renunciation occurs with Mary Magdalen after his Resurrection: "Do not grasp me...I must go to my Father and your Father..." Jesus understands that he has come from the Father and is going to the Father and on the way is doing the work of the Father. This entails a sober, chaste, generous, liberating love for women but also rejetion of romance, sentimentality, codependency, domestication, and masculine weakness. Like his cousin John, Jesus is drawn to the desert where he becomes fierce, hard, tough, free and entirely available to the work of the Father and combat with Satan. He is no mama's boy! First, last and always...He is Son of his Father!