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Editor's Note: "Jesus, Eight Years Old" by Rachel Sakashita was published in "Sacred Hearth," the first issue of Voice & Virtue Literary Magazine. The full piece can be read here.
I’ll say what most of us were probably thinking when we read the last stanza of “Jesus, Eight Years Old”: the final lines are heavy-handed. Cheesy, even. But, in my defense, they just had to be there.
There’s a multi-year gap between the Holy Family’s escape into Egypt and Jesus’ disappearance in Jerusalem. What were those years like? If we could step into that time, what would we find Jesus and His family doing? “Jesus, Eight Years Old” was born of a desire to know just who Jesus was when He was younger. After a little—admittedly, very little—research, I found a few activities that Jesus likely would have participated in when He was younger. In addition, I imagined Jesus’ human experiences—getting a splinter in His hand (Joseph was a craftsman— most likely a carpenter—after all). Needing breakfast. Squashing grapes to be made into wine.
Furthermore, we see Jesus express emotions freely during His life on earth. Joy. Fury. Exhaustion. Deep, soul-rending grief. Of course, Kid Jesus would have experienced emotions, too. And so, while I’m not sure that Jesus’ family themselves could have afforded an actual lamb for sacrifices, I’m sure He saw others’ lambs being “led to the slaughter,” and I have to imagine that He would have, sometimes, pondered His own incumbent death.
At first, when I wrote the poem, I wrote in couplets. But that meant that, sometimes, I stretched an image too far, and at other times, I condensed an image that needed a bit more fleshing out. I tried to sprinkle the “spiritual” with the “physical”—the Torah-reciting with the sparrow-carving —as a reminder that Jesus’ God-ness and humanness did not come at the expense of each other
but rather worked in tandem. That’s why I ended with the heavy-handed image of Jesus crying at the death of an innocent lamb. In the spirit of the rest of the poem, the sacrificial lamb image reminds me that even the normal, earthly happenings were laced with the spiritual, which, in turn, helps me remember that His miracles and teachings, too, occurred in the realm of the dusty, burden-riddled earth that we all know.
Through bite-sized glimpses into Jesus’ growing-up years, I tried to fill in the gap between Jesus’ childhood stories in a way that is both believable and even a bit mundane. Jesus was, and is, not all miracles and awe-inspiring radiance, though He is certainly those things, too. Jesus is also a High Priest who has dealt with stomachaches in the middle of the night. Jesus was a bright-eyed, curious child, just as we all have been. Thinking of this Jesus—the one Who muddled through daily life just as we do—brings me closer to Him.
About the Author
Rachel Lynne Sakashita is a blogger and full-time Japanese language student who lives with husband in Pennsylvania. Her work can be found at The Clayjar Review, The Truly Co., Heart of Flesh Literary Journal, or her Substack, Ewe and Shepherd. Find her on Instagram at @abrightaubade.
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