The long time Jesus spent living in the silence of the everyday deserves a reflection. Barely 33 years of life, thirty of which passed through this world in his village of Nazareth, without anything relevant standing out, at least outwardly.
It is true that some of the so-called apocryphal gospels, especially the Gospel of Pseudo-Thomas (do not confuse it with the Apostle), tell miraculous stories and anecdotes about Jesus that enjoyed great popularity well into the Middle Ages, but their accounts, from the point of view of the Message, do not contribute anything essential; they are not even considered historical accounts in the sense we use today.
This mystery of Jesus’ prolonged silence overwhelms us, reminding us of the times nature takes to germinate and which Jesus himself used in many of his teachings (Mt 13,1). The similarities are evident: good fruit begins by finding fertile ground within us. Good sowing is a fundamental step of invisible work where nothing seems to happen. Just an incipient and fragile shoot that later transforms into something mature, full, and resilient. Child Jesus and young Jesus learned to peek into life and become passionate about his Mission from his inner experience, day by day, hidden from his neighbors, but very fruitful as we well know.
The fact that God lived so long in the ordinary is absolutely extraordinary. And it is even more so that this “newsless” time lasted the greater part of his life. This indicates the relevance of maturation, the depth with which we can live everyday realities in deep connection with others and with God to transform the world from within. This very long period in Jesus’ life is part of a whole; it is not a time different from his preaching and public testimony. Without that exemplary ordinariness, his spiritual learning and deepening could not have discerned or successfully culminated his work. It is clear that Jesus did not begin his mission when leaving Nazareth, but in the day-to-day from his arrival in the world.
It is striking that 90% of his life was preparation and deep, powerful rooting, which we cannot reduce to a mere anecdote. Without taking away its essential part of profound mystery, our daily inner life must also be worked on and put to produce fruit, many of which are invisible in the short term. A mystery where the daily miracle is and will be simple love in the midst of everyday life. In this turbulent and materialistic time, it is fundamental to dedicate time to connecting with our intimacy, with the essence of my being in the face of lurking despair, working on my values to live them among others amidst the noise of daily life. It is not an easy task, but we all know that for what interests us, time is found. We must value the “journey” character of everyday life, even if we do not control the times of the harvest. Our mission is to be sowers; harvesting is very beautiful, but it belongs to God’s times; there is nothing more than reading some biographies to verify this.
Great events and experiences are generally scarce. How can we grow from the everyday, dedicating time to our inner growth? By doing so from the heart of the Gospel: “Your grace is enough for me,” because strength manifests itself in weakness (2Cor 12). Today, the everyday is denigrated in favor of the extraordinary, which too often is nothing more than the desire for a dopamine rush based on gratifying experiences, even in spiritualist formats. But there we will not find the experiences—in this case, love—that were lived in the home of Nazareth.
He who wants to learn—vital learning—is prepared to live trusting, welcoming, receiving; he feeds his patience with a watchful, grateful, and compassionate gaze. He is also called to “be born again,” to perfect himself from within to grow outward. Here is the crucial challenge for our time, even if “it can entail, as often happens, an external failure” (Joan Miró) in the society of tinsel and immediacy. Jesus was also an example in this, slandered and failed in the eyes of that society he had loved so much. But today it is not always so, and summer is a wonderful time for introspection.