by Everett Reid
Long years ago in a strange and distant land there was a 6-year-old boy. I know this because we all know about his infancy and manhood and he couldn't have gotten from one to the other without passing through the age of 6, and I have selected the age of 6 because that is my favorite age for little boys to be. I love 6-year-old boys best.
I can imagine a lot about what he was like because I was once that age myself, and I feel sure that little 6-year-old boys are pretty much alike the world over. As I see him his hair was often not too well combed, his face was frequently dirty, he had a tear in his shirt and his pants were patched. He was bare-footed.
If I had met him on the road and waved him a "Hi" he would have bashfully backed off at first and then waved a shy "Hi" in return.
Maybe in time we would have gotten acquainted and become friends, for I am good at getting to be friends with little boys. Maybe he would have shared his treasure with me. What sort of treasure would a small boy in that strange, far away land have? Would he carry about a little turtle in his pocket as I once did? Would he love to wade in mud puddles, as I once did? His father was a carpenter as mine was. Did he find his father's lost scribe as I found my father's lost pencil? Did he sweep up the shavings around his father's work bench? Did he beg his father to tell him tales of when his father was a boy, as I did?
Everyone knows all about his infancy, how he was born in a manger and wise men followed a special star to find him. Everyone knows about his manhood when he walked on water, fed multitudes with a handful of bread and fishes. How he resurrected the dead back to life.
Then he died and acts in his name multiplied and multiplied. One group of people disagreed with another over the right method of worshipping him and for this one group burned the other at the stake.
Or for some reason – or no reason – long and bloody wars have been, and still are being fought in his name and thousands die.
Money was squeezed from the starving poor to build great temples in which to worship him. Every community built many churches and vanity dictated that each should be richer than the others so one man could say on Sunday morning, "I am a better Christian than my neighbor. My church cost twice as much as his did."
Gifts of precious stones and costly metals were made to win his favor.
Sonorous hymns were composed in his name and great choruses sang them.
They called him "King of Kings" and on his birthday little children get toys that are replicas of the gruesome weapons with which men kill each other.
Worship whatever figure of Christ appeals to you. That is your privilege. For my part I have deep in my heart a picture of that six-year-old lad of long ago. With the bare feet the dirty face, the shy smile and the heart full of love. The little boy who lived so much as I did when I was that age, and whom I can understand and relate to. To me he will be the Jesus whome I will love forever and forever. The child of innocence and happiness whom I worship.
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