8 'For He hath no form or comeliness'

A BABY OF course is only a baby, and you never know what he will become as he grows up. But as the years began to pass Mary could no longer conceal from herself the bitter and unexpected truth that Jesus did not seem to have anything particular about Him. Certainly He was not handsome; nor had He any athletic prowess to mark Him out from His companions. Most strange of all, there seemed to be no evidence of any supernatural power about Him. The apocryphal Gospels with their stories of a miracle-working playmate show clearly enough what the human mind would expect of God's Son as a Child. Surely the Son of God would be marked out from the very beginning as surpassing all other boys in His country! After all, Samuel was only human and yet at a very early age he became the prophet of Israel upon whose words the whole nation hung: David was the national hero in his 'teens, and his father was only Jesse! Strange, strange! Perhaps it was as well that they had allowed Him to be called Joseph's son. (Even His cousin John had been filled with the Holy Ghost from the Womb). No one would expect very much from a carpenter, even if he were a royal carpenter: and anyhow Joseph descended from Jechonias (called Coniah in Jeremiah 22:24‑30), upon whose seed Jehovah had pronounced a curse!