Mom, Does Jesus Have Super Powers?

I always enjoy the thoughtful conversations I have with the boys in the car--when we have conversations. Sometimes it's just bickering and begging to watch a movie. Movies are reserved for trips longer than 20 minutes.

The other day in the car Luke asked me if Jesus has super powers. My knee jerk reaction was--no of coarse he doesn't have super powers! To me, you just shouldn't group Batman and Jesus together. Seriously, Jesus and Wolverine both have beards, but are just so different! Fortuantely, before I said anything I thought for a minute. Maybe I should go with this for a while and see if it could be a teaching moment. Luke had apparently been really thinking about it and wanted to talk about it.

So I said, "Well, I know Jesus did lots of super things while he was here on Earth." We talked about miracles like raising Lazarus from the dead, healing the blind, calming the stormy sea, walking on water, changing water to wine, I tried to talk about the Garden of Gethsemane and bleeding from every pour, but that was a hard one--and it didn't seem very super to Luke. We did talk about how when you make a bad choice and you feel really really bad about it, Jesus can take away all those bad feelings and help make everything better. That seemed to be easier to understand. We also talked about how Jesus always uses His powers to help people and to do good things. (I think this might be why Luke grouped Jesus with Superman and Spiderman.) He really liked the part about how we should try and be like Jesus. Boys seem to like to try and be super heros.

Luke asked me how long ago Jesus was alive and if I had ever met him. This made me laugh. I told him that Jesus lived so long ago that even Grandma and Grandpa didn't know Him! "Wow," he said. Then he asked if I never met Him, how I knew all this stuff about Him. So we talked about the scriptures and the Bible stories. We also talked about prophets who talk to Jesus and then talk to us since Jesus is in Heaven now.

Luke was quiet for a while. He'd asked all his questions and was now thinking about the answers. I'd glance in the rear view mirror and I could see the wheels turning as I looked at his cute freckled face. Finally he said, "Mom, I wish I could have been there to see the bright star in the sky the night Jesus was born."

The conversation was so precious it didn't seem real.