Jesus the fallible

Jesus may have been an excellent carpenter. Or maybe he wasn’t. It’s possible that he made perfectly level tables but wobbly chairs. Or, if he was a stone mason, which the Greek word translated as “carpenter” in Mark 6:3 allows for, he may have chiseled stone with great precision but laid slightly crooked walls. We can’t know these details of his early life, of course. But let’s turn to the art world to broaden our perspective.

In London’s Tate Britain gallery resides one of John Everett Millais’s most famous paintings, Christ in the House of His Parents. Millais (1829–1896) depicts Joseph in his woodshop, leaning over his rough-hewn workbench to comfort his son with the touch of his hand. Wood shavings cover the floor. Jesus centers the work, a red-headed, elementary-school-age kid bleeding from a cut on his left hand. The blood, the result of a failed attempt to remove a nail from a board, drips onto his bare foot. His attentive mother kneels beside him tenderly. John the Baptist, who looks all of 10 or 11 years old himself, carries a basin of water toward Jesus for washing the wound. The injury clearly foreshadows crucifixion, just as the water bowl prefigures baptism.

Millais’s painting highlights Jesus’ human nature. To be human is to be fallible. It means making mistakes, stubbing one’s toe, misspelling a word, or slicing one’s hand. Having metal pincers slip while trying to remove a nail doesn’t constitute moral error on the part of Jesus. It’s not an accident that affects his holiness or taints his sinlessness; it simply wounds him. Learning by trial and error is part of human development. And, in Jesus’ case, we know he grew in stature and wisdom (Luke 2:52). Because he was fully human, he was also fallible. To suggest otherwise—that he never could’ve made a mistake in carpentry or masonry—is to cozy up to the heresy of Docetism. Docetism denies the full and true humanity of Jesus, believing instead that he only seemed human, that his human form was an illusion.