THE LEGEND
OF THE DOVE

Jesus grew up hearing The Legend of the Dove.

Every Jewish kid grew up hearing The Legend of the Dove.

At the birth of every new baby boy, the Rabbi or others – especially grandparents – who always say the nicest things about new born babies – would lift up the baby boy and say, “Maybe this one will be the Messiah. Maybe this one will be the one, the dove lands on.”

Did anyone ever lift up a girl?

That’s The Legend of the Dove. One day a dove is going to land on someone and that someone will be the Messiah.

The landing of the dove on someone’s shoulder will be the sign.

And because the people longed for the Messiah, the Savior, the Redeemer, the Christ, which means the Anointed One, whenever people saw a dove they would stop to watch where it would land. Every time there was disappointment because every time a dove never landed on anyone’s shoulder.

Yet people watched and hoped – all through the years – to see if a dove would land on someone’s shoulder.

They would hope and pray for a Messiah, the Christ, the Anointed One, the Savior, especially during times of war – or enslavement – or drought or horror.

The Legend started way, way, way back in Jewish History – way, way back – as far back as the time of Noah.

The Legend started this way: the whole world was flooded in this big, big flood and the only people who survived were Noah and his family.

Ooops, okay there were also two of each animal – male and female – giraffes – hippos – orangutans – skunks – etc. etc. and etc.

Well, as an obvious result, that ship was noisy and smelly. There was honking and hooting all day and all night long.

What’s more, Noah and his family were sick and tired of rain – rain – and more rain – water, water, water everywhere – and the smell of animals, lots of animals, everywhere on the big boat called the Ark.

Finally the rain stopped and Noah and his family – the lions and the monkeys – the giraffes and the elephants – looked out each day – hoping to see land – land – somewhere.

Slowly the waters went down – slowly mountain tops appeared.

With that Noah sent out two ravens – who flew around – and then they disappeared.

Then Noah released a dove. Remember there were only two doves. It flew around – but having nowhere to really land, it came back.

Noah waited another 7 days and he sent the dove out again and it brought back in its beak, an olive branch.

There was hope in the air.

Noah waited another 7 days and he sent off the dove again and it never returned.

No one knew where it landed – but out of that story grew the story or the Legend of the Dove – that the dove would come back and land on the shoulder of some person – some time – the right time – and that person would be the Messiah or the Savior.

Jesus – like every Jewish kid – grew up hearing the Legend of the Dove.

Mary – knowing who Jesus was – watched and watched. Joseph – knowing who Jesus was – also watched and watched – wondering when would be the day when Jesus would leave home and start his work as our Savior.

In the meanwhile, Jesus went about his Father’s business – working in the carpenter shop with Joseph – going to the synagogue on the Sabbath – learning new stuff every Sabbath – learning new stuff every day – growing in wisdom and age and grace before God and others.

Jesus would learn about wood – about how to build a door – and how to build a house on rock and not on sand.

Jesus learned about a shepherd who had 100 sheep and one was lost and the shepherd didn’t say, “No big deal. I still have 99 sheep.” Nope he went out into the hills and the wilderness till he found his lost sheep. And Jesus stood there that day and saw this shepherd coming home with the lost sheep on his shoulders and the greatest smile on his face.

Jesus learned about people – that some people would give the shirt off their back or go the extra mile for a friend – and others wouldn’t. And he saw some people getting hurt and some would forgive the person who hurt them and some didn’t – and he would notice that those who forgave seemed much happier than those who didn’t.

When Jesus went to the synagogue – he noticed that different people had different reactions: some didn’t listen; some made great promises – but they didn’t last; some were too busy, they had too many irons in the fire; and some listened and learned and grew. While watching a farmer farming – planting seed – he realized it’s the same story as what was happening in the synagogue. The farmer throwing seed on the ground was like the rabbi sowing words into the air. Some seed landed on the path and it didn’t grow. Some seed landed in shallow soil and it didn’t really grow. Some seed landed on good soil, but too many things were already growing there. The seed didn’t have a chance; and some seed landed on good soil and produced good fruit, 30, 60 and 100fold.

Then one day Jesus heard about John the Baptist – his cousin – and he left home to go down to the Jordan River to see what John was all about.

And after listening to John preach he asked John to baptize him.

And as John was baptizing Jesus, the heavens opened and down came the Holy Spirit as a dove and landed on Jesus’ shoulder.

Then a voice from the heavens could be heard to say, “You are my beloved Son; with you, I am well pleased.”

And someone in the crowd said, “It’s the Legend of the Dove. It just landed on that man!”

This is a first draft story I made up last night for this morning's Children's Mass. The feast is the Baptism of Jesus. January 10, 2010. The gospel reading was Luke 3:15-16, 21-22. After the little kids' Mass I asked out loud if the story made any sense and this little kids yelled out, "No!" Everyone laughed. That's the last time I'll ask that question.