7. On Jesus Brethren

On Jesus brethren et al…31 Mar 2006


I’ve been thinking, isn’t it a strange thing that the brothers of Jesus did not believe in him? ……John 7.5
He knew it, and they knew it.
In fact, his townsfolk did not believe in him.
He said a prophet is not accepted in his own country.
We know his mother and father believed in him.
As I scan the NT for more of the same, it seems to me that this was the abiding difficulty Jesus had, to get people to believe in him..
And yet it was Gods purpose to present him in his own country, before his own brethren, his own townsfolk and his own church.
How hard is that?
It is as hard a thing to do as you could think of.
Someone said recently, this is not the sort of stuff you can share with your partner. Yes, it is that hard.
At the risk of being ‘informal’, I would like us to explore what might have been difficult.
Because we cant draw on the scriptures for this, we may digress….:

Someone may like to fill in the scripture refs where appropriate, but I just noticed that some said to Jesus, “ how come we know you from a baby, we know who you are, but you say you come from heaven? “We wouldn’t handle that well at school would we?

His townsfolk didn’t believe; They knew him as a carpenter. Now I ask you, I know lots of carpenters. Some of them are nice people. They do nice work, they charge for their skills. They always make mistakes . They need a drawing to work from. They need wood to work with.It is wholesome, creative work. Jesus was a carpenter, everyone was looking at him , but no one was seeing the Son of God.
Jesus attended the temple, he asked questions, he gave superior answers, everyone was looking at the Son of God but no one was seeing him.
Jesus the young adult was mixing with the people. Some of them adored him. Some went on to become precious friends, particularly I think the women. Where were the others then ? Who was seeing the Son of God?
This reminds me of the prophets of the OT. Correct me if I am wrong but maybe other than Samuel , I don’t see that prophets went looking for their vocation. Moses and Jonah come to mind, it was not like, their first choice of a career.
So the Jewish community knew that God raises up prophets from among them , but perhaps during the 400 years since Malachi, they had not seen many. Its hard to remember back 400 years. That would put us back to 1606. That is roughly as far back as when the King James translation was done, and the invention of the printing press.
I am not trying to be especially accurate here, I just want to convey a concept. But I digress again…
The scripture you know better than I; the left field ideas, that’s my forte.
Jesus was the eldest brother in the family. I don’t know if he had a sister. Doesn’t matter.
Now I idolised my eldest brother. What he did, I wanted to do. The things he learned, I wanted for myself. His friends were my friends ( in my dreams).
His career was for me too. His school was my school. He moved to Melbourne,(from Tasmania, you guessed it , so did I ) But we drifted apart, we became our own person each and built our own lives.
I had another brother, and a sister older than me. Then I had another sister 10 years younger.
You know, the sun and the stars shone from my little sister until her early death at 25.
But would anyone else agree, it would be really hard to think of your sibling as the Son of God. To think they were destined for Greatness that you could not equally do.
I taught my other older brother to drive, but I never expect him to win a Grand Prix.
You get to think of your siblings in very critical terms, and coming back to partners , well the world has a history there.
Can we imagine a brother who is criticised, pulled apart, fought with, fought over. Wrongly condemned, maligned and insulted. They would blame him for all sorts of things that rightly or wrongly he did or he didn’t do.:
Who left the cap off the toothpaste? Who left hair in the basin? Its his turn to washup, I did it last time. Who should work harder, he is bigger than us?
Why should he get more meat? If he is so smart why does he need to sleep?
How many things can you think of that would preclude your husband, wife or sibling from becoming the prophet of God?
Why should your friend / enemy or partner become so precious to God?

So I just wonder what it was that caused Jesus brethren to not believe in him. When I started this I didn’t know where it was leading me, but perhaps I have the solution:
It is not the action of the prophet, the Son, that is circumspect, it is the attitude of those looking at Him. Are they looking or seeing?
When Jesus did those miracles later on , what did the people around see? They saw food and drink to die for. Precious few saw The Son of God to die for them.
Few saw past his humanness. Few saw the Spirit alive on the earth.
When we look around at our siblings, our partners, our friends, we wont see the Son of God. We may not see a prophet. We may not see the Spirit working, but hey, give it a chance. Remember the difficulty of Jesus on nearly every page, its hard.
Maybe its not about the surface infractions, the undone work, the messy bathroom. Look, at the moment I could be washing up…. Remember the prophet in 1 Kings 13 that Ruth reminded me of, stick to your vision and stick to the truths you have heard from God.
A mans enemies are they of his own household.
Now where did I hear that before?
Cheers , Ross.
ps (Chris youllbe dying to crect mygrama.lol)