In Mark 6:1-6 we find an interesting bit of insight into the full life of Jesus.
He went away from there and came to His hometown, and His disciples followed Him. 2 When the Sabbath came, He began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard Him were astonished. “Where did this man get these things?” they said. “What is this wisdom given to Him, and how are these miracles performed by His hands? 3 Isn’t this the carpenter, the son of Mary, and the brother of James, Joses, Judas, and Simon? And aren’t His sisters here with us?” So they were offended by Him. (HCSB)
In his hometown, where Jesus grew up, the place where people observed him reveals some aspects of His life that I hadn’t thought of before. When the people in his neighborhood are asking where he got the wisdom and insight to the scriptures and life, where did the power to perform miracles come from? You start to see that Jesus didn’t have an “Ozzie and Harriet” upbringing. “Isn’t this the carpenter?” Or in another rendering, “the carpenter’s son”. There was a certain disdain for trades-people even though without them life could not function. Trades-people were not rich people. They worked long hours trying to fulfill the demands of people who looked at them with contempt. Jesus under Joseph was a carpenter, and this trade was to be his lot in life, not an untrained Rabbi. So the people who lived in the same neighborhood saw Jesus grow up. The text doesn’t say, (other than the brief episode in the temple courts when Jesus was twelve years old), but I wonder if there was a real sense of jealousy among the parents and of Jesus’s peers? I.e. “Why can’t you be like that boy Jesus?” “Now there is a very well behaved boy, I bet his parents are very proud of him”. There is also the unspoken question of Jesus’ real father. I can imagine there were plenty of whispers and finger pointing among the neighbors regarding Mary’s early unwed pregnancy. One could consider that the whispering made by the neighboring parents, were spoken loudly and abrasively when the children gathered to play. I wonder if the other children were allowed to play with Jesus due to his father’s profession and his controversial conception? Would it be a stretch to believe that Jesus himself after hearing the verbal jabs from the neighborhood kids telling him he doesn’t look anything like Joseph, was a question at some point posed to his mother Mary? It could have been that Jesus didn’t get to play much, being the oldest male child he had to both help Joseph in the shop and Mary with the household chores and his younger siblings.
We fail to think about the period from the spectacular humble birth story to the twelve-year-old account in the temple and the gap between the time he reemerges at age thirty. There was a lot of life that took place in those unaccounted for periods. The rumors that must have swirled about the family from the outside and the usual rivalries among siblings on the inside would have made it difficult to navigate life. Within the family dynamic, it may have been similar to what the Patriarch Joseph experienced from his brothers when wearing his hand tailored coat given to him by his father Jacob? I wonder if Jesus received special favor from Mary, based on those things she pondered in her heart about her amazing son.
One could speculate further about the contempt expressed towards the family in Nazareth, but one thing for sure, Jesus didn’t grow up in a perfect “cookie cutter” “Ozzie and Harriet” home. He could have easily claimed he was a victim of his environment, that he didn’t grow up on the “right side of the tracks” and spent his formidable years constantly being harassed by others. When it says the Devil left him until an opportune time didn’t just mean during the trial and crucifixion. This realization that Jesus didn’t grow up in a perfect Christian home, or with a silver spoon in his mouth is encouraging to me and hopefully to others as well.
I believe knowing His true identity was a huge help for his personal maturation. I don’t mean the truth that He is the Son of God, but that He was greatly loved, and knew who His real Father was and is.
This could be argued by the account of the affirmation given him by His Heavenly Father at his baptism. I also wonder if one aspect of his temptation encounter in the wilderness by Satan wasn’t another reminder of the barrage of contempt and identity questions that swirled in his neighborhood growing up?
Let’s face it, life can really suck! It can weigh heavily on you regardless of your pedigree or upbringing. Your upbringing and environment will have some effect on the thoughts you have and the choices you make, but they should never be used as an excuse for not thriving in life. Learning Who’s you are and focusing on how much you are greatly loved can heal a great deal of pain and loss. Whatever life you have experienced can be used for His glory. In fact, He will see to it that it does. It starts by believing what is true about us, what God says is true about us. His word, the Bible is quite clear regarding how He truly feels about us. Here’s a hint…it is beyond anything we could ever imagine! Everything else we may believe regarding our sense of worth is a lie.
So be encouraged. You are dearly loved! You may not have had the best upbringing, Jesus surely didn’t, but know that He identifies with your pain and sense of dysfunction. So too, know you can overcome every and any adversity that is thrown your way because of He who overcame both sin and death not to mention a life less than ideal. All of our negative experiences are but tools at His disposal to be used for His glory and our betterment.
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