Jesus' Family
09/23/08 08:11 Filed in: Family
Jesus isn’t concerned about our family history and whether we’re related to someone great and famous. He doesn’t care about the saints and sinners in our past. No matter what the circumstances of our birth, we all have a chance at greatness in His eyes.
“My mother and my brethren are they who hear the word of God, and do it.” (Luke 8: 19-21)
In the Messianic tradition, the “Anointed One” was to be a descendant of Jacob’s tribe out of the family of King David. There are prophetic references to that effect in Genesis, Samuel, Jeremiah, and Isaiah.
So Luke and Matthew both began their Gospels by tracing Jesus’ lineage back to King David. But Luke listed 43 generations while Matthew listed only 28, and, in some cases, they listed different names.
We’re left to wonder: Just who was Jesus’ family?
That there might be some confusion comes as no surprise to anyone who has done family tree research. I recently used a Web site called ancestry.com to trace our family line back to the 1500s. Thirty generations and not a single great or famous ancestor to be found..
But I did find a number of inconsistencies in the records. People died, remarried, changed the spelling of their names, took on nicknames, gave the same name to more than one child. If it hadn’t been for the power of the computer and some detailed record-keeping, I would have been unable to sort through the confusion. I can only imagine how much more difficult it would have been for the ancient Jews to trace family history, relying on scant records and memory.
So who was Jesus family? The answer is we are.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus says, “My mother and my brethren are these that hear the word of God, and do it.”
Jesus isn’t concerned about our family history and whether we’re related to someone great and famous. He doesn’t care about the saints and sinners in our past. No matter what the circumstances of our birth, we all have a chance at greatness in His eyes.
Martin Luther King, Jr. put it this way:
“Anyone can be great because anyone can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t even have to make your subject and verb agree to serve . . .You only need a heart full of grace.”
So long as we live out the Gospel message, we’re related to Jesus. We’re family.
In the final analysis, it doesn’t matter who brought us into the world so long as Jesus brings us out of it.
In the Messianic tradition, the “Anointed One” was to be a descendant of Jacob’s tribe out of the family of King David. There are prophetic references to that effect in Genesis, Samuel, Jeremiah, and Isaiah.
So Luke and Matthew both began their Gospels by tracing Jesus’ lineage back to King David. But Luke listed 43 generations while Matthew listed only 28, and, in some cases, they listed different names.
We’re left to wonder: Just who was Jesus’ family?
That there might be some confusion comes as no surprise to anyone who has done family tree research. I recently used a Web site called ancestry.com to trace our family line back to the 1500s. Thirty generations and not a single great or famous ancestor to be found..
But I did find a number of inconsistencies in the records. People died, remarried, changed the spelling of their names, took on nicknames, gave the same name to more than one child. If it hadn’t been for the power of the computer and some detailed record-keeping, I would have been unable to sort through the confusion. I can only imagine how much more difficult it would have been for the ancient Jews to trace family history, relying on scant records and memory.
So who was Jesus family? The answer is we are.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus says, “My mother and my brethren are these that hear the word of God, and do it.”
Jesus isn’t concerned about our family history and whether we’re related to someone great and famous. He doesn’t care about the saints and sinners in our past. No matter what the circumstances of our birth, we all have a chance at greatness in His eyes.
Martin Luther King, Jr. put it this way:
“Anyone can be great because anyone can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t even have to make your subject and verb agree to serve . . .You only need a heart full of grace.”
So long as we live out the Gospel message, we’re related to Jesus. We’re family.
In the final analysis, it doesn’t matter who brought us into the world so long as Jesus brings us out of it.
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