Isn’t this the carpenter’s son?
People are known in context. How you first encounter someone when you meet them is how you identify them. A uniformed police officer, firefighter, service member, will catch us off guard if we happen to see them wearing something other than their respective uniform. A pastor who wears a suit to preach will look a bit different if you encounter him at the grocery store wearing jeans and a t-shirt.
This becomes very apparent when accomplished professionals return to where they grew up. Childhood friends, acquaintances, and especially family can only see us for who we were and not what we’ve become. No matter how much you’ve accomplished, no matter how much education you have or how many professional credentials you’ve secured, you will always be seen as who you were when they knew you.
Such was the case for Jesus when He returned to His hometown of Nazareth. There are two occasions of His return to Nazareth recorded in scripture. In the first instance He returned alone (Luke 4:16-30). He entered the synagogue and taught from the Isaiah scroll. The people were enraged and tried to kill Him. Obviously they failed.
The second time He returned to Nazareth He went with His disciples. Prior to His return He performed many miracles and taught with great authority wherever He went. When He taught in the synagogue the people could not see Him as the promised Messiah. They saw Him as, “the carpenter’s son.”
Two-thousand years later we should all know Jesus in the context of being the Son of God. He is God incarnate (God in human flesh), fully God and fully human. The historicity of Christ is indisputable. Yet people take Him out of context. Some say He was a great man and a great teacher but not God. Some say He was just a man, a man they admire because He was willing to die for something that He believed in but He was not God. Others see Him as a fictional character denying He ever existed and ignoring the mountains of evidence that support His existence and His claims.
How do you see Him? In what context? Is He someone that your parents worshipped? Is He the God of Christianity; a God to a building filled with hypocrites who are weak and need a fairytale to hang on to to give their lives meaning? Or, is He, “The Lamb that takes away the sins of the world.”? Is He your Lord and Savior? Your hope of salvation? He is God, but is He your God? Your eternal destiny hangs on this very question.
