The Four Stepbrothers
The four brothers had always been close. Ever since they could remember they had done everything together. Even this latest trip to Jerusalem had been a group effort. And now the great weight that they collectively felt as they watched their oldest brother being crucified was crushing them almost into the ground. Watching their mother and aunt in such agony; was almost more than they could bear. They were all thinking that they were glad that their father wasn’t alive to see this.
Each one of them was contemplating what they should have done to stop this situation. James was thinking that if he had just had prayed harder then maybe the Great Jehovah would have intervened. They all knew the Pharisees had been plotting to kill his brother; Joseph’s belief was that he should have stopped Jesus from coming here in the first place. Simon hated to admit it, especially now, that he resented his brother for putting the family in this horrible position. And Judas, the youngest, was playing in his mind how if he had been there in the garden when the arrest had been made, he and his brothers could have fought off the mob.
The brothers had forever been confused how they felt about their big brother. He had always been different. They just thought maybe it was because he was the oldest. Not that they could complain about anything he did. None of them could ever remember being beaten up by him and couldn’t even remember a cross word towards them coming from his mouth. He even treated his little sisters Assia and Lydra nice, which was more than the rest of them could say.
After their dad Joseph, died a few years ago; Jesus had spent a lot of extra time with each one of them helping to improve their carpentry skills. It was as if he knew that he was going to abandon the business someday and he wanted to make sure they had the ability to be successful. But there was no doubt that he was the best craftsman in the family; dad must have taught him well because every thing he did, he did to perfection. He had more patience than the rest of them combined. When they thought a project finished he would sand and sand some more making the finished wood as soft as a babies behind.
Jesus becoming a teacher of the Law, was no surprise to his family and friends. He had long been putting the local synagogue leaders to shame with his knowledge and understanding of the scriptures. Those same leaders had many times tried to get him to study the Law seriously so he could have the educational background to move into a leadership position. But Jesus would just brush them off with some remark about being about, “his fathers business”. They all thought that he was talking about carpentry.
And the brothers weren’t all that shocked when he told them he was moving to Capernaum to begin his teaching. After what had happened in Nazareth, who could blame him? Mom began to regularly baking bread and cakes for him and sending one of us to take it to his new location and his increasing band of followers.
Our first real indication that big brother was something
special occurred at the wedding of one of our close relatives in Cana. We all went and it was quite an affair, with a larger than expected crowd. Mom noticed that they were about to run out of wine, which was going to put a damper on the festivities. It was also going to be a huge embarrassment to our relatives. When she pointed it out to Jesus, he was a little abrupt in asking her what did she want him to do about it, which was out of character for him.
But then he had the host servants take several of the water jars and told them to fill them from the well. He then had them taken to our host for tasting. The servants were astonished that the water that they had drawn had been turned into the best of wine. And the host was real confused when he found this good wine in the water jars. When mom told us what had happened, we found it difficult to believe, since we hadn’t seen it ourselves. One of them suggested that maybe mom had tasted a little too much of the new wine.
On the next Sabbath, since Jesus was in town visiting us, we all went to our synagogue in Nazareth. He was given the honor of reading from the scroll. He chose to read from Isaiah where it said, “The Spirit of the Lord is on me because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor, he has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and the recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed.” He then sat down and said, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” While those present debated what he meant by that, hee told them that prophets like Elijah are always rejected in their own towns..
This set the large crowd into confusion. Someone angrily shouted, “How dare you compare yourself to Elijah and us to the people who had rejected him.” And before we could do anything about it, a mob of angry righteous ones, drove our brother out of the building and out towards a cliff, with intentions of throwing him off. We did our best to hold them back but to no avail. Just before being pushed off the edge, he put up his arms and then walked through the crowd, with no one putting a hand on him. It was like he had some kind of invisible shield around him.
After that he left the town and rarely came back. From then on our family was given a cool reception from the synagogue leaders. And from then on we had people stopping by our houses and shop to give us reports on what was the latest news about our brother. The accounts of miraculous events, like numerous healings, became more plentiful and more astounding.
While working at the shop, the brothers spent a good deal of time discussing their brother Jesus as they shaped their wood. How was he able to do all of these miracles if he wasn’t a prophet? But how could he be a prophet, didn’t he come from their home? Some of their neighbors accused him of being demon possessed, but how can a demon possessed man caste out demons? They were sure, except for maybe Simon, that he wasn’t demon possessed. These and other unanswerable questions kept swirling around them.
Early in his ministry they had gone as a group to question him on what he was doing, and had received a cool reception. More and more his teachings gave inference to him being the “Son of God.” Now for us brothers, that was too much! Once we had even told him if he was a real prophet then he should go to Jerusalem and get the attention that a real prophet deserves. Later on we found out that he took their advice and went to the Holy City secretly. As they gathered around their distressed mother, that advice now came back to haunt them.
Their mother became increasing convinced that Jesus was of God. The brothers thought this was just another belief of proud mama, but the evidence was mounting. Then about a year ago, Mary took them aside and told them the story of the visit to her and dad by the Angel before Jesus was born. We all looked at each other in disbelief as she related her account. Why hadn’t she told us this before, we asked? She told us that we weren’t ready to believe until now.
It was shortly after that that James got the whole clan together, including spouses, and said, “We needed to get over the fact that Jesus was part of our flesh and blood. We needed to get past the fact that he smelled when he sweated, that he belched after he ate and liked to tell jokes like the rest of us. We needed to look at the important facts and the facts are becoming overwhelming clear that their stepbrother could only be from God!” Stepbrother? That was the first time we had heard anyone use that term. It took some time for all of this to sink in but even with a few doubts we decided as a group we were going to believe that Jesus was at the least a special person sent by Good. The family was going to support his ministry any way they could.
So they traveled with him when they could get away from the business. They also brought food and money, so he and his followers could concentrate on his teaching and healing ministry.
The clan’s annual trip to Jerusalem, for the Passover had started with high expectations. The crowds surrounding Jesus were getting larger. The raising of Lazarus from the dead removed any doubt from a lot of people that Jesus was from God. The triumphal entry into Jerusalem a few days ago put a buzz in that air that spread throughout city. It was the most exciting series of events that any of them had ever been involved in. They all had to admit that they enjoyed the attention they got being the family of this hero.
And yet with all the excitement, Jesus had begun to refer to his own death with increasing regularity. Everyone who heard him talk like this, tried to play down his morbid predictions. Nobody in they’re darkest thoughts could have visualized what was happening now on this hill.
Even as their brother was slowly dying, the brothers began discussing the pressing needs of the future. The Romans had perfected this killing technique so it could last for several days. Should they try to force their mother off this god-forsaken hill? They knew she wouldn’t go willingly or peacefully. When the end came, where would they bury his body? There was no way they could get his corpse back home in the short amount of time given for Jews to burry their dead. In between their anguish they felt for their brother, the four of them knew that it was going to be up to them pick up the pieces for their mother. Somehow life would go on.
Matt: 12, 13 Mark 6 Luke 4 John 2
- How hard do you think it was to make the leap from Jesus being a brother to being Devine?
- When do you think they truly believed?
- What kind of effect do you think they had on the early church?
