Confirmation

 Matthew 13:53-57, “Now it came to pass, when Jesus had finished these parables, that He departed from there. When He had come to His own country, He taught them in their synagogue, so that they were astonished and said, “Where did this Man get this wisdom and these mighty works? Is this not the carpenter’s son? Is not His mother called Mary? And His brothers James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas? And His sisters, are they not all with us? Where then did this man get all these things? So they were offended at Him.”

Some people will always see you as you once were. They will judge you based on your lineage, heritage, birthplace, economic standing, and a myriad of other things that have nothing to do with who you are today, who He made you, and who you’ve become. It’s myopic and infantile and says more about the one doing the judging than the one they’re judging, but man is stubbornly consistent when it comes to seeing others through varying lenses. Even if it’s a small thing, something trite and irrelevant, as long as it somehow lessens the person, we dwell on it and make it the focal point of their existence.

I can’t say that Jesus was homesick, but He wanted to go home, so He came to His own country and began teaching in their synagogue. So far, so good, but it’s only the start of it because the people who heard Him were astonished given that they knew who Joseph was, as well as Mary, Christ’s four brothers, and His sisters. They were ignorant of His supernatural conception and assumed Joseph had sired him, along with his siblings. It wasn’t an issue or a point of contention but a statement of fact.

Again, it’s telling that there was no insistence upon Jesus having siblings, nor did James or Jude, for that matter, introduce themselves as the half-brothers of Christ. It was common knowledge during those days, something readily accepted as factual. No one was trying to push the issue or try to fit in Christ’s siblings edgewise as some people do their credentials or titles. The people of His day were amazed that Jesus spoke with such wisdom due to who His family was and whom He grew up around. They assumed Joseph the carpenter was His father and knew his brothers and sisters, as well as Mary, His mother.

Like many today, they were trying to find a reason not to believe the words of Jesus, and they thought pointing out the family He was born into was a good enough reason. They weren’t trying to prove or disprove whether or not Jesus had half-siblings; they were just trying to discredit Him so they may disregard His words.

When you can’t find fault with the message, you try to discredit the messenger. It’s the next best thing. After all, if the messenger is flawed, how can the message be perfect? If the messenger can be called into question, why can’t the message?

I’m not talking about pretend messengers bringing messages highlighting their accomplishments and promoting their ministries. I’m talking about true messengers walking in obedience who are rejected because their mannerisms are too direct, they seem too gruff, and they don’t bow and scrape or suffer fools.

The church has created a cottage industry around placating foolish people with delusions of grandeur. We’re selling doctorates, diplomas, and accreditations like they were going out of style, knowing full well they’re not worth the paper they’re printed on, never mind the five grand they charge for them.

Everyone knows it would help the bottom line to no end if they would just go along with the recently widowed millionaire octogenarian who feels there aren’t enough ministries focused on getting one’s pets saved, and so they do.

Jesus wasn’t accredited, He didn’t have a pedigree, He didn’t come from the right family, yet here He stood in the synagogue teachings, and that was something they could not abide. That they confirmed James and Jude to be Christ’s half-brothers was unintentionally prescient, but knowing God uses the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, it’s no surprise.

There’s a good chance that James, this selfsame man who now declares himself to be a bondservant of the Lord Christ, was among those who came to lay hold of Jesus thinking He was out of His mind.

Mark 3:21, “But when His own people heard about this, they went out to lay hold of Him, for they said, “He is out of His mind.”

Now, this same man declares unashamedly that not only is he a bondservant of Christ, but also that Christ is Lord. Such detail is neither trivial nor irrelevant. It only serves to underscore the importance of the epistle of James and the heartfelt appeal to any who would hear that Jesus, his half-brother, was everything He claimed to be, died, rose again, and ascended back to the Father just as He said He would.

Perhaps this is the reason James begins his epistle in a conciliatory manner. He knew that he, too, once doubted; he knew that he, too, was once lost. Nobody’s born saved, and that’s something we would do well to remember when we are inclined to judge harshly and withhold grace from those who are new to the faith, immature, and learning.

Your judgment is ill-placed, for it’s the wolves among the sheep you should be angry toward, not the lambs among the sheep.

My grandfather loved sheep cheese, so whenever we were in Romania, we frequented a handful of sheep herds up in the hills that made it fresh. They didn’t mass market or mass produce it, so you had to know the shepherds to show up and buy some. I tagged along on most of those trips, not because I particularly enjoy sheep cheese, but because I enjoyed spending time with my grandpa. On occasion, I had the opportunity to see a ewe being born, and if you’ve ever seen it, you know how wobbly and uncertain they are, how readily they fall when they try to stand, but eventually, they learn, and soon enough, they’re running around with the other sheep.

You can’t expect a newborn to be fully matured overnight. You can, however, expect a mature sheep to act in accordance with their level of maturity.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.