"Is this not the carpenter, the Son of Mary, and brother of James, Joses, Judas, and Simon? And are not His sisters here with us?" So they were offended at Him. Mark 6:3
Why yes, yes it is Jesus. Jesus, the one who lives as a human does, taking on the job of his father. Yes, Jesus is the one who grew up with a family (whether direct relatives or not, the argument doesn't make much of a difference here). Jesus, the son of a woman that I'm sure many different people around town knew. Why does that offend you?
I can write that directly to those who lived around Jesus back in the day, but I must ask the same question to my readers and to myself. Does the idea of Jesus offend you? Does the Jesus who walked around and abounded in love and forgiveness offend you? Does the Jesus who reached out to all the people that were hated offend you? Jesus is somebody that I'm sure offends many, if not most, of us on a regular basis. We have trouble understanding Jesus at times.
How do I know this? We all have stepped away from following Jesus at least once in our lives. It's difficult to follow Jesus. Jesus lived the hard life. Jesus faced all the same temptations that we face, yet he conquered sin and temptation. We, on the other hand, find temptations to be so great that we would rather follow them than conquer them.
Perhaps it's the fact that Jesus lived our lives that trips us up from time to time. We like to separate ourselves from Jesus, calling him a being who lives out there, far away, and has no connection to us. In reality, Jesus is here with us, right now. Jesus is talking to us every day. Maybe we've gotten used to it and just decide to ignore him as an annoying banter. That's what his hometown did to him.
Instead, we are called to continue our faith in him. We are called to follow him. We are called to reach out to those we might not find so favorable. We are called to live holy lives. We are called to be in communion with Jesus. We are called to embrace Jesus rather than reject him.
How do we follow Jesus? We just need to make ourselves more familiar with him. Read some of the Gospel today, meditate on his teachings. Accept what he teaches. That's all we need to do in order to grow closer to Jesus. It's our prejudices against Jesus that separate us from him. Rather, let this Lent be a time when you get closer to Jesus.
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