Jesus as a Brother - Lenten blog post #3

    "Isn't he the carpenter, the son of Mary, and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas, and Simon? Aren't his sisters living here?” And so they rejected him. (Mark 6:3, Good News Translation)

    Then Jesus' mother and brothers arrived. They stood outside the house and sent in a message, asking for him. A crowd was sitting around Jesus, and they said to him, “Look, your mother and your brothers and sisters are outside, and they want you.” (Mark 3:31-32, Good News Translation)

   This year for the six Sundays in Lent, I’ve been writing about the different roles Jesus played. Not only was He the Son of God and our Savior, but He was a son to early parents, a friend, a teacher, and a brother to his siblings. Maybe or maybe not.

Research on this topic led me down a variety of paths. And I can’t tell you for sure which is the accurate one.

In the past, when I’ve read the verses above, I assumed this meant that after Jesus was born, Mary and Joseph went on to have other kids. Now I know this disagrees with what various Christian religions teach – that Mary remained a virgin her entire life so she couldn’t have had offspring with Joseph. I don’t want to argue with anyone on that point, but, for me, the important thing was that Mary was a virgin when Jesus was born, and after that, it’s none of my business.

Several experts report that Joseph had a previous wife, who he had babies with – four boys and two girls, to be exact. But then this wife died, and Joseph, as the old man we sometimes see in nativity scenes, takes Mary as his second wife.

If that is the case, these kids must be already grown by the time their younger brother, Jesus, is born. Otherwise, where were they when Mary and Joseph made that fateful trip to Bethlehem? And how weird was it that they were older than their new step-mom?

Life during Biblical times was way different than it is now.

But back to my research. I found that some Bible experts think that these four boys and two girls weren’t Joseph’s at all. That they would have been cousins to Jesus or maybe even further extended relatives. 

Again, I think that some things get lost in translation, from the original text of the Bible to what we read today. For me, the bottom line is that Jesus was raised surrounded by loving relatives, doting parents, extended family, boys His age that He rough-housed with – okay, or maybe just went to synagogue with.

I picture Him as being a typical boy, who loved to explore, who pondered the things He discovered, who questioned those around Him. I imagine Him being close with the children He was raised with, whether they were half-siblings, step-siblings, cousins, or just close friends.

This year’s theme for pictures to accompany my Lenten posts is churches. I’ve taken pictures of many of them throughout my travels around the country, and even the world. But I wanted to pick only one church per state per week. Today’s is the most recently visited one, St. Felix Catholic Church in Wabasha, Minnesota, taken just the end of January this year.