The Disciplines of the Father 2. The Trials of Family Life

Reading

John 7:1-9 [] = not spoken in presentation * = spoken from footnote https://youtu.be/IhocVvXrAt4

Preface

Many years ago, during one of the major crises of my life and ministry[1]*, a sensitive godly brother stood up before an unsympathetic crowd and remarked, “John has had a hard life.”  Tonight, I want to expound the “hard life” Jesus endured, [not to draw out sympathy for the Son of God[2]], in the context of his desire to share with us the revelation he carried at the centre of the purposes of the Father, “who works all things according to the purpose of his will” (Eph 1:11).

Let me start with a topic that is foremost in our modern secularised Western pattern of thinking, the family of Jesus. The Lord likely belonged to a family of around 9 children[3]*. This means[4] that when his carpenter father died (Mark 6:3)[5], if not before, the family would have lived at a fairly subsistence level. Such modesty of living standards provided an occasion for Jesus to perfectly fulfil God’s word in Proverbs 30:8-9. “Remove far from me falsehood and lying; give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with the food that is needful for me[6], lest I be full and deny you and say, “Who is the Lord?” or lest I be poor and steal and profane the name of my God.” Jesus was thus a perfect model of contentment[7].

Introduction

Most Christians unconsciously deny the fullness of the humanity of Jesus. Believers of a more conservative disposition tend to focus on “concepts” as the medium of truth[8], whereas Charismatic-Pentecostal believers are more concerned with personal experiences which convey “the presence of the Lord”. Appreciating the real humanity of Jesus focuses neither on ideas nor special experiences but on a recognition that God as our Father was intimately involved in all the details of Christ’s human life, as he is in ours. As one of my more observant students once said of me, “you see God in everything”.

About God’s vital presence in all things Paul can preach to even idol worshipping pagans, “he is actually not far from each one of us, 28 for “‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said, “‘For we are indeed his offspring.’” (Acts 17:27-28). Have you ever noticed how Job complained amidst his many God-permitted pains, “What is man[9], that you make so much of him, and that you set your heart on him, 18 visit him every morning and test him every moment? How long will you not look away from me, nor leave me alone till I swallow my spit?” (7:17-19).  Since it is said of Christ, “all things have been created through him and for him” (Col 1:16) everything that has or will ever happen in your life is headed towards the final and conclusive (Omega) goal which is Jesus himself (cf. Eph 1:9-10)[10]. The glorious destiny that we are all called to in Christ is so compelling to the Father that it is impossible that even the smallest detail of our lives escapes his closest attention[11]. “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care[12]. 30 And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. 31 So don’t be afraid (or anxious or stressed…); you are worth more than many sparrows.” (Matt 10:29-31). It was this understanding which led an early Church Father[13]* to put forward one of the most intriguing teachings on the atonement[14]. To perfect our humanness the Lord had to pass through every phase of life to make them perfectly holy on our behalf.

Recapitulation

As the “second Adam” (1 Cor 15:45 cf. Rom 5:14), Jesus lives out a life that sums up and brings to perfection all that was lost to humanity through the Fall (Eph 1:9-10). When God created Adam, he had Jesus in mind, not the infant Jesus, or the adolescent Jesus nor even the mature-adult miracle-working earthly Christ[15], he had in mind the ascended Christ who has taken our “humanity into God” (Athanasian Creed) with all his eternal glory (John 17:22, 24; Col 3:3-4). To quote St Irenaeus,

“he (Jesus) passed through every stage of life, restoring to each age fellowship with God…….He sanctified each stage of life by [making possible] a likeness to himself. He came to save all through his own person: all, that is, who through him are re-born to God: infants, children, boys, young men and old.
Therefore he passed through every stage of life. He was made an infant for infants, sanctifying infancy; a child among children, sanctifying childhood, and setting an example of filial affection, of righteousness and of obedience; a young man among young men, becoming an example to them, and sanctifying them to the Lord…..And thus he came even to death, that he might be ‘the first-born from the dead, having the pre-eminence among all [or in all things].’[16]

Since Jesus recapitulates/sums up life as it was always meant to be we must never measure his life by ours. For example, whilst Hebrews 4:15 tells us that Christ was “tempted in every way as we are”, this does not mean he experienced temptation to sin just as we do. Where we fold quickly under the power of sin Jesus resisted it to the uttermost limits of its power[17]. His perfectly holy conscience was repulsed by the temptations in the wilderness (cf. Hab 1:13), moved to anger and grief at the “hardness of heart” of his callous opponents (Mark 3:5), and inwardly torn with compassion at the lost state of the multitudes (Matt 9:36), his “spirit groaned” near the corrupting body of Lazarus (John 11:33, 38-39) and so on. With the humanity of Christ as our reference point in reading all scriptures[18], we see in him the wellspring[19] of all the affections of the prophets: the consuming fire burning up Jeremiah (20:9), the wrath igniting Ezekiel (5:11-17 cf. 3:14), the restless yearning compassion of Hosea (11:8-9 cf. Isa 49:15; Jer 31:20), and the empathetic afflictions of Isaiah (63:9) etc, are all grounded in the humanity of the Son of God.

We all have some memory of family life; but most importantly, what was Jesus’ experience of family and how was it used by the Father as a source of his discipline, and how can his responses to a mother and brothers be applied to us?[20]

The Family of Jesus

Since God’s word to Eve as the rebellious mother of humanity (Gen 3:20) was plain and direct, ““I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children.” (Gen 3:16), Jesus himself had to be born in the mix of extreme pain-and-joy which prophetically image childbirth as a type of the End of the world[21]. Whilst attempts to picture Mary as the perfect disciple of Jesus[22] inevitably lead us away from the absolute centrality of Christ[23], we must confess with the ancient Church that she is “the mother of God”[24] (theotokos) because she is the ‘mother of Christ” (Christotokos) who is God the Son. Having survived the trauma of the flight to Egypt as an infant refugee (Matt 2:13-15), we find the 12-year-old Jesus alone in the Temple. When the stressed Mary and Joseph finally turn up after vainly searching for him for him for 3 days, the dialogue is deeply revealing, “And when his parents saw him, they were astonished. And his mother said to him, ““Son, why have you treated us so? Behold, your father and I have been searching for you in great distress.” 49 And he said to them, “Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” 50 And they did not understand the saying that he spoke to them. 51 And he went down with them and came to Nazareth and was submissive to them. And his mother treasured up all these things in her heart.” (Luke 2:48-51). Even though Joseph[25] and Mary had already had dreams, visions and angelic visitations, they seemed to lack the gifts of faith and supernatural discernment about the destiny and dignity of their firstborn son. Mary’s questions are quite self-centred. Nevertheless, Jesus was “submissive to them”.

Submission is the proof of sonship, both human and divine. It is not easy to obey parents, or ordinary authority figures (including politicians), who are frequently in error[26]. Whilst it took me awhile to recognise it, one repeating dynamic that the Lord has used as an agent of my personal growth is being blamed by authority figures, this started very early in life with my own father, then schoolteachers and church leaders, accused of things I could never have even consciously intended or imagined.[27] Such attacks on the heart are deeply painful, but in the process of deep refining fire of the Spirit, they must be expected, for Jesus himself was falsely accused of intending to destroy the Temple something impossible for his sinless mind and conscience (Matt 26:59-61) to entertain[28]. If Jesus himself, “though a son” “learned obedience through what he suffered” (Heb 5:8), God has no other/better way to grow us into Christlikeness than to expose us to slander and its deep wounds.

Paul testifies that submission is the essence of the ongoing Sonship of Jesus[29] so that his writings constantly present Christ’s life as looking like a giant U turn, the deeper the humiliation the greater the exaltation[30]. Descent is always followed by ascent. So we read in Ephesians 4: 9-10, “In saying, “He ascended,” what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower regions, the earth? 10 He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.)” The greater the submission of the human Jesus, the greater the glory imparted to him by the Father (Phil 2:5-11). The absence of manifest glory, signs, wonders, mass conversions and so on in Western Christianity is a symptom of our failure to walk in deep humility before the Lord (Mic 6:8). Human authority to rule the earth, given and lost in Eden, has been more than restored in Jesus (Heb 2:6ff.) because via the cross there is no limit to his ongoing lowliness before the Father[31] on our behalf.

Let’s go back to what Jesus and his mum, asking what he meant in replying to Mary’s request for a miracle at the wedding in Cana in John 2. When she says to him “They have no wine.” he replies, ““Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.” (John 2:3-4). Culturally, Jesus’ use of “woman” for his mother, implies a rebuff, and places relational distance between him and her. She had approached him not as a son but as a miracle worker, therefore he responds not as a son but as her Lord. He does go on to perform the first of his “signs”[32] because he is sensitive on the spot to the timing of the Spirit[33]. Despite an earlier prophetic warning from the aged Simeon in the temple when Jesus was 8 days old, ““Behold, this child is appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is opposed 35 (and a sword will pierce through your own soul also), so that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed.”” (Luke 2:34-35), his mother shows no understanding that the miracle she requests of Jesus will culminate in the “hour” of his death[34]. The depth of spiritual incomprehension in those closest to Jesus comes out even more strongly in other places.

Unbelieving Household

Christ’s household had no idea how to respond to him as God’s, to quote Paul, “inexpressible gift” (2 Cor 9:15). As members of an honour-shame society the family must have been shocked and scandalised by the riot and attempted murder of Jesus in their home synagogue at Nazareth (Luke 4:18-30). This was the teaching centre where Jesus had listened Sabbath after Sabbath for 30 years in perfect patience (1 Tim 1:16) as the scribes and Pharisees expounded a killing letter instead of the life-giving Spirit which dwelt in him (2 Cor 3:6). (I remember painfully waiting for several years in a church where the teaching was extremely weak until the Lord gave me a release to go to another fellowship.) Since Peter (2 Pet 2:7) tells us that the “righteous soul” of Lot was perpetually distressed by the unrighteousness of Sodom, how unimaginably pained in spirit was Jesus by the knowledge that Israel would eventually rise up and crucify him. Only when it was time was the Lord released by the Spirit to prophesy to those sent to seize him, “this is your hour, and the power of darkness” (Luke 22:53).

Sometimes Jesus’ family were completely bewildered by his teaching authority, like when we read of this incident early in his Galilean ministry in Mark 3:20-21, “Then he went home, and the crowd gathered again, so that they could not even eat. 21 And when his family heard it, they went out to seize him, for they were saying, “He is out of his mind.””[35]  Here the family treats their son, brother and Lord as if he was under demonic power (cf. Mark 3:22) needing to be forcefully restrained[36]. I doubt if those closest to you have ever treated you like this.

Jesus prophesied with great authority, “I came to cast fire on the earth, and would that it were already kindled! 50 I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how great is my distress until it is accomplished! 51 Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division. 52 For from now on in one house there will be five divided, three against two and two against three. 53 They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.” A fire was burning within him because most seriously, and most painfully for Jesus, we read in John 7 of the depths of division in his own family ot origin, “After this Jesus went about in Galilee. He would not go about in Judea, because the Jews were seeking to kill him. 2 Now the Jews’ Feast of Booths was at hand. 3 So his brothers said to him, “Leave here and go to Judea, that your disciples also may see the works you are doing. 4 For no one works in secret if he seeks to be known openly. If you do these things, show yourself to the world.” 5 For not even his brothers believed in him.” Because they have no faith in Jesus’, his flesh and blood brothers had no interest in him living or dying. The brothers apparently did not believe the family stories about the supernatural circumstances of his birth testifying that he is Messiah and Son of God and so their Lord and Saviour[37]*. Jesus personally had to live out this scripture, “Though my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will receive me.” (Prov 27:10).

The Cross

The fulfilment of the prophetic word to Mary from Simeon, “(and a sword will pierce through your own soul also), so that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed.”” (Luke 2:34-35), filled Jesus with great anguish. So much so that his own heartfelt thoughts find expression in words of untellable authority, “When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold, your son!” 27 Then he said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother!” And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home.” (John 19:26-27). Despite her spiritual lapses, Mary was the one family member who followed Jesus all the way to the cross, having handed her to the care of John, he could now finally dispatch his spirit back to his heavenly Father (John 19:30; Luke 23:46).

Conclusion

If you have had a hard life, if you had parents that never understood you, if you have a call and gifting from God unrecognised by others close to you, especially by the Church, thank God that all your struggles can be filled with meaning through an ever-increasing intimacy with Jesus who has already gone through that pain of all that has happened to you, and far worse. The loving discipline of the Father has no limits. I exhort you, keep on following the Lamb, all the way to the cross.  Let Peter, who was always close to the action, have the final word, “But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed.” (1 Pet 4:13)