Of all the people I have ever known, I would always have said that my brother Jesus[1] has the firmest possible grip on his sanity.

But just recently, I’ve begun to think we may have cause to question that.

When Jesus reached thirty years of age,[2] he left home and began to tell people all over the country that they should repent because the kingdom of heaven is near.

Many people think that sounds sort of crazy by itself, but it certainly didn’t sound crazy when Jesus spoke about it.  Everything that Jesus says makes perfect sense when he explains it, but when he’s not there it can be harder to understand why he does some things.

I suppose I should tell you a bit about our background so that you will understand better what the family thinks of Jesus.

Jesus was conceived before our parents were married and that caused quite a bit of trouble for them.  Our mother says that Jesus was conceived in her by the work of the Holy Spirit, not by any human father.

I believe her.

We children all grew up in Nazareth with Dad working as a carpenter and builder.  He was a righteous man and the whole family was very religious and we went to the synagogue every Sabbath.

Jesus was an amazing brother to have.  My other brothers were more or less like me, but Jesus was different.  The rest of us all had our petty jealousies and sibling rivalries, but those things never came from him.

There were times when items were broken and no one wanted to take the blame.  If no one would own up, Jesus would always be asked first and would always tell the truth.  And what used to infuriate the rest of us kids was that his answers were never questioned!  I know that if my word had always been accepted like that, I would have started to see what I could get away with from time to time.  But it didn’t work like that with Jesus.

To sum it up, I would say that he was absolutely wonderful to be with overall, but he could also be rather uncomfortable at times because he wouldn’t join the rest of us in doing things that our parents wouldn’t have wanted us to do.

He also had ways of providing simple explanations for things that nobody else could explain at all.  I remember once he explained to the whole family what angels were and what they were like.  For once, I felt that I understood.

Jesus learned how to be a carpenter and builder from Dad, and his skills were good enough to keep the family going by himself after Dad died – until I was old enough to start helping too.

He made yokes for the local farmers that never rubbed the necks of the oxen raw, and that let them pull harder than anybody else’s yokes.  Now he uses that idea as a teaching method, saying that his disciples should take his yoke and wear it – but he never mentions that he knows what he is talking about in crafting smooth yokes that are just right for the animals wearing them.

When people wanted Jesus to work on buildings, he used to convince them that the foundation was the most important thing.  And none of the houses he has built have ever fallen down – he knows what he is talking about.  He uses that picture in his preaching too, so I guess that could be why he paid so much attention to it while he was working so hard to support us as a family.

However, I’m getting off the topic and I want to get back to it.  Jesus has always been rock-solid – absolutely stable, utterly dependable and willing to do anything to help anyone.

And that’s what started me thinking that he might be pushing himself a bit too far and losing his mind as a result.

Thousands of people follow Jesus, but he chose just twelve of them as special disciples whom he called “apostles”,[3] and he sent them out to spread the word more widely than he could do by himself.  Most of them were local men, and when they came back from their tour of preaching they all met at the place where Jesus was staying.

As a family, we haven’t been closely involved with everything that Jesus has been doing, but we heard recently from several different people who went to see him that the house where he was staying was constantly surrounded by crowds of people and that neither Jesus nor his apostles were ever being left alone.  They weren’t even being given time to eat.

Teaching, healing and helping with no time for meals or rest sounded to us like a recipe for disaster, and probably a sign of mental instability.

Our mother was particularly concerned about Jesus’ health: he has always been much better at concentrating on doing God’s work (as he sees it) than on looking after himself.

We shut up the workshop and we four brothers went with our mother to Capernaum.  As we neared the house we could see that the reports of huge crowds were obviously true.  Crowds of sick and suffering people, some with carers to help them, were clustered around every door and window.  Some were pushing to try to get inside, while others waited patiently.  Many others in the crowd had no obvious heath issues and seemed to be there just to listen, and these were always trying to quiet the noisier and more insistent members of the crowd.

It was hard to know what we should do.  If we tried to get inside, we would be fighting against a crowd of people who wouldn’t give up their positions easily.  And if we did get to Jesus, we couldn’t really say what we had to say in front of everybody anyway.

After some discussion, we decided that it would be best to send him a message asking him to come out and see us.  When he came, we would then do our best to convince him to come back home with us to Nazareth so that we could nurse him back to health.  Whatever happened, we needed to get him away from this crowd that just wouldn’t leave him alone!

Near one of the doorways I recognised a man from Nazareth and managed to get his attention.  Some of the people near us weren’t happy with the noise I was making, but I managed to convey our request for Jesus to come out to meet us.

The message went in through the doorway of the house and we heard people passing it on through the rooms inside.

We waited, able to hear voices, but not to distinguish what was being said.  Finally, a report came back out through the doorway and we had Jesus’ answer.

He wouldn’t come.

I was amazed: his mother and we, his brothers, had come specifically to visit him, and he wouldn’t even come out to see us.

That seemed rude enough, but his actual words made it worse.  Apparently, he said, “Who are my mother and my brothers?”

Jesus was disowning us all.

Worse than that, he was replacing us with others who he wasn’t even related to.  We were told that he had looked around at the people near him and said of them: “Here are my mother and my brothers!  For whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother.”

I can never forget what Jesus was like as a brother as we grew up together, but his behaviour at the moment is too high-handed for me: if I don’t do it his way he’ll disown me!  Is that a sign of madness or rudeness?
We never did get to take him home that day; in fact, we didn’t even get close enough to talk to him.  He refused to accept that we, his family, had any call on him at all – he considered his followers more important than us.

What should we do?

Is he mad?  I know that his understanding of Scripture is second to none, but I can’t accept that he is the saviour of the world or the Messiah we are all waiting for.  He’s my brother, not a great king!  I used to play with him in the mud, and he taught me a lot of my carpentry skills – not exactly the perfect background for a religious leader, is it?  How could God let the saviour of the world grow up in a poor home in Nazareth, a remote town in Galilee of the Gentiles?

No, he’ll still have to do a lot more to convince me.

[1] This story assumes that the brothers and sisters of Jesus referred to in the New Testament (eg. Matthew 13:55-56; Mark 6:3; Acts 1:14; Galatians 1:19; 1 Corinthians 9:5) were half brothers and half sisters who shared the same mother with Jesus (Mary), and were not the product of a previous marriage between Joseph and some other woman of whom there is no record.  In such a case they would not have been true brothers and sisters at all.  Mary was a virgin until the birth of Jesus (Matthew 1:24-25), but there is no suggestion in the Bible that this continued.  In fact, the clear implication of Matthew 1:24-25 is otherwise.
[2] Luke 3:23
[3] The Greek word translated “apostle” means an envoy, ambassador or messenger sent to carry out instructions.