Is not this the carpenter’s son?
The Divine rejected in the common
Thus the spiritual gem was dishonoured because of its earthly setting, and Christ was rejected on account of that which should have secured His acceptance. A small amount of thought would have sufficed to say, “Out of the soil of our common life has arisen a plant, of uncommon flower and fruit, without any special training.” What cannot be explained by ordinary laws must be sought for in the extraordinary, and that which He could not have derived from men must have been given Him by God! There were probably many feelings expressed in the words.
1. Perhaps there was envy. Theft did not like to think that one of themselves should be so much above them.
2. There was a prejudice against Christ because of the worldly circumstances of His family. Poverty has always been a sore hindrance to acceptance.
3. There was certainly a feeling in the Jews against Christ from the absence of any apparent means of His attaining uncommon eminence. “Whence hath this man.”
4. A stronger feeling against Christ arose in their minds from the commonness and familiarity of His associations. The effect of His teaching was lost through the nearness of His lower life. Had He come from far, had He been shrouded in mystery, then they might have received His claims. They had not spirituality enough to counteract the suggestions and influences of His carnal relations. Men are still backward to recognize the Divine in connection with the common; earthly genealogy disproves the heavenly descent. Illustrations of this fact:
I. The first shall be taken from Christ himself. Christ is God manifest in the flesh: we have felt that the great God might have chosen some other and higher mode of display; have clothed Himself with light.
II. The same may be said of Christianity. None can fail to recognize the thoroughly human character of the records of the New Testament. It has been objected that they are common and insignificant, that they mention trifling matters. Men want a more stately book-but then it had lost its charm. The human is Divine.
III. A third illustration we will take from the operation in nature. We are prevented from recognizing the Divine power by the commonness of daily operations.
IV. A fourth illustration is taken from divine providence. Men seem only to recognize the Divine working in extraordinary events.
V. The last illustration is taken from our common life. There is a great craving for extraordinary positions; had we more splendid conditions how we could display the energy of our faith. All life is Divine. The Divine man makes the Divine life; seek to detect the spiritual and Divine everywhere. (A. J. Morris.)
The carpenter’s son
When the Emperor Julian was about to wage war against the Persians and had threatened, when the war should be over, bitterly to persecute the Christians, insolently mocking the carpenter’s son as one quite unable to succour them, Didymas, an ecclesiastic, pronounced this sentence upon him: “This carpenter’s son is even now making a wooden coffin for Julian!”“ The Emperor went into the battle, and was suddenly struck in the breast with an arrow. He pulled it out, and, finding the wound inflicted by it to be deadly, he cursed the Lord; then, taking some of the blood from the wound, he threw it up into the air, exclaiming, “Thou hast conquered, O Galilean.” The son of the, carpenter:-Christ was, indeed, the son of a workman; but of Him who made the frame of the universe, not by a hammer, but by His command; who disposed the composition of the elements, not by skill, but by His Word; who kindled the sun, not by earthly fire, but by His supreme heat; who made all things out of nothing, and made them, O man, for thee-that thou mightest reflect on the Artificer by considering His work, (Crysologus.)