A couple of weeks ago, Matt, one of my pastors at SGC, made a comment about Jesus just making ends meet for His family until He launch unto His ministry with the twelve. I was thinking about this statement and once again I was struck with Christ's humility. Before age 30, Jesus was a common working man much like myself, except He never sinned. From what I have heard, carpentry at that time and in that region involved a lot of stone work, so maybe we could say he was like a stone or brick mason. (On a side note, it is interesting that I work at a place that sells stone and brick and the like so I deal with people nearly daily that are in this profession.)
Anyway, as I think about man and how he sinned against Christ, my mind most often goes to the cross and the injustice done there. I think this is right that my mind goes here but I started thinking about Jesus in the marketplace and how He was surely sinned against there daily. I imagine that Jesus would have hired himself out as a subcontractor to do a certain building project for a certain amount of money. Maybe he didn't have a general contractor over him like the case is so often in America, but at least he had some sort of boss, a foreman or even the home/business owner. All this to say that Jesus would have been sinned against. Luke 2:52 says that Jesus increased in wisdom, so there would have surely been a time where He would not have known His trade as well. Perhaps a slight mess-up in His performance would have gotten Him yelled at. Maybe Jesus was late from time to time, of course sinlessly, yet perhaps His father made Him late and this caused Him to be sinned against by His superior. Even as we do our job well people are going to be jealous and sin against us, from gossiping behind our backs to cussing us out to our faces. I'm sure all this happened to Jesus. We could then go to His home life and know everyone in His family sinned against Him, from His parents taking their frustrations out on Him to His siblings trying to fight with Him.
I am saying all this to make two points; Jesus never sinned (Heb 4:15), and how should I respond when I am sinned against? Jesus, the Son of God, who was God in the flesh, worked the majority of His earthly life as a blue collar worker and never sinned even in His heart about the true injustice done to Him daily. Jesus, in a very real way, was not stuck on His importance, yet took the form of a servant at the cross (Phil 2:7) and every other day of His life. I, on the other hand, sin in this area. My reaction is all too often, "How can you talk to me like that, do you know who I am?!" Or if I see I have inferior knowledge in a subject to someone else I will often think about something I have more knowledge in and compare myself to them. I have no right at all to ever have any sort of selfish ambition. I have no right at all to lash out, even in my heart, for I am not very important in the grand scheme of things yet Christ, the Lord of the universe, subjected Himself daily to evil on the job site and at the cross, yet did not sin in return. What humility! What an example! What a Saviour!
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