Jesus, David, Abraham – His brothers

I missed a few days of this traveling and decided to utilize just these two comments rather than squeeze them in with another week. I feel as if seven is too many as it is, so I might start cherry picking to make it easier. Maybe not.

Jesus, David, and Abraham. When I see a three-name sequence in my mind comes out “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph” as an exclamation. No recollection of where I picked that up, but I try not to ever use it. The sequence here was obviously looking back historically in increments to three of the most important aspects of Judaism. My mind flashes to a debate of the all-time top baseball players. Ruth, Ohtani, Bogusevic, … just kidding. The point is that the story of Jesus, while all encompassing, pivoted on the key aspects of King David and Father Abraham. Abraham brings the faith counted as righteousness and David brings the man after God’s own heart. Yes, they failed along the way, but their success was important for every person who came after. Jesus was successful in conquering sin and death for us all, and we receive the benefit.

I saw the league leaders list the other day and saw Ohtani high on the list. It made me think that no matter how well the others perform, with his pitching going well, he is almost a shoo-in for MVP. Ruth was a great pitcher and a great hitter, but he did not excel at both at the same time. Ohtani is doing something no one has done at the MLB level ever before. If he can do it for a decade or more, he will quickly float up those all-time great lists.

His brothers. This is of course in reference to the brothers of Judah, but I left it more generic to open up the field of topics. The one side is the impact Christ had on his brothers (half-brothers). As kids they probably looked up to their brother and he lived thirty years before starting His ministry. The implications are that Jesus was a normal enough kid and young adult that His brothers did not believe he was the Son of God, but simply their older, weird brother. Then after His death and resurrection, they too believed. It seems odd that someone could live a sinless life and his family not be convinced that He was God. I have heard of non-biblical references putting forth possibilities of what Jesus did do during this time period and the overwhelming response is that they are just that, non-biblical. The obvious conclusion is that this time period is not relevant to our belief and therefore not worthy of our worry.

The other side is the brothers (and sisters) in Christ that live around us. As my new phrase says: “God does not have grandchildren.” We all have to individually receive the gift of salvation and when we do, we are children of God. We should think of other Christians as family, and we need to think of non-Christians as potential family.