JESUS CALLS US BRETHREN

For both He who sanctifies and those who are being sanctified are all of one, for which reason He is not ashamed to call them brethren –Hebrews 9:11

O, what grace the Redemption Story is: that our Saviour calls us ‘Brethren’! What a Saviour we have in Jesus – One who is not ashamed to call His servants “brethren”! Though He is God incarnate, He divested Himself of deity and fully identifies with our humanity.

Most families like to keep their family secrets a secret. Yet, the Gospels’ accounts of Jesus’ life and ministry freely reveal His less-than-perfect ancestry and family lineage. Ancestral-Grandma Rahab was a Jericho harlot. Ancestral-Grandpa Jacob was a cunning and slippery trickster. His Royal Ancestor David was so unpredictable, he could be inspired to write Psalms one day and seduce his captain’s wife the next. Loving Jesus! He never had reason to erase their names from His ancestral lineage. He completely identified with them in spite of their minuses.

That Jesus could allow His family’s dirty laundry to be hung out in the open speaks volumes about His disposition to our own imperfect and dysfunctional family settings. Our family secrets do not trouble Him! For example, the silence of scriptures on Joseph suggests his absence in the adult life of Jesus, which implies that Mary may have raised Him and the rest of the children alone. If your family tree has rotten fruit, Jesus wants you to know “I’ve been there’! To the desperate wanderer and the lonely sojourner, He sighs, ‘I’ve been there.’ To the discouraged and depressed, He whispers, ‘I’ve been there.’

Hebrews 4:15 reassures: “For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.” And also, “For in that He Himself has suffered, being tempted, He is able to aid those who are tempted” (Heb.2:18). Jesus was not reluctant to identify with His ancestors as family; and He is not ashamed of us either. We were dead in trespasses and sin. It is He who makes us holy. Yet He is not ashamed to call us brothers and sisters. He embraces us as brethren. Oh, what Fellowship! Oh, what amazing Grace! Oh, what immeasurable Mercy!