‘In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God’ (John 1:1-14).
The Father knew the time would come when He would have to send us His ‘Son,’ to enable us to refocus our lives into loving one another as He loved us and save us from ourselves. Jesus, the man, was born. It is my understanding, that In, every aspect, Jesus was one of us and, as a human, he no longer held his Godly status.
I believe he was fully human, he grew as a boy, an adolescent and a man. His mother, well aware of the reason for his birth and with his future in mind, would surely have ensured he was well schooled in the Jewish faith into which he had been born. I think this was evident when at the age of 9, he was capable of serious conversation with Jewish elders.
Like us, he was loved by The Father and through his prayer life, must have maintained a close relationship with his heavenly Father and with the Holy Spirit. He certainly knew what The Father expected of him in the future, as also did his cousin, John, who saw his role as ‘preparing the way’.
At the Cana marriage Jesus and his mother attended, Mary could see the embarrassment that would have resulted for their young married friends and family and took it upon herself to inform her son with a pleading look, that only mothers are capable of displaying. She was saying to her son, ‘it is time’. His somewhat reticent response of ‘my hour has not yet come’ didn’t deter Mary, who knew in her heart he would cause to be done, what needed to be done.
It was at that point, that the total trust Jesus had in his Father had to be displayed. Maybe he had been waiting for his heavenly Father to tell him when he should start his public life. However, it was his earthly mother who was the catalyst for his work to begin.
After his baptism by John, it is said, he was ‘filled with the Spirit’. Yet, fired up as he was, he spent the next 6 weeks on retreat in the desert, where no doubt, he was being schooled by the Spirit for the task he had been set by The Father, which was about to commence.
From what we know of him, Jesus possessed a great depth of wisdom and knowledge. The responses he was able to provide to those trying to undermine him; his understanding of human situations; the psychology he used in allowing others to determine their own answers to questions and situations, was not gained at any university.
it is obvious his thinking and actions were continually being helped and supported by a source other than that available to him from his followers. Hence, we see him going off on his own to pray for lengthy periods. I believe he was so close to God, he had the Holy Spirit as an invisible personal valet.
Jesus the man needed to constantly be in close contact with the Father and the Spirit which also indicates his total humanness. It stands to reason, if he was Jesus ‘the God,’ why would he have to spend hours praying when he could be sleeping like the rest of his followers? Why would he have to beg The Father to save him from the horrors that were to come, the night before his crucifixion? At no time did Jesus ever say ‘adore me,’ he only said ‘follow me.’
As Jesus the man he was forced to experience tiredness, temptation, pain and suffering and displayed his emotions on numerous occasions. While some might argue he was God and man at the same time, that’s not the way I see him while he lived with us.
If we are looking for a hero, who we want to imitate and model our life upon, we need to look no further than Jesus the Man.
I’m Pete and that’s faith