- Mark 6:3 – Is this not the carpenter, the Son of Mary, and brother of James, Joses, Judas, and Simon? And are not His sisters here with us?” So they were offended at Him.
- Carpenter – A craftsman in wood.
- Jesus is a common laborer. He works with his hands using tools and wood to create useful things for other households. He works long, hard hours for little pay, and deals with the many varying attitudes involved with selling goods to the public. He gets splinters, blood blisters, and banged thumbs. He deals with having to persevere to complete tasks under the pressure of customer’s expectations through uncomfortable heat and cold. He delights in a finished project, job-well-done, and happy customer; and is frustrated by broken tools, interruptions, mistakes, and unreasonable clients. And for all this, He brings home just enough pay for another day.
- Jesus is familiar with your daily grind. He intimately understands your frustrations, hopes, fears, longings, depressions, hopelessness, obstacles, failures, victories, and dreams. He can experientially relate to your daily troubles, and empathizes with you because He was a lowly carpenter for over a decade.
- Let the kindness and generosity of the Lord flow through you to everyone who serves you; waiters/waitresses, lawnmowers, receptionists, telephone customer service representatives, repairmen, and the like. Overlook any bad attitude that they may have, and give them the goodness of God so that they may taste and see that the Lord is good by your graceful attitude towards them. Remember, our Lord said that the greatest among us is he who serves, and that whatever we do to the “least of these”, we do it to Him. He takes it personally, how we treat servants.
Trevor Honeycutt 