Guilt by association comes to mind when reading this narrative. Jesus was rejected as a teacher of the Word of the LORD because the culture of His day said so. The first point is that the people of the town He grew up in rejected him as a religious man because centuries of culture guided them. Mark’s author adds the question of family. Jesus’s family was not a leading religious family. Therefore, Jesus could not have had the LORD’s spirit with Him. He was not rejected because the people did not like the message. That is a church tradition in which the church wants to condemn Jews. The peoples’ cultural beliefs prevented them from seeing the truth of Jesus’s words.
Have you ever been guilty because of association? When looking at the family point, Jesus was guilty of not being from the LORD because of His family. Today it may not be because of your family but rather because of your friends. While I was in college, I became friends with Douglas. Several persons in the Hillel group (an organization for Jewish people) rejected me because I was friends with Douglas. Guilt by association. It was not fair that others judged me because of the friends I had.
Guilt by association occurred to me in the church. My first appointment was as the Associate Pastor at a United Methodist church. After the first year, I was told by one member that the mistreatment I received was because of guilt by association. The people believed that I was appointed because of the Senior Pastor (who was not well-liked). It took the people a year to realize that I was not like him— an excellent example of guilt by association.
It does not matter what your family lineage is nor who your friends and associates are when you enter the Kingdom of Heaven. When you leave the fleshy body, your DNA does not matter. The LORD created the Spirit (Ruach) in the Heavens. The Ruach then enters a human body when it descends. The selection of DNA is a random occurrence. On Earth, the DNA connections are powerful. The links between family members are encoded in DNA. It was necessary to do this to help the human race thrive. Unfortunately, today it is used as a weapon to allow people to quarrel with each other. At a higher level, it leads to nations fighting nations.
Jesus’s new world order says that your DNA connections are irrelevant. It is essential to understand that all people are related through the Ruach because the LORD creates each Ruach. Jesus was trying to make a new world order. His world order ensured that people would live and love together.
Unfortunately, the bonds of DNA appear to be stronger. The world is not unified under Jesus. The church which claims Jesus as its foundation is not unified. Sadly it must be said that the unification that Jesus desired did not take form. Would not it be a wonderful world if all people who say they are Christian acted in the ways Jesus explained to us?
May the LORD bless you in your learning and studying of His Word.
