[A Jewish Carpenter – Building a Legacy]
Slide Graphic – A Jewish Carpenter (of course) – see http://www.postcardman.net/24928.jpg
Isn’t this the carpenter’s son? Isn’t his mother’s name Mary, and aren’t his brothers James, Joseph, Simon and Judas?
Matthew 13:55
"Where did this man get these things?" they asked. "What’s this wisdom that has been given him, that he even does miracles! 3Isn’t this the carpenter? Isn’t this Mary’s son and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas and Simon? Aren’t his sisters here with us?" And they took offense at him.
Mark 6:2,3
Jesus, we believe, was God himself made flesh. He chose to become human, live among us, and allow himself to be crucified as punishment in our place for the evil we have done.
As God, he could have chosen any family on earth to be born into. Since he was coming to reveal a personal religion, he might have chosen to be born into the family of a priest. He might have chosen to be born into a wealthy, respected family which might have changed how broadly his message could have been spread in the briefs years of his ministry. He might have chosen to be born into a politically powerful family, even as a prince.
Instead, Christ chose, from the beginning of time, to take this one brief opportunity to live among us in the flesh, and be born into the family of a carpenter. Until the time he was close to 30 years old, he lived in the house of a builder. No doubt, Jesus worked side by side with his father, building things: houses, furniture, who knows what. He may have even had to take over the family business if something happened to his father, as many scholars believe. Think about this. Somebody in Nazareth was living in a house, or eating at a table, physically built by God himself. How would you like to have a chair made by Christ with his own hands?
Why, do you think God chose to be a part of this particular family?
I don’t consider this to be bible-trivia. I think this plan reveals a lot about the character of God.
[Carpenter? Or Stonemason?]
Slide graphics – stonemasons
Slide Text –
4As you come to him, the living Stone—rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to him— 5you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. 6For in Scripture it says:
"See, I lay a stone in Zion,
a chosen and precious cornerstone,
and the one who trusts in him
will never be put to shame."
7Now to you who believe, this stone is precious. But to those who do not believe,
"The stone the builders rejected
has become the capstone," 8and,
"A stone that causes men to stumble
and a rock that makes them fall."
1 Peter 2:4-7
Jesus said to them, "Have you never read in the Scriptures: " ’The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone;the Lord has done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes’?
Matthew 21:42
22 The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone; 23 the LORD has done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes.
Psalms 118:22,23
14 and he will be a sanctuary; but for both houses of Israel he will be a stone that causes men to stumble and a rock that makes them fall. And for the people of Jerusalem he will be a trap and a snare.
Isaiah 8:14
Jesus was said to be a carpenter but the Greek word tekton, which is translated as "carpenter" had a meaning quite different from the way carpenter is defined today. The Greek word tekton has been translated as “carpenter” in many English Bibles, but the word actually means “a craftsman who builds.
Nazareth was a rural Jewish community of about three hundred people, probably all from the same extended family. But it was not a sheltered retreat. As he grew up, Jesus could see the construction of nearby Sepphoris. And a bustling trade route—the Via Maris—passed nearby. Given that Israel’s buildings were constructed of stones and rocks, Jesus likely worked as a stonemason rather than a carpenter. He probably spent hours helping his father shape and cut stones.
Jesus was indeed a craftsman. In Mark 6:3 he is referred to as a tekton. This word is usually translated ‘carpenter’, but it can also mean a carpenter/builder or artisan. Traditional village culture in the Middle East uses little furniture. The Gospels rarely mention home furnishings. In short, a cabinetmaker would find little to do in a small village like Nazareth. But doors and roof beams are necessary in every house, and they require a woodworker’s skills. Jesus tells a number of parables that refer to the building trade. While he was growing up in Nazareth, the provincial capital Sepphoris was being constructed by Herod Antipas. Joseph may well have moved to Nazareth because there was work for a carpenter/builder in Sepphoris four miles away.
Shemmai, one of the greatest rabbis, lived one generation before Jesus. Shemmai was a stonemason. Unlike the contemporary Western world, the world of Jesus expected the scholar to be engaged in a trade such as carpentry.
[Corps of Engineers]
Slide Graphics – picture of my father in uniform, pictures of Alaskan Earthquake damage
Slide Text –
By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as an expert builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should be careful how he builds.
1 Corinthians 3:10
My father’s name is Thurston Shelby Fox. For some reason, it’s a tradition in my family to use the name “Shelby” as the middle name of the firstborn son. My father was the seventh. My name is Robert Shelby Fox – I am the eighth Shelby. It’s also a tradition that the firstborn daughter’s name start with a “V”. My Grandmother was Vela Fox, I had an aunt named Velda; my sister was named Vicki, and Lauren’s name is actually Victoria Lauren Fox. Family traditions are like that some times – who can explain them?
My grandfather George Shelby Fox, my father’s father, was abandoned as a child. His father, Elisha Shelby Fox, was a wastrel who never held down a steady job. They were living on the north shore of what is now Lake Ouachita when my grandfather was born. When Elisha left town, he left my grandfather with a neighbor. He was just a baby at the time. I can’t imagine what kind of an effect this must have had on my grandfather’s life. He went through school and put himself through seminary at Ouachita. He was a preacher for a while, then became a teacher and principle. He was an artist, and one of his oil paintings was chosen as the trout stamp one year. But he was not a happy man. He was an alcoholic, and some of his paintings were of disturbing subjects like men committing suicide. When I was in Senior High, my grandfather committed suicide. I’m sure there were many reasons why my grandfather led such an unhappy adult life, but I believe that much of the reason lay in his childhood abandonment. Story after story of people who have done shocking things as adults reveals that these same people were abused or abandoned as children. That kind of a childhood is extremely difficult to overcome. Sadly enough, people who are mistreated as children tend to mistreat their own children, perpetuating the cycle.
I don’t know all the details of my father’s early years, but I know that when he was in junior high, his older sister, who was married with children of her own, came and got my fathers younger brother and sister and took them out of my grandfather’s house. She raised my aunt and uncle, her younger brother and sister, as her own children. My father was the only child who remained at home. He was forced to sleep in the crawlspace under the house. He knew where the school busses were parked, and in the summer would sneak in and sleep on the back seat of the buses. He hunted squirrels and rabbits to sell for money to buy a coat to keep him warm, and worked several jobs after school. The other kids teased him and called him “suitcase” because he carried everything he owned around in an old, battered, secondhand suitcase.
When he graduated from high school, he signed up for an ROTC scholarship to Ouachita, where the Army will pay your way through college, after which you enter the army as a junior officer. He was glad to have the opportunity to go to college, but despite his childhood, or perhaps because of it, he really wanted to spend his life building things, not tearing them down. For this reason, when he entered the service, he joined a branch of the Army known as the Corps of Engineers.
The US Army Corps of Engineers is one of the nation’s oldest units, formed in 1775 when the Continental Congress authorized the first Chief Engineer to build fortifications near Boston at Bunker Hill. West Point, the nation’s firs military academy, was formed in 1802 strictly to train a corps of engineers. The Washington Monument, Library of Congress, Alaska-Canada Highway, and Panama Canal are all Corps of Engineer projects.
My father went to Vietnam when I was a baby. While he was there his job was to go out ahead of the troops and build bridges, repair roads, etc., so they would be ready when the infantry got there. He received the bronze star for exceptional courage for one of these missions, but to this day, no one in the family knows what happened. My father refuses to talk about it.
When I was just a toddler, my father was given the choice of serving in an armored engineer battalion in Czechoslovakia (basically driving a bulldozer with armored plating while snipers took shots at you), or go to Alaska to “field test winter construction equipment.” My mother was pregnant with my baby sister, so he chose Alaska. She would not hae been allowed to go to the Czech posting. His job in Alaska was basically to take a bunch of construction equipment way up north and build something out in the middle of nowhere just to see if it could actually be built when it was that cold – to see if the equipment functioned at sub-zero temperatures. Then they would knock it down and build something else. It was the only Corps of Engineers unit in Alaska at the time - a small unit, and not very important, but my father was in charge.
Then in 1964, Alaska was hit by a powerful earthquake measuring 9.2, making this event the second largest earthquake ever recorded in the world and the largest for the Northern Hemisphere. (Chile, in 1960, had a 9.5, the largest earthquake ever recorded). The earthquake was so strong it caused 16 foot waves in Hawaii and caused damage as far away as California, Japan and Australia. Bridges and roads were destroyed. The airport was unusable, hospitals were damaged and in danger of collapse. No one could get in our out. And here was my father with a company of Engineers and all this winter heavy construction equipment.
He quickly formulated an emergency plan and put his team to work, repairing the runway so emergency help could get in, shoring up the hospital to make it safe for the victims.
The Army kept bringing in more resources, but when they got there, they kept deciding that my father had it all under control, so they would promote him and put the new resources under him. He became the Army’s number one expert on emergency repairs of earthquake damage. As I grew up, my father served in Panama, working on the canal, and in Korea, repairing the damage to the country caused by the Korean war. I remember when we lived in North Carolina, and a powerful earthquake struck Guatemala, causing heavy damage. Before it even hit the news, a Sikorski jet helicopter landed in our back yard, crushing our fence, and my father came running into the house to grab his field pack. They flew him to the Pentagon for a briefing, then off to Guatemala for several weeks to evaluate the damage and form an emergency plan.
[Jesus Did Not Come to Destroy]
Slide graphics – more earthquake damage
Slide text –
51As the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem. 52And he sent messengers on ahead, who went into a Samaritan village to get things ready for him; 53but the people there did not welcome him, because he was heading for Jerusalem. 54When the disciples James and John saw this, they asked, "Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them?" 55But Jesus turned and rebuked them. And he said, "You do not know what kind of spirit you are of, for the Son of Man did not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them.“
Luke 9:51-55
This is the kind of man my father was. It was very important to him that he spent his life building things. Not just things you can hold in your hands, but building a family, building friendships. He has told me many times that he thinks it is very significant that Christ chose to be born into the family of an “Engineer”. Christ was all about building things up, not tearing them down.
My father isn’t perfect. He’s always telling the corniest jokes – I mean, hide your head in shame, “I don’t know this man” corny. He’s always striking up conversations with complete strangers. You can’t go out to eat with him and not know all about your waitress’s life by the end of the meal. When I was little I remember him driving me nuts following me around with a camera. If I joined a little league team, he would volunteer to be the coach. If I joined Boy Scouts, he got involved in the adult leadership. Dad isn’t a perfect man, by a long shot … but he is a good man. While I don’t necessarily want to be a carbon copy of him, I would be very happy – very happy indeed to be thought as good a man as my father.
When Tammy and I got married, I had to decide who would stand by my side as my “best man”. I didn’t have a lot of friends, but I had a handful of close buddies, several of whom probably expect I might ask them. But I decided to ask my father. He is still the “best man” I know.
30 Then I was the craftsman at his side.
I was filled with delight day after day,
rejoicing always in his presence,
31 rejoicing in his whole world
and delighting in mankind.
32 "Now then, my sons, listen to me;
blessed are those who keep my ways.
33 Listen to my instruction and be wise;
do not ignore it.
Proverbs 8:30-33
[The Wise and Foolish Builders]
Slide Graphics – house on rock and on sand
Slide Text –
47I will show you what he is like who comes to me and hears my words and puts them into practice. 48He is like a man building a house, who dug down deep and laid the foundation on rock. When a flood came, the torrent struck that house but could not shake it, because it was well built. 49But the one who hears my words and does not put them into practice is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. The moment the torrent struck that house, it collapsed and its destruction was complete."
Luke 6:47-49
As much as I’ve talked about being a builder, you might conclude that I’m saying that these works are what will get you to heaven. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
Christ, at the conclusion to the sermon on the mount, related a story about two builders. Both worked very hard and built a house. There is no indication that the house built on sand was a shabby, sloppily built building. The difference was the foundation they were built on. The house built on the rock (Jesus) will stand. The house not built on the rock is a work that will not last. It isn’t the quality of the work that makes the difference; it’s the foundation the work is built upon.
The point of this parable is that it isn’t the things that you do that will secure you eternally. You have to have your life built on the foundation of faith in Christ.
(This story is also related in Matthew 7:24-27)
[Make Me Like Joe]
Slide Graphic – two men eating at a homeless shelter
A drunk was miraculously converted at a Bowery mission. Prior to his conversion, Joe had the reputation of being a dirty wino for whom there was no hope, only a miserable existence in the ghetto. But following his conversion to a new life with God, everything changed. Joe became the most caring person that anyone associated with the mission had ever known. Joe spent his days and nights hanging out at the mission doing whatever needed to be done. There was never any task that was too lowly for Joe to take on. There was never anything that he was asked to do that was beneath him. Whether it was cleaning the vomit left by some violently sick alcoholic or scrubbing the toilets after careless men left the bathroom filthy Joe did what was asked with a soft smile on his face and with a seeming gratitude for the chance to help. He could be counted on to feed feeble men who wandered into the mission off the street, to undress and tuck into bed men who were too out of it to take care of themselves.
One evening, when the director of the mission was delivering his evening evangelical message to the usual crowd of still and sullen men with drooped heads, there was one man who looked up, came down the aisle to the alter and knelt to pray, crying out for God to help him to change. The repellant drunk kept shouting, “Oh God, make me like Joe! Make me like Joe! Make me like Joe! Make me like Joe!”
The director of the mission leaned over and said to the man, “Son, I think it would be better if you prayed, ‘Make me like Jesus!’”
The man looked up at the director with a quizzical expression on his face and asked, “Is he like Joe?”
(from “Hot Illustrations for Youth Talks” – by Wayne Rice)
The people around us don’t have the chance to see Jesus in the flesh. All they can see is us. Can they see Jesus in you?
The life you have lead is a witness – either a tribute to yourself or a tribute to Christ. You build that tribute brick by brick as surely as a bricklayer builds a wall. Every action you take, every choice you make either adds a brick for Christ or one for yourself. People aren’t drawn to Christ by listening to you talk – they are drawn to Christ when they see the character of Christ in the life you have built. What kind of a tribute are you building? At school? At home?
