SCANDAL OF THE CROSS: Jesus’s Caste

  Royalty are born in prosperity. Commoners are born into humble means. The first thing that baby Jesus experienced outside the womb was rudimentary things: the timbers of the manger, animals, fodder, and his working parents. Compare that to Herod’s habitation. The boy who would be King was certainly not what we would consider to be royalty!
  Jesus was descended from King David and was of the royal house of David. However, the new dynasty was Herodian. Jesus was not of the house of the Hasmoneans, but of David himself. Herod was prosperous and respected whereas Jesus was only sustained and ordinary. That Jesus would be king was scandalous!
  King Herod saw his throne threatened. He feared baby Jesus! Perhaps he knew Judaism well. Perhaps he knew that a Messiah would come to reign. Because of the adoration from kings from afar, Herod issued the order to slaughter the innocents.
  It was scandalous that a commoner would be king, and as scandalous that a commoner would be the Messiah. God made kings. They had been from the line of David, Jeroboam, or at a minimum, the Hasmoneans. That Jesus was from line of tradesmen was scandalous, and caused the royalty to doubt his royal birth!
  Egypt symbolized sin and Pharaoh Satan. Jesus was thought to be safer in the “land of sin” with a “devil” than in his own land with evil King Herod. Throughout Judean history, it was always scandalous for the Jewish kings to turn to Eyypt for security, but that’s what Joseph and Mary did. Turning to the enemy was always heretical as Jews turned their backs on God. Jesus’s parents did what kings ordinarily did by turning to Egypt. The strict Jews of that time would have thought that scandalous. They had learned their lesson well; Jews are not to turn to Gentiles for safety, but to the Lord God of Israel alone. Because the boy who would be king did the very thing that evil Zedekiah did, was scandalous, if indeed, he was heir to David’s throne!
  Jesus was a “tradesman,” the son of a tradesman. Translators have made Joseph and Jesus out to be carpenters, perhaps because carpenters were the most prevalent of the trades. It makes sense that Jesus was a carpenter! Why so?
  Carpenters make things of wood. The Garden of Eden contained mostly things of cellulose: trees, vines, herbs, and such. In fact, think of the Garden of Eden as a “Garden of Living Trees” with the foremost of them in the midst of the Garden.
  As carpenters make things of wood, Jesus made “trees” alive by breathing life into empty souls. By that I mean, that Jesus was in the Garden as the Voice ministering to the things therein. I contend that the other trees around the two in the midst of the Garden were potential beings whose souls Jesus would make flesh. As blind Bartimaeus received his sight, immediately he, “saw men, as trees walking” (Mark 8:24). With the Garden, I see trees as men waiting to walk! In other words, the trees of the Garden are also symbolic of men who Adam was to “dress and keep” (serve and preserve).
  With that insight, I was astounded by the Hebrew meaning of, “In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth” (Gen 1:1). “Created” from the Hebrew (bara’) has one meaning of “cutting wood.” In other words, God fashioned things as wood would be carved. That trees were prevalent in the Garden makes sense with Jesus as the “Carpenter” who fashioned the heavenly and earthly things! “Jesus, the carpenter carved all things?” you ask. Indeed, he did:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth. (John 1-3,14)

John recognized that Jesus was the Carpenter who created everything. However, the Jews failed to see that Jesus was not only King of the heaven and earth, but its Creator as well. The scandal of his trade made him a source of humiliation among his own people:

And he went out from thence, and came into his own country; and his disciples follow him. And when the sabbath day was come, he began to teach in the synagogue: and many hearing him were astonished, saying, From whence hath this man these things? and what wisdom is this which is given unto him, that even such mighty works are wrought by his hands? Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James, and Joses, and of Juda, and Simon? and are not his sisters here with us? And they were offended at him. But Jesus, said unto them, A prophet is not without honour, but in his own country, and among his own kin, and in his own house. (Mark 6:1-4)

  His friends commented about the, “mighty works which are wrought by his hands,” but failed to realize how extensive his “works” were. They thought of Jesus as a wordsmith who knew the interpretation of God’s Word without realizing that he was the one who spoke those words! They gave Jesus credit for smithing words, but not for carving the heaven and the earth!
  His own people diminished Jesus when they dismissed the importance of his trade: Is this not a common carpenter who speaks, and not a wise man? “They were offended by him,” and dishonored their own.  It was scandalous that a mere carpenter would be a pretender to the throne!
  Think on that! They knew Hebrew and knew Genesis 1:1, but failed to realize that this mere carpenter “cut the wood” for all things created! Why must God be honored? Because He is our Creator. Then God comes to the Earth in the Flesh, was of the elements of the earth, in our same image, but they failed to recognize God even when they saw him. Soon they were unable to recognize God when Jesus died for them! The “scandal of the cross” began when the Jews failed to see God in "Jesus’s face" (John 10:30).
  Jacob saw and wrestled with a “man” and recognized him:

And Jacob asked him, and said, Tell me, I pray thee, thy name. And he said, Wherefore is it that thou dost ask after my name? And he blessed him there. And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: for I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved. (Gen 32:9-10)

  Moses saw God but did not see His face. Finally, Moses was brought to the Mount of Transfiguration, and there he saw God’s face when Jesus and his Father appeared as one Existence.     What is scandalous about Jesus’s trade? His own people saw God face-to-face and failed to recognize Him as Jacob had. Bartimaeus saw God as a “Tree,” but his own friends could not even see Jesus as the “face of God!” They saw only a mere carpenter who had more knowledge than even King Solomon, but failed to recognize his true identity. The scandal of the cross was due to the killing of a  meek low-life carpenter who claimed to be King of the Jews. And that was blasphemy.
  Jesus is the “Tree of Life” still standing on the River of God in the City of God in Paradise. He stands in the identical place he always stood except when he was “a tree walking” among us!

In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. (Rev 22:2)

  The Jews that caused him to be cut down saw Jesus as nothing more than a rebellious crazy or drunken carpenter. They played God when they cut-down God. Ironically, the Cross itself was scandalous because that was the “tree” on which the centermost “Tree” was cut down. “And when they had fulfilled all that was written of him, they took him down from the tree, and laid him in a sepulchre. (Acts 13:29).
  With the scandalous Tree chopped down, Jesus returned to his birthplace. His sepulcher is symbolic of the stable in which he was born. Historians believe that the stable in which Jesus was born was in a cave since that was often a common place for stables. The humiliated Jesus was laid to rest in a cave just as when he was born. Jesus was born meek and died meek. The key to Heaven is meekness just as Jesus was meek!
  Since Jesus’s birth, mankind, commencing with Herod, has endeavored to cut down Jesus, and Jesus allowed himself to be cut-down for Herod’s and the people’s sake… not just for the Jews but all mankind. God was born to be humiliated so that His creatures could have the hope of eternal life. Those who knew Jesus best, excepting John, saw Jesus as a humble carpenter fashioning wood for pay, but I see Jesus as a royal Craftsman creating royal things for free! Jesus made life with his hands, as he was the “hand of God” (Job 19:21), as well as “the face of God.” That a humble carpenter who served mankind for free is scandalous. Everything about Jesus’s purpose was a scandal to those who questioned his claim to Godhood.