Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"
The age of 33-1/2 is a prime age for all able young men. At that age, you are just entering the excitement of being an adult; you are still young, just out of your youth; the beginnings of maturity are being seen and felt in your being; you are in that little period just between youth and manhood. Your dreams for your life's accomplishments are now the brightest and most hopeful. All of your natural abilities are at their best.
And that was the age when Satan attacked the young Man Jesus, and killed Him by crucifixion. The Bible is clear that Jesus in His incarnation was "in all things ... made like His brethren" (Heb. 2:17) "As the children have partaken of flesh and blood, He Himself likewise shared in the same" (vs. 14).
As a young Man of 33-1/2 Jesus looked forward to life, just as we do at that age; He was indeed the divine Son of God, but He had laid aside the prerogatives of His divinity and chose to face life and to live it as we do with only one difference--"yet without sin" (4:15).
His consciousness was like ours at that age; for 33-1/2 years Jesus had successfully resisted all of Satan's temptations, and had conquered him. And Jesus had come as the long-promised Messiah to the Jewish people; but "He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him" (John 1:11).
Yes, He was the divine Son of God; but does that mean that in His consciousness as One of us He was omniscient at that time? He knew of His coming death for the sins of the world--He had known it ever since the age He was attending His first Passover with Joseph and Mary in Jerusalem. He said to them then, "Why is it that you sought Me? Did you not know that I must be about My Father's business?" (Luke 2:49). He looked at the white robed priest slaying the Passover lamb and He knew deep in His soul, that the Lamb of God was Himself.
When He returned later to Nazareth, the village children tried to get Him to play with them in their games; but He couldn't put His heart into it. His mother Mary was perplexed by Him; already old Simeon's prophecy of her was beginning to be fulfilled, "a sword will pierce through your own soul" (vss. 34, 35). Imagine the horror of her soul when she had to watch her Son be crucified!
In the resurrection day I hope I can have a minute to thank her for being the mother of our Savior! No other mother has endured the burden that she did. And I will kneel and thank her Son for saying No! to all the earthly joy that could have been His at the age He died for us.
--Robert J. Wieland
From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: November 13, 2008.
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