Jesus’ self-consciousness of divinity and destiny began when he was 12 with the message the first night at Jerusalem from Immanuel to start being about his father’s business. His 14th and 15th years were tough years. He had not much communication with his Adjuster and lots of human temptation. Like other teenagers he was trying to figure out who he would be. This was more complicated for him because of his role in the bestowal of Michael and the need to serve Michaels objectives. But he didn’t know even that he was a child of promise let alone that he was Michael’s bestowal incarnation. His achievement of self-discovery and self-definition were made the same way that all human teenagers make them. These years were the great test, the real temptation. All sorts of things happened that would have diverted his life if he had let them. He could have become the Jewish Messiah or anything else he wanted to become.
He frequently alternated between the affairs of this life and the contemplation of his relationship to his Father’s business. He spent much of his time with Joseph and no doubt talked with him about appropriate careers. His parents didn’t understand him and he didn’t understand himself for quite a while. His parents also did not talk to him about being a child of promise or tell him of Gabriel’s visit and message to Mary or of Joseph’s vivid dream.
Jesus reflected on his experience of the temple at Jerusalem. Over the years he developed a righteous resentment of the presence in the Father’s temple of the politically appointed priests and the commercial transactions. He respected sincere Pharisees and scribes but he held the hypocritical Pharisees and the dishonest theologians in great contempt. He looked with disdain upon all of those religious leaders who were not sincere.
For a time all Nazareth was proud of his exploits confounding the wise men in the temple at Jerusalem.
Before Jesus was 14 years old he had become a good yoke maker and worked well with canvas and leather. He was rapidly developing into an expert carpenter and cabinet maker. In this 14th year he made frequent trips to the top of the hill to the northwest of Nazareth for prayer and meditation. Gradually he was becoming more self-conscious of the nature of his bestowal on earth. He continued his advanced course of reading under the teachers at the synagogue school and continued to home school his brothers and sisters. The family was prosperous and Jesus resumed his music lessons.
Joseph and Mary both had frequent doubts about Jesus’ destiny. He was brilliant but difficult to understand and nothing extraordinary ever happened. Miracles were expected of persons of destiny and Jesus didn’t produce any.
Tue, Sept .25, A.D. 8, a month after Jesus’ 14th birthday, Joseph died of injuries from a falling derrick while at work on the governor’s residence at Sepphoris. None of the family members made it to him before he died. He is buried at Nazareth.
Jesus knew nothing of the Gabriel visit to Mary before Jesus’ birth. He learned about this from John on the day of his baptism, at the beginning of his public ministry. As years passed, Jesus increasingly measured every institution of society and every usage of religion by one test: What does it do for the human soul? Does it bring God to man? Does it bring man to God?
During his 14th year it became the custom for the neighbors to drop in during the winter evenings to hear Jesus play the harp, listen to him tell stories and read the Greek scriptures. He was a master story teller. Jesus demonstrated keen business judgment and financial sagacity. He was liberal but frugal, saving but generous. He was a wise and efficient administrator of his father’s estate.
By the middle of this 15th year Jesus had taken a firm grasp on the management of his family. By the end of the year, the family savings were almost gone. They needed to sell one of the Nazareth houses Joseph owned in partnership with Jacob. Ruth was born the evening of April 17, A.D. 9. This year Jesus formulated what became known as the Lord’s Prayer. It was intended to lead his brothers and sisters into spontaneous personal prayers but the family had many forms of praise and several formal prayers and the children always fell back to using them.
This year Jesus suffered a lot of confused thinking about being about his Father’s business and the need to watch over Joseph’s family. He reasoned rightly that his earthly family had to take precedence. He had thoroughly considered the idea of the Jewish Messiah and had concluded that he was not to be the Messiah. He never expected to lead Jewish armies to overthrow foreign domination of Palestine. Nor did he believe that his spiritual mission was to be directed solely to the Jewish people. He also did not believe that he was to be the Son of Man depicted by the Prophet Daniel.
As he worked at his carpenter’s bench he pondered what his relationship should be after he started his public ministry; to the messiah if he should appear, to his family, to the Jewish commonwealth and religion, to the Roman Empire and to the gentiles and their religion. From this year on he was more cautious about sharing his unusual ideas. He longed for a trustworthy and confidential friend but his problems were too complex for human associates to understand. He had to bear his burden alone.
Jesus delivered his first sermon at the Nazareth synagogue on the first Sabbath after his fifteenth birthday. He carefully chose scriptures and sequenced them so that when he read them they conveyed the message without his having to interpret them. The scriptures chosen presented something of a preview of his future career.
Poverty was catching up with the family month by month. Clothing and meals became simpler and their best food was saved for their evening meal. They had plenty of milk, butter and cheese from their animals and vegetables from their garden in season. The Chazzan continued to believe that Jesus was to become a great teacher. Apparently all of Jesus’ plans for a career were thwarted by circumstances but he was not discouraged. He did not falter. By the end of 9A.D. Jesus was earning only the equivalent of 25 cents per day and the family found it difficult to pay the civil and temple taxes. The tax collector threatened to take Jesus’ harp. Jesus gave his copy of the Greek scriptures to the synagogue library as his maturity offering to the lord on his 15th birthday. In his 15th year Herod ruled that Joseph was owed nothing and Jesus never again trusted Herod Antipas because of the unjustness of his decision.
Jesus’ uncle took over the family supply shop. Jesus worked at his home bench so he was close to help Mary with the children. They couldn’t afford to move to the country as Jesus wanted but Jesus rented a large garden plot near their home and they had three cows, four sheep, a donkey, a flock of chickens, a dog and the doves. So they had many of the experiences of farm life.