It never struck me before until just now. What if God can be seen as a single parent giving away his son to another family? And Jesus then, didn’t he actually grew up in a not-so-perfect family situation? In the Gospels of the New Testament Jesus is called the Son of God. That is probably most clear in the story of when Jesus is baptised and a voice from Heaven say “This is my Son” – Mathew 3:17. This gives the sense of love between a Father and his Son.
On the other hand, it is also likely that Joseph, Jesus earthly Dad disappeared from the picture when Jesus was relatively young. So even parts of his life we can imagine Jesus living in a single mother household. That might not be strange today, but as far as I know, it was different back then.
But wait, does this mean we cannot place Jesus entirely in a contemporary context of a nuclear family where a mother and father always existed? Probably. Did Jesus even know how it would have been to grow up in idealistic nuclear family? Probably not. His parents wasn’t even married. People around would have labelled him as born out of wedlock. He even called someone no one could see or ever meet his Father.
So, no, I don’t think Jesus would have been familiar with our contemporary context of a nuclear family. Does it matter? Yes, because Jesus, and even God would understand what I means with flawed family relationships. Ideal families are just that. Ideal. Question is if any family lives up the ideal we have created. But that a completely different discussion Jesus might not have lived in perfect nuclear family. Instead he understood imperfect family relationship by experience. That is what matters to me.
