My Name is Jude

What if you grew up with an oldest half-brother, who never told a lie, never cheated, never stole anything in his life, never talked disrespectful to your parents, never shirked to do his chores, never missed church, never cursed, swore, never took God’s name in vain, never lusted, never coveted anything, never envied anything or anyone, never was jealous, never prideful, never disobedient … in fact he never in his whole life did anything wrong?

How would you feel about him, especially after he turned thirty and started doing miracles and teaching the Word of God? What about when it came out that He in fact claimed to be the only begotten Son of God? Your mother knew who He was, but she may never have told you. Well, the guy I am talking about was MY big Brother!

What if you had three other brothers and at least two sisters and none of you were like Him at all. You most likely envied Him at times, may have been jealous, but come on … really? The Son of God? No way! Not my big brother! Even though He was kind to you and went out of His way to help you through life, this was just too much to believe… that your big brother was the perfect child, ok, but the Son of God? In fact, we taunted Him, ridiculed Him at times and we did not love Him as we should have. But He was just so radically different. We were often confused about Him.

Sorry, my name is Jude and until my brothers, sisters and I saw our big Brother nailed to a cross, buried and risen again from the dead, we did not believe in Him either. In fact, shortly after His resurrection from the dead, all my brothers and I finally saw the light and realized that He is exactly who He claimed to be! Now we all believe in Him.

We have gathered with our mother Mary and over a hundred other believers in an upper room here in Jerusalem to pray and wait for “another Comforter” whom He promised to send us. This has been a scary time for all of us, I admit, but we are waiting and praying. The streets are filled with strangers from many distant lands.

Thinking back, my elder Brother, Jesus of Nazareth is now God my Savior and He is my Lord! Again, my name is Jude and you can find my short book just before the last book on the Bible. It is called Jude. Hope you will read it. And I hope you will believe in Him, too!