I'll give you a response ... although most people will be forced to take it with a grain of salt -
because of what the churches have taught.
Often, though not always, those of equal or greater spiritual attainment than Jesus of Nazareth have lived the life of a hermit, without families ... or other of the trappings that go with life in the world of appearances.
Notice in the East, for example, that in India and Hindu societies, there are even specific
stages through which we all can
generally be said to pass, wherein
Sannyasin, that of
monkhood or renunciation, corresponds to that for which the 12 Apostles were called. Prior to this, we go through the stages of
brahmacharya, grihastha, and
vanaprastha ... meaning that of
studenthood (or chastity),
householder, and
forest dweller (or hermit-hood), respectively.
It is not suggested that
every man or woman must pass through all of these. Some may not proceed past the
householder stage in a given lifetime, while others may even skip this stage altogether, and proceed to
hermit-hood or even the final stage of a
Sannyasin. As we remember that Jesus was a man - a human being - called for a high and Holy Purpose, yet also
fully subject to the conditions of life on planet Earth ... let us borrow from the Wisdom of the East in approaching this question.
For Jesus to call the 12 Apostles to
their respective stage(s) of vanaprastha or Sannyasa, while he himself was undergoing that of
grihastha or householder, is not hypocrisy. We PRESUME to fully know God's plan, when we say that
Jesus could not have been going through something different than the 12 Apostles whom he called to follow him. In fact, if we say that there was
no difference between what they were going through, then I think we are in error, for surely there were similarities, but was not
Christ Jesus exemplifying for us what it means to Master life's challenges
on a HIGHER turn of the spiral?
There are people in the world today, as there have been both
before the times of Jesus,
and since, who are of equal and greater spiritual attainment ... and who also have, or have had,
families, even as they served in a high, holy office spiritually speaking. I do not mean with the Catholic Church; I mean with
God's Church (which encompasses the entire planet, and not one specific
sect or division). Men and women living in our world today bear witness to this fact; they testify to it with their very presence among us. Ask their children, their wives, their husbands.
The skeptics, or those who have
long been taught by the ecclesiastical "authorities" that Jesus had only (or primarily) MALE followers, will find it difficult to believe, as the truth unfolds, that some of Christ's closest disciples were women. Why do people continue to
insist on
enthroning a MAN ... rather than acknowledging the Presence of the LIVING GOD, within
every human heart? Is it, perhaps, because if we keep him
JUST out of reach ... then we do not have to take things so hard
WHEN we fall short?
If Jesus of Nazareth and a wife, and even children, why can't we simply accept that THIS, too, was in keeping with Divine Law and Order? Why would this
somehow LESSEN the Lessons ... which Christ taught us? Why does HAVING A FAMILY mean that somehow,
God loved, or loves, us LESS ... through Christ? WHY, oh WHY, do people insist on saying things like,
"God gave us His only begotten SON, Christ (Jesus)" ... yet find it so objectionable that Jesus of Nazareth may have reared children of his own?
Quahom, if there is
hypocrisy ... then surely it is in THIS -
discrepancy - in the "thinking" of so many a
believer ... and NOT in any of the
possible actions or choices of a
Jesus of Nazareth, or
Mary Magdelene, or other Holy One.
Thus, we have it precisely BACKWARDS.
~Zagreus
