As we celebrate our Lord Jesus’ birth and by extension his life on earth, I’ve been pondering how he chose a human father who worked in construction. The word that is translated “carpenter” in Matthew 13:55 and Mark 6:3 actually denotes “a craftsman or builder in wood, stone or metal”. If we look at the time when Jesus was growing up in Nazareth, there was a lot of building going on around the region and it was very likely that Joseph and his sons were heavily involved in those projects, making Jesus a construction worker. Perhaps the Divine Father was preparing his Son for another, more important Project: building God a House; for this was what God had promised David his descendant would do.
When we look at God’s covenant with David in 2 Samuel 7 and 1 Chronicles 17, Yahweh promises to raise up a seed from David who will build Yahweh a house. True, Solomon built Yahweh a house; and it was magnificent. But Solomon the Glorious was a type of One greater than him (Mt. 12:42; Lk. 11:31); and this Greater One would fulfill God the Father’s will as well (Jn. 5:30; Heb. 10:5-9). Thus, keeping in mind Yahweh’s love of wordplay, Jesus Christ built his God a house, namely the Church, whose foundation is the prophets and apostles (Eph. 2:19-22). Being a human construction worker would help with this concept.
But beyond this Christ is revealed as the designer of the Divine City which he himself builds (Heb. 11:10). In English we use the word “architect” for this, the Greek root meaning of which is “master builder”. He is preparing a place for his followers in his Father’s house, where he will dwell with them for all eternity (Jn. 14:1-3). John’s vision in Revelation tells us that the Father’s house, where God himself will dwell, is a massive city that can hold billions of resurrected humans without feeling even the slight bit crowded (Rev. 21). And all this is built by the God-Man who worked as a builder on earth. It’s another one of those details in Scripture that causes me to laugh and throw up my hands in amazement at God’s infinite creativity in weaving disparate webs into one tight tapestry in a way no human could ever imagine!