At one point in his ministry, Jesus went back home--and was not well received.  I am going to paraphrase Matthew 13: 54-58.  "When He went back home to his own country, he taught in their synagogue.  People were astonished and said, "How did this man get all this wisdom and how does he do these mighty works?  Isn't he the carpenter's son?  Isn't his mother Mary?  Aren't his brothers James, Joses, Simon and Judas?  And aren't sisters here as well?  Who does he think he is?"

Jesus answered and said to them, "A prophet isn't honored in his own country and in his own house.  So he didn't do very many mighty works there because of their unbelief."

These people knew him.  They knew his family.  But they didn't know his message.  They didn't see him as the Messiah.  He was just a local woodworker to them.  Can you imagine how difficult it would be for Jesus' brothers and sisters to understand who he was!  I am sure that Mary tried to explain his miraculous birth.  The flight from Egypt.  The day that he taught in the temple at Jerusalem--when he was only twelve years old.   But still, he was family to them.  Not God.

James, his brother, eventually understood and accepted him as the Christ.  James wrote one of the books in the New Testament to affirm Jesus' Messianic role in the world.  Mary and Joseph knew who Jesus was.  They had both been told by angels--on separate occasions.

Jesus was God.  He came to earth as a man to show us what God is like.  To die a sacrificial death in our stead.  It is one of the hardest principles of Christianity to understand.  How could God limit himself in every way to be just like us?  Why would He do that??  Never once, as far as I can find, did Jesus use the power of God for himself.  Only for others.  The Roman soldiers taunted him and told him that if he was the Messiah to come down off the cross.  Jesus didn't do that.  He bore our sins.  And died.

For us.