Familiarity, Faith, and Fear
Mark 6:1-6
Introduction: When the military personnel returned to the U.S. at
the end of the Vietnam War, they were not, for the most part, received with
respect and thanksgiving for their service and sacrifices… Unlike their fathers
from World War 2 and the Korean war, they were viewed as representing an unpopular war
and were essentially rejected by many, certainly not received as heroes.
Thankfully that has changed over the last 20 years or so… Truth: Homecomings are not always joyful!
In our
passage today, Jesus returns a second time to His home in Nazareth. We read
about the first visit, immediately after the temptation in the wilderness and
essentially announcing the beginning of His public ministry, when He spoke in
the synagogue in Nazareth in Luke 4. In that context Jesus reads from the
prophet Isaiah (Lk 4:18,19; cf. Isa 61:1,2) and makes what amounts to a
startling messianic claim: “Today this
Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing” (Lk 4:21). How is He received? Not
so well… Yes, initially “…all spoke well of
him and marveled at the gracious words that were coming from his mouth…” (Lk 4:22). But just a few verses later, especially
after He alludes to the lack of faith among the Jews in times past and the purposes
of God including the gentiles…
28 When they heard these things, all in the synagogue were
filled with wrath. 29 And
they rose up and drove him out of the town and brought him to the brow of the
hill on which their town was built, so that they could throw him down the
cliff. 30 But passing through
their midst, he went away… (Luke 4:28-30).
They moved quickly from acceptance to absolute
rejection and murderous intentions! This points to Jesus’ experience the last
week of His life, as things move from the Triumphal Entry, to betrayal,
desertion, and Calvary. “He came unto His
own, but His own received Him not…” (John 1:11). But His time was not yet,
and He passed through their midst and left. We know from John 7:5, that “even His own brothers were not believing in Him”
for a time (only after the resurrection are they among the disciples). In Mark 3:21, we read that “some of his own”
came out to seize him, thinking he was out of his mind!
Now,
perhaps a year after the first return to Nazareth, things had changed. The news
of the crowds that had come to hear him preach and among whom signs, miracles,
and wonders were being done had spread throughout Galilee and had certainly
come to Nazareth. Would the people of
His hometown, where He had spent nearly thirty years, from infancy to
adulthood, finally be ready to receive Him?
Unbelief
is not simply the absence of faith, but the determined rejection of Jesus. People are offended by Him because they are
afraid of what acknowledging Him would mean. I believe they are afraid of
letting go of their perception of autonomy, the idea that they are the master
of their own lives, and admitting that they owe allegiance to another. People
resist Jesus because they are afraid that they will need to surrender their
life to another Master! That brings us to…
The Maine* Idea: When people refuse to believe in Jesus they are not
rejecting you... they are afraid of what acknowledging Him would mean.
I. Unbelief denies
that Jesus is who He revealed Himself to be (1-3).
He went away from there and came to his hometown, and
his disciples followed him. 2
And on the Sabbath he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him
were astonished, saying, "Where did this man get these things? What is the
wisdom given to him? How are such mighty works done by his hands? 3 Is not this the carpenter, the
son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon? And are not his
sisters here with us?" And they took offense at him.
Unbelief
rejects the testimony of His works and words (1,2). Jesus returned to his
hometown, along with a group of His disciples, and as was His custom went to
the synagogue. Jesus returns to Nazareth, His hometown, which at that time was
probably a small and largely insignificant village. With probably only a few
hundred people, it was the kind of place where everyone knew everyone, and probably
knew everything about them. If you are from Boothbay you have an idea of what
I’m talking about! As Jesus arrived in the village, He went to the synagogue on
the Sabbath, along with His disciples, and began to teach. We are not told
about the content of what He was saying, but most likely He is preaching the
Gospel of the Kingdom and calling people to repent of their sins and trust in
God. Mark says the people were “astonished” at His teaching. The word used here
can have the sense of being dumbfounded, flabbergasted, without an ability to
explain something. How could Jesus, a carpenter, suddenly be transformed into a
rabbi? Notice the questions they ask. This is not an honest investigation, a
consideration of the evidence. Rather, it shows a desperate search for a reason
NOT to believe…
Where did this man get these things?
They knew that Jesus hadn’t studied under a rabbi, nor did He have a learned
father. Where did He get the training to
stand up and teach? How could He
suddenly return to town with a group of followers and begin teaching with such authority?
In other words, it wasn’t what Jesus was saying that they are objecting
to, but rather, His lack of a résumé that would
quality Him as a spiritual teacher. The next “objection” is similar…
What is the wisdom given to Him?
Remember that in Judaism “wisdom” has spiritual connotations… “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of
wisdom…” (Psalm 111:10; Prov
9:10). It seems Jesus did the trade he learned from Joseph well, but did not
reveal much about himself to his neighbors during the 30 years or so before the
start of His public ministry. There was that one trip to Jerusalem when He was
12 years old, about which we read in Luke 2:41-47. Then He amazed the rabbis
and others present with His understanding and His questions. Still, here in
Nazareth, this was Jesus, Mary’s son. How did He get this understanding and
wisdom?
How are such mighty works done by His
hands? It wasn’t only Jesus’
words, but His works that raised questions in the minds of His town folk. We
are later told that Jesus only heals “a few” people during this time in
Nazareth. Was that enough to astound them? I would be pretty astounded by people being
immediately healed through the laying on of hands! Or, could it be that they are
referring to the stories that were circulating about the widespread miracles
and works of power Jesus was doing through Galilee? Stories like delivering the demon possessed
man from the legion, or healing a paralytic, or even raising a young girl to
life? Probably some of both. Remember,
some had seen the miracles He did and attributed them to the devil, refusing to
believe. It seems now His own people were looking for reasons to ignore the
evidence.
Is not this… the son of Mary… It
was highly unusual for someone to be described as the son of his mother even if
his father had already passed. Remember this is a small town, probably just a few
hundred. The kind of place where everyone knows all about everyone and their
family. It may be that the “rumors” about Mary getting pregnant before she
married Joseph had persisted, and bringing up that story by referring to Him as
“Mary’s son” (rather than the son of
Joseph) was one more way of attempting to discredit Jesus as someone worthy of
a hearing. “He’s got all these brothers and sisters… or at least half brothers and sisters… we’re not
even sure who this guy’s father was!” How could someone born as he was possibly
be the messiah? Yes, “He came to His own,
but His own did not receive Him!”
Unbelief
is offended by the humility of His incarnation (3). Is this not the carpenter?
Though we traditionally translate the word here as “carpenter,” tekton, has the broader sense of a “builder.”
It could refer to someone that worked with wood or stone, though probable some
of both. It was a respected trade among the Jews, but not a rabbi or spiritual
leader. Who did He think He was to stand up and teaching in the synagogue? They would certainly not entertain the idea of
the Messiah coming from such a humble background! By the way, His humble
background was later a stumbling block to the Jews in general. When told by
Philip in John 1 that they had found the Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth, Nathanael
asked, “Can anything good come out of
Nazareth?” (Jn 1:46). The little insignificant town in Galilee? I don’t
think so! The nation was looking for the Messiah in the first century, but most
envisioned a military leader, someone like Saul, or David. or Solomon, and not
a suffering Servant, a wandering rabbi who had basically the clothes on his
back, a handful of followers, and, by His own admission, not even a place to
lay his own head (Mt 8:20)! And so they took
offense at Him. The word is the root from which we get the word “scandal”
or “scandalize.” It may be that Isaiah envisioned this when he wrote,
"Do not call conspiracy all that this people calls
conspiracy, and do not fear what they fear, nor be in dread. 13 But the LORD of hosts, him you
shall regard as holy. Let him be your fear, and let him be your dread. 14 And he will become a sanctuary
and a stone of offense and a rock of stumbling to both houses of Israel,
a trap and a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem. 15 And many shall stumble on it… (Isaiah 8:12-15).
Jesus,
who had shown only kindness, truth, and love, became an offense! His own did not receive Him. Do people
you talk to seem to recoil when subject turns to Jesus? Don’t take it
personally! When people refuse to believe in Jesus they are not rejecting you...
they are afraid of what acknowledging Him would mean.
II. Unbelief
rejects the messenger who is offering words of life (4).
“And Jesus said to them, "A prophet is not without honor, except in
his hometown and among his relatives and in his own household.”
For a second time Jesus goes home to the
village where he grew up and worked as a young adult. And for a second time He
is rejected by his own people. Let me ask: How did it go for you when you put
your trust in Christ and first tried to speak to the people you knew? What
about now, do you find it difficult to witness to the people closest to you?
You are not alone! People in their fallenness are already resistant to
spiritual things, and as a result they will embrace any “smokescreen” they can
find to avoid the truth. It is particularly easy to get personal, and to say hurtful
things we would never say to a stranger or to someone we don’t know as well to
those who are closest to us, our family, life-long acquaintances and the like.
At first
this may seem a little contradictory. We’ve been talking about the Laser-focused Church ministry vision for
over a year. On one hand, statistics consistently show that 95% of those who
come to faith and are eventually discipled, active church attenders, come
primarily because of the influence of someone in their oikos, that is, their extended family and friends. Yet it is also true that it can be more
difficult to talk to those same people, not because they get upset or hysterical, but because they get historical! What I mean by that is that
they know the stories about us in our youth (or stories from last week!)
that demonstrated our weakness and vulnerability, and yes, our fallenness. They
know the times we acted in the flesh and were inconsistent with the faith we
professed. And so, they attack. It may be laughter or mockery, it may be anger,
it may be dismissal. Jesus says don’t be
surprised by rejection… the world hated Him first!
So, what
do we do? First of all, it is good to admit that there is probably at least a
little truth in what people say about us! I know my younger brothers, and
sometimes even my sister or my parents, would say occasionally something like
“is that how a Christian would act?” Not that they cared about my soul
necessarily since they weren’t believers, but they liked to remind me that I
was giving them an excuse not to believe!
We read some admonitions about that in I Peter, about living in such a
way before the world that rather than giving them an excuse not to believe, we
are offering a testimony to the transforming power of the grace of God (see for
example I Peter 1:14f.; 2:1ff.; 3:14-16). We are His witnesses, may out
lives consistently reflect the reality of our faith! So, don’t give up, keep loving them, keep
praying for them, stay open to opportunities to point them to Jesus. After
all, when people refuse to believe in Jesus they are not rejecting you... they
are afraid of what acknowledging Him would mean!
III.
Unbelief separates from the blessing God would give (5,6).
“And he could
do no mighty work there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and
healed them. 6 And he
marveled because of their unbelief. And he went about among the villages
teaching.”
Matthew is
more explicit in connecting unbelief and the relative sparsity of miracles in
Nazareth: “And He did not do many
miracles their because of their
unbelief…” (Mt 13:58). Mark, as
he sometimes does, uses language that is more difficult: “And he could do no mighty work there…” The phrase would seem
to imply that the lack of faith among the inhabitants of Nazareth limited
Jesus’ ability to do miracles there.
Does that mean that His power is limited by human unbelief? I don’t think
so, since we see many cases where Jesus does miracles with no reference to the
faith of the person who is healed. In John 9, at the beginning of the story, the
blind man did not even know who it was that healed him. In Luke 17:12-19, Jesus
heals ten lepers, but only one returns to give thanks and is commended for his
faith. The dead daughter of Jairus certainly didn’t have faith, nor did the man
possessed by the Legion on the other side of the lake. It seems in some cases
the miracles Jesus did evoked faith,
but they were not enabled by faith. What is Mark’s point? What was so different
in Nazareth as compared to the earlier ministry in Galilee?
How then
does unbelief limit the powerful work of God? A verse in John 2:24 comes to
mind, “…He did not entrust
[the same verb, pisteuo, “believe”] himself to them because He knows all people…”
He knew their hearts, they rejected the light that they had and so Jesus moved
on. In other areas of Galilee, the crowds poured in, people told people and
they brought the sick and the lame and the demon possessed to Him for healing.
A year earlier, when Jesus made a messianic claim in the synagogue they took
him to the edge of town and were ready to throw him off a precipice! Now it
seems they dismiss him. “Who is out there
speaking on the common? Oh, it’s only Jesus… never mind…” How could they
even consider a common craftsman, a carpenter, as a serious teacher… much less as
the promised messiah? In other places they brought to Him the sick, the lame,
the oppressed, and He healed them all (eg. Matt 12:15)! Here, they dismissed
the One who could meet their deepest needs. “He came to His own, but His own did not receive Him…”
It’s interesting that only twice is
Jesus said to “marvel” or “be amazed” about something. One was positive,
involving a gentile, in Luke 7:8,9, where Jesus “marvels” at the faith of a
centurion. The other is here, in Nazareth, when Jesus returns a second time to
His hometown. Here He “marvels” at their unbelief.
What is God
saying to me in this passage?
When people refuse to believe in Jesus they’re not rejecting you... they’re
afraid of what acknowledging Him would mean.
What would
God have me to do in response to this passage? It is astounding to us that people who knew Jesus for
maybe thirty years failed to recognize the truth about Him, and ultimately
rejected Him.
Could it be that our unbelief is
limiting a work that He would do in our midst? Is there someone you have
stopped praying for because they seem so hard and unreachable? Is anything
too difficult for God? He saved us didn’t He? Have we failed to embrace the
mission of reaching our friends, relatives, neighbors and co-workers? If
this is true, if eternity really is at stake, don’t we need to risk it, and
with gentleness and respect look for openings to give a reason for the hope
that is in us? Maybe we need to rethink our motto, “A lighthouse of God’s grace and truth.” That’s ok. But we need to
think about that not only in terms of our united mission as a church, but also our
calling as individual members. We are called to be a hundred lights, all
of us, all around this community, wherever God has placed us, looking to point
those in our families and our community to Him! He saved us on purpose, for
a purpose… let’s live worthy of the calling with which we have been called!
Think through that group of people in your oikos. Let’s recommit ourselves to pray
daily for their souls, and to ask, “How can I best point them to Jesus?” AMEN!
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