Mark 6:1-6a

03/17/09
Mark 6:1-6a
Final


Antithesis

We like to romanticize the idea of home. We hear all kinds of sayings and songs about home. “Home is where the heart is.” “I wish I was homeward bound.” Home is where we can be comfortable, where everyone knows us and we know everybody. There are no surprises at home. Home is safe, home is predictable, home is accepting. And yet, when Jesus goes home, he has a somewhat different experience. He goes home to his toughest congregation yet. Jesus ministered all throughout Galilee and even into Gentile territory with dramatic displays of divine power, only to come home and have his family and neighbors take offense at him. We read that Jesus could do no deed of power there and he was amazed at their unbelief.

This passage shows up after a string of miracles and success stories. Everywhere Jesus went, signs and wonders were being done. When he came home, to the place where we would think that he would be most readily accepted, he was rejected instead. Though his ministry was marked by great deeds of power, we read that he could do none in his hometown, in the city of Nazareth.

To human eyes, it looks like Jesus has not succeeded in ministering to the Nazarenes. It seems as though Jesus, God among us, has failed. This is amplified because we do not read that Jesus did not do the deeds of power but that he could not do them. According to Mark, when Jesus came to his hometown, the faithlessness of the people prevented him from having the kind of successful ministry that he had elsewhere.

This is a disturbing thought. After all, we are all too often like the Nazarenes, are we not? Just like the people in the story, we pay lip service to God, amazed at the wisdom and power of God manifest in Jesus Christ, and yet, having spent so much time with the gospel, we sometimes feel like we have God wrapped up in a box, unable to do anything unexpected and therefore under our control.

Among the hardhearted Nazarenes, ministry has failed to take root. Signs and wonders have not broken out, sins have not been declared to be forgiven, we hear of no wise and profound parables being told, and we do not see Jesus overturning the old religious system. The people of Nazareth should have recognized Jesus for who he was, but they hardened their hearts against his words. Is it possible that we, the church of all people, who should receive the words of Christ with gladness, have ever amazed the Son of God with our unbelief? Have even we kept the God of the universe from doing deeds of power in our midst?


Thesis

Though this seems like an example of the failure of God, we must make sure we understand what this failure really looks like. If we look carefully, we notice that, sandwiched in between the admission that Christ could do no deed of power in Nazareth and His amazement at their unbelief is the surprising statement, beginning with the word “except.” “Except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them.”

Brothers and sisters, this is a tremendous statement. What does this say about what we would call God’s “failures?” Even when Jesus could do no deed of power, we read about him laying hands on the sick, curing them. We read in the Scriptures that the foolishness of God is wise and the weakness of God is strong. Indeed, the failure of God is success. Even when the people take offense at him, even when he is amazed at their unbelief, even when the gospel writer himself tells us that, because of the rejection, he could do no deed of power, Jesus is still working, still healing, still transforming the world.

Behold the sovereignty of God. Even when we are at our worst, we are not able to tie God’s hands. It is tempting for us to think that whether God moves or not is based on our faith, on our sincerity and how hard we work. When we do this, we make God our servant, unable to work until we pave the way. No, the God of the universe is not bound in this way. Indeed, even in faithless Nazareth, we see Jesus laying his hands on the sick, curing them.

What manner of God do we serve whose failure is success? How mighty is our Lord, that he can overcome our shortcomings, even our willful rejection, and bring healing to our brokenness? Our God never waits for us to be worthy, but acts in spite of our unworthiness and our amazing unbelief.

It is important to notice that it is at this point, right after Jesus demonstrates that even the most tragic failure of human beings to respond to God does not stop divine healing from taking place, that he sends out the twelve disciples to join in his ministry. These twelve ordinary men are sent out and begin to do the things that Jesus is doing. We read that “they went out and proclaimed that all should repent. They cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them.”

Relevant Question

So, when we see that God is at work even when all signs point to the contrary, what do we do? How should we respond to this startling discovery?

Synthesis

Let us open our eyes to see God at work all around us. If God was at work among the Nazarenes, who amazed the Son of God with their unbelief, surely God is at work here too. If we look around and see nothing but our own faithlessness, our stubbornness to accept the word of the Lord, and the offense that we all too often take at Jesus, we will miss the fact that God is in our midst, laying his hands on the sick, curing them.

Once we have seen God at work, though, we must not remain silent about it. As soon as the disciples had seen that even the failure of God is success, they were sent out into the world as an extension of the ministry of Christ. If they had gone out any earlier, they might have gotten discouraged the moment they ran up against unbelief, but they were equipped to see the healing of God, even among the hardest of hearts.

We are called to go out into the world and share the good news of Jesus Christ with others. Because of the good news that we have received, we go into ministry, as the disciples did, with our eyes wide open; removing our rose-colored glasses and putting on the clear lenses of the gospel. Because of this, we can go boldly, unafraid of failure because we know that God will move in spite of rejection and weakness. Indeed, we go because we know that God has gone on ahead of us, transforming our unbelief, as well as the unbelief of others, by his almighty power.

God is moving among us. It might be that those in the church, those who should be the most ready to listen to the word of God, might not have ears to hear. It might be that even in God’s own house, people are not giving God honor. If so, what do we do? God has given us no room to sit still, lamenting the lack of faith that we think we see. If no one in the house of God will listen to the word of the Lord, go outside the walls of the church. If those who live around you will not listen, go into the world and share the good news. Whether we notice it our not, God has been at work, he is at work, and he will continue to work, despite our amazing unbelief. Silence is not an option. Go and let the Lord transform the world through you.

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.