Mark 6:1-13 Jesus in His Hometown

Mark 6:5 "He could not do any miracles there." (NIV)

In his hometown Jesus was met by suspicion and ridicule. These people with whom Jesus had grown up from childhood were sure that they knew everything about him, and they were not open to the possibility that anything new and important could have arisen in his life or in their relationship to him. They knew his family and background, and they took offense when Jesus taught in the synagogue because his words came with an authority that his old friends found shocking and unacceptable. Jesus quoted a saying from that day, "Only in his hometown, among his relatives and in his own house is a prophet without honor." (v. 4)

Actually, Mark recorded some miracles. Verse five reads in full, "He could not do any miracles there, except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them." Jesus could have and would have done more. The reason he did not is explained in verse six. Jesus was "amazed at their lack of faith."

Quantity of faith was not the issue. Jesus could have taken a mustard seed of faith and moved a mountain. The problem was lack of faith. Most people in Jesus' hometown did not have the faith that would draw them to him to ask for help. Their pride prevented them from even asking. One could use a common saying sometimes quoted today to describe these folks: "Familiarity breeds contempt." They were so sure that they knew everything about Jesus that they would not entertain the possibility that God's supernatural power was present and available to them through him.

Amazingly, people fall into this same prideful disdain for the Gospel today just as the folks in Jesus' hometown rejected his ministry. For many of those who live in what are described as Christian lands, the Gospel seems too familiar. For them the stories of Jesus and the church and the call to Christian disciplines of prayer, Bible study, worship, giving and service are just too pedestrian, too familiar, too boring. Consequently, people with "itching ears" as Paul described them, listen for some new source of authority, some new approach, some novel interpretation. Their confidence that they have heard everything that Jesus has said and know everything that the church has to offer, makes them spurn the message that God would use to transform their lives if they had enough faith to ask.

So, Jesus left his hometown to teach in the villages that were responsive. He sent his disciples throughout the land to call people to repentance. Those who rejected the message received a symbolic witness. Jesus told his disciples, "And if any place will not welcome you or listen to you, shake the dust off your feet when you leave, as a testimony against them." (v. 11)

People who welcome the authority of Jesus and the message that he has entrusted to the church will be transformed. If they have the humility to repent and the faith to ask for help, they will find that the power of the resurrection and the strength of the living Christ will dwell within them, and with Paul the apostle they will say, "I can do everything through him who gives me strength." (Philippians 4:13)

*******

The Supreme Court Decision. In a very helpful article published in the Washington Post Russell Moore has stated his exception to the decision for same sex marriage and in a gentle but firm spirit written a challenge to the church to stand for truth and speak and minister in love. He made the observation that the church has always been on the wrong side of history; always the church is given the charge to stand as a countersign and witness to a culture gone wrong. Read his article.

Mark 5:21-43 Messianic Secret

Mark 5:43    ". . . strict orders . . . "

Jesus healed people. Jesus raised the dead. He was a wonder worker. Even the most sceptical historian will acknowledge that Jesus was understood to be a person who did wonders. In this passage two people are directly  blessed by the power of Jesus. One was a woman whose illness  had taken her to the exhaustion of all her resources, physical and financial. The other was a synogogue leader who humbled himself before Jesus because he saw his child slipping away into death and he was powerless to help her. The humility and desperation of these two people make us cheer for them. We want Jesus to help them, and he does. Strangely the passage concludes with Jesus saying that he did not want his disciples to spread word of his wonders. Famously, among scholars this statement of Jesus and others like it in the Gospel of Mark have stirred interest and debate.

A question mark at the end of the wonder report reminds me that this important part of Jesus' ministry is not completely understood. In part he did wonders out of compassion, but not all sick people then or now receive healing, and none of the people healed by Jesus were saved from their eventual deaths. Often it is said--and Jesus sometimes explained-- that he did his wonders in order to demonstrate his authority as the Messiah, but then in this passage he told his disciples not to spread word of the wonders. Keeping his work secret suggests that in this passage, at least, he was not working the wonders to support a claim to be Messiah. Perhaps, it was a matter of timing. He was not ready to put forth his claims or he knew the people were not ready to hear his claim. Other ideas can be explored, but the question mark remains. What was the purpose of the wonders Jesus performed, and how do we understand them now, and what wonder do we expect to receive from the touch of Jesus in our lives?

Like the two people in this passage we seek Jesus in faith. We want to touch him; we want his touch of blessing upon us and our loved ones. Faith means that we trust him. We put ourselves before him and under his direction. We want to obey his word. We believe that Jesus will perform the wonder in our lives that we need most. We believe that God loves us and wants the best for us. We do our part, and we rest in the peace that passes understanding when we believe that the all powerful God of love will do his part as well. None of us fully understand the ways of God in each person's life so the question marks remain with us. We cannot fully explain why or when God will bring us to the place that is best for us. Our faith is growing as we learn to live with our questions.

*******

Grandchildren.Sweetie Pie and Mr. Happy were climbing a tree in the front yard when the disposal truck turned on to our street. The driver saw them and tooted his horn. He knows that the children love his recognition. They waved to him and jumped down from the tree to go and watch the men put our containers onto the truck. Jumping up and down, waving, shouting their greeting the children took such pleasure in this simple weekly event. I've seen the same excitement in them over a roly poly bug. To be childlike means to take wonder in all the gifts sent our way. Jesus told us this approach to life opens the doors to the kingdom of God.

Mark 4:35-41 "Even the wind and the waves obey him!"

Mark 4:41 They were terrified and asked each other, “Who is this?”

This passage has several phrases that offer a way into meditation and reflection. For example, as someone in the evening years of life I read the opening verse of this passage as a potential epitaph. Evening came and Jesus said, “Let us go to the other side.” It comforts to imagine those words from the lips of Jesus.

I recently heard that a particular church was suffering a loss of attendance. That can be a disturbing sign or perhaps we read these words in Mark 4:36 and see it differently. “Leaving the crowds behind they took him along.” The disciples were with Jesus. In some cases we may need to lose attendance  or depart the crowds in order to go with Jesus.

The passage turns on the sudden appearance of a storm as the disciples cross the lake. Their boat is nearly swamped. This squall recalls to my mind the way God spoke to Job out of a whirlwind (Job 38:1). The storms of life, actual and metaphorical, often become the means by which God gets our attention so that we listen to his word.

The disciples woke Jesus with the question, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?” Our doubts are sometimes along the same lines. We know that God exists, just as the disciples knew that Jesus was with them in the boat. We question, not God’s existence, but God’s concern for us. Does God want to heal us? Does God want to save our marriage or protect our children or give meaning to our work? The disciples were not the first ones to plead with God to wake up and do something, to show that he cared for them. The psalmists made similar pleas. For example, Psalm 44:23, reads, “Awake, Lord! Why do you sleep? Rouse yourself!” 

“Peace, be still.” (KJV, v. 39) Those words of Jesus used to calm the storm have become the words of an uplifting hymn Master the Tempest Is Raging www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmLtRae65Bg

Jesus asked the disciples why they were afraid and he probed further asking, “Do you still have no faith?” (v. 40) Trust and obedience in the Lord removes our fear. When we are with Jesus we are safe. The winds will calm. The boat will get to the other side, the other side of the lake or the other side of this life. Either way we are safe with Jesus. That is the faith to which he called the disciples. 

They struggled and so do we. Yet they were amazed at the calming of the storm and, at least tentatively, declared their faith with the question, “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!” They had much ahead in their journey with Jesus to amaze them. After the cross and the resurrection they no longer asked, “Who is this?” They proclaimed the Gospel, Jesus is Lord! We live with that same Gospel which is able to give us faith and freedom from fear. God grant it!

Mark 4:26-34 "The Kingdom of God Grows by Grace"

Mark 4:26  “. . . what the kingdom of God is like . . .”

The kingdom of God is a phrase that signifies the rule of God in one’s life and the rule of God in the world. For each believer the kingdom of God has come and is present as we yield our hearts to Jesus; clearly, the rule of God is yet to come to the world as a whole. Every day we see the evidence of the self-destructive refusal to accept God’s grace; though God holds out his arms to his children they continue to turn from the fullness of life that his love freely offers.

Jesus explained to his disciples how the kingdom grows in the life of those who want to live according to God’s rule. First, the kingdom grows by grace. The believer cannot make the kingdom grow. It happens in ways that we do not control or understand (v. 27). We pray; we study; we give; we serve; we worship. We live out the disciplines of the Christian life, but we cannot tie those disciplines to the wonders of God’s bounty in our lives. All our disciplines are ways of expressing gratitude to God. They are not ways of earning God’s blessings. As the harvest of God’s grace comes to fruition in our lives we are often surprised. We know that we do not deserve God’s goodness, and we do not understand the harvest of grace we have received.

Second, the kingdom of God cannot be measured. It begins in ways that we do not see or in ways that seem so small that we count it as nothing (v.31). What starts as the smallest seed becomes a great bush or tree. We can see in this parable of the mustard seed the growth of the church. From almost nothing it has spread round the world to every ethnic group on every continent. All have been invited to the shade and shelter of the tree of life. Just as Jesus envisioned, the kingdom of God has grown from the smallest seed to a great tree. Of course, we cannot fully equate the church and the kingdom of God. The church has much of the rebellious world still in it. But, as Jesus promised, we are learning and growing. We are like the first disciples of whom it was written, Jesus “spoke the word to them, as much as they could understand” (v. 33) Mysteriously, wondrously, secretly and powerfully the kingdom of God grows in and through the church by the grace of God in ways that surprise us still.

*******

Grandchildren. We were outside with Sweetie Pie and Mr. Happy at their house waiting for their father to come to the car. I slipped up behind Mr. Happy and put my hands over his ears and said, “Got ‘em; I got your ears.” He responded in his sternest three year old voice, “Give ‘em back!” Knowing that Mr. Happy is still in the “Magic Years,” and sometimes takes things literally, I pressed gently on his ears and said softly, “Ok, I put them back.” To which he exclaimed, “You put them on backwards!” I laughed out loud; I’d never heard that quip before. His mother had taught him this fun response. Our little exchange reminded me that youth--no matter how young--can delight us and teach us. It is not just the elders instructing the young. The learning goes two-ways, and it is wonderful.