Tuesday, July 09, 2024

Sermon - Pentecost 7 - Mark 6:1-13


What amazes you?  Is it something that is unexpected, overwhelming, or fills you with awe?  A strong emotion?  A powerful experience?  A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that catches you up in the moment?  The birth of a child, or a visit to Niagra Falls? A meal that is amazing – that is just prepared so well and tastes so good.  An awesome 4th of July fireworks display? The exhilaration of a test drive in a race car at the Texas motor speedway?  I suppose we use the word “amazing” in lots of different ways.

Our gospel reading uses the word “amazing” twice, and there’s two different words behind it in the Greek.  But maybe there’s even more that’s amazing about this story.  Let’s take a closer look as Jesus visits his home town of Nazareth, and is amazing and amazed.

Though born in Bethlehem, Jesus grew up in Nazareth.  A town in the northern part of Israel, modern archaeology suggests that Nazareth was a town that supplied skilled laborers (or carpenters, like Joseph) to a nearby construction project – the Roman city of Sepphoris.  But Nazareth, it is believed, was a small town of some 400 people.  Certainly small enough that everyone would have known young Jesus, the son of Joseph and Mary, known his family, etc.

But Jesus wasn’t like your typical carpenter from Nazareth.  He had left home for a while, and had gained some measure of popularity through his preaching ministry, after making a splash in Capernaum, and then all around the Sea of Galilee.  And then there were the miracles, not only the healings, but the exorcisms, the feeding of the 5000, the walking on water.  He had done many mighty works, as signs confirming his preaching.  The miracles were like bright neon signs flashing and pointing to the preacher, and to his message.  Listen to this guy!

It starts out well enough, with Jesus entering the synagogue to preach on a Sabbath day.  That was his custom.  Whatever his preaching was, it had an interesting effect on those citizens of Nazareth.  They were amazed.  Astonished. Shocked.

Maybe it was the content, maybe it was the delivery, maybe it was both.  Or maybe it was just that fact that this man wasn’t who they expected him to be.  Where does he get this wisdom?  How does he do these miracles?  Their questions start to give us a clue that their amazement is not appreciative and positive, but rather jealousy, resentment, and downright unbelief.  We are told, “They took offense at him.”  Not that he did anything to warrant the offense, but that’s how they took him.  They are amazed and astonished in Jesus, but NOT in a good way.

And we might find it amazing that they reacted this way.  We might expect that the people of Nazareth, of all people, would accept and receive Jesus eagerly.  That they would see him as a hometown hero, and take pride in his fame and accomplishments.  Even if only on a human level, it does strike us as kind of amazing that they reacted to Jesus with such animosity.

Luke’s gospel also tells us of a visit Jesus made home to Nazareth.  And scholars disagree as to whether Luke is telling about the same visit or another occasion, but in any case, at the end of Luke’s account – the people of Nazareth are so offended by Jesus that they try to throw him off a cliff!  Now THAT is an amazing reaction to a sermon!

Jesus, for his part, is also amazed.  He is amazed at their unbelief.  Jesus is only ever recorded as being amazed by faith, or the lack of it.  Of course, maybe that’s because that’s what Jesus is always looking for – faith.  It’s the most important thing to him.  He doesn’t care whether it’s a man or woman, a person of high or low standing, a Jew or a gentile.  He desires that all people would have faith, faith in him as their savior, and be saved.

He was amazed by the faith of the centurion, “even in Israel I have not found such faith!”  But here, it’s the opposite.  Even Jesus is amazed at their lack of faith.  He comments on it with a little saying, “A prophet is not without honor, except in his hometown”.  A sort of truism that defies shallow expectations.  Sort of like, “It’s the ones you love that hurt you the most.” or, “keep your friends close and your enemies closer.”  There’s a deep irony about unbelief.  Like sin itself, it is not what it ought to be.

But from another perspective, what amazes us, spiritually speaking?  It is, perhaps, sometimes the wrong things.  We may be amazed by the outward, the surface level, the shallow things.  That which glitters and gleams in the eyes of the world.  So-and-so is so successful, God has really blessed him.  Oh, look how famous and well-off they are, they must be really something.  What talent!  What skill!  What beauty!  Amazing!  We see the outliers among us and are attracted to their worldly wonder, like a shiny object, amazed by all the wrong things.  But the Lord does not judge by such outward things, and perhaps we ought not either.

Why not instead be amazed by the right things?  Faith, or the lack of it.  Just like Jesus would be.  Isn’t it amazing when one sinner comes to repentance and faith, and the angels in heaven rejoice?  Isn’t it amazing that God makes such promises to us of forgiveness, life, and salvation, and speaks those promises through a simple man he calls into our midst?  Are you amazed that God himself would come to earth, be born of a woman, be born under the law, and then fulfill that law perfectly on your behalf?  Are you astonished that same God-man would win your salvation not by conquering might, but by a humble, obedient death, even death on a cross?  Or that the same savior who gave his body and blood on the cross, now gives his risen body and blood to you, from the altar, to eat and drink? 

These are the amazing things of faith, my friends, but do we sometimes fail to be amazed as we should?  Do we take them for granted?  Do we forget all his benefits?  Does “Jesus died on the cross for you” become sort of ho-hum, we’ve heard it all before?  And not the life-changing, eternity-altering great, good news we know it to be?

We sing about this in one of our best-loved hymns, “Amazing Grace”.  It’s true, God’s grace to us in Christ is amazing.  It’s not as we would expect.  How should God treat a wretch like me, according to my sin?  Not with such undeserved love and mercy, and yet that it what he does in Christ!  How can the lost be found?  How should someone spiritually blind expect to see anything of God’s salvation, and yet in that amazing grace he finds us, and  opens our eyes and our hearts, so that now we see and believe! 

And is it amazing that some reject Jesus Christ and his precious gospel?  In a way, yes, and we can stand alongside Jesus and be astonished at such unbelief.  But in another way, we shouldn’t be surprised.  It’s always been this way.  Some believe, and some reject.  Some have faith, and others have none.  Some receive Christ and his grace, and others turn away, turn aside, each to his own way.  Some seed falls on bad soil, or amidst the weeds, and some lands in good soil and produces abundantly.  Oh, what of that, Lord, what of that?

Sometimes a prophet like Ezekiel is sent to a stubborn people, but whether they hear and believe or do not, they will know there has been a prophet among them.  Such is the way of the Gospel, and of faith.  The world doesn’t know us, because it doesn’t know him.  It hates us, because it first hated him.  It shouldn’t surprise us or amaze us, because no servant is above his master.

Jesus doesn’t force his hometown neighbors to believe.  But like all people, his Gospel calls and invites, encourages and welcomes.  If one hears and believes unto salvation – thanks be to God!  And if another rejects faith and Christ and his Gospel, that is his own choice.

But, dear Christian, never let the amazing grace of our Lord Jesus Christ fail to amaze you.  Receive him in faith as he comes to your home town this day, in his word, and under gifts of bread and wine that are his body and blood.  Be offended by your own sin, but receive his wisdom, his healing, and all his good gifts with thanksgiving.  For he does his mighty work of forgiveness, this day, in this place, for you.

Thanks be to God in Jesus Christ our Lord.

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