Going Home

Mark 6:1-2
He went away from there and came to his hometown, and his disciples followed him. 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?"

Here we are again, questioning the identity and authority of Jesus Christ. This time in his own hometown of Nazareth. The townspeople are taken aback by his teachings and the authority in which he speaks. They begin to talk among themselves about his family whom we might assume everyone is aware of. They mention his mother Mary and his brothers and sisters. No mention of his earthly father Joseph. Not sure why but one might assume he's passed away by now. But at any rate the townspeople took offense at the things Jesus was saying.

What was he saying?

All we know is that whatever the theme it had to do with matters of faith, because it's said that Jesus was surprised at their lack of it. Maybe at the end of this devotion we'll discover the answer. Stay tuned.

Mark 6:6
"And he marveled because of their unbelief."

The teachings were no doubt nothing we haven't already heard from him before, but it definitely scandalized them. So much so that he wasn't able to perform any "mighty works" among them.
Now why was that?

It says Jesus was able to lay hands on a few and heal their sickness, but why did it seem that his power was limited there? What was different here?

Have you ever made the statement, "I just couldn’t do it"?

I don't think the divine power of Jesus is limited in any capacity by this situation or the circumstances. Although, I do believe that in some capacity there is a need for those who receive the blessing to have received it in faith. Time after time, Jesus says your faith has made you well. And I believe that what we're seeing here in his hometown of Nazareth is a general and very pervasive lack of faith. They were offended by his words. They weren't having any of him. And somehow, in the cosmic scheme of things that has bearing upon the blessing. Something to make note of as we continue our study. But I think the fact that he was among his own kin has served as a stumbling block for them. They knew him for thirty years. It's likely he worked for many if not all of them as a sort of artificer, like a woodworker handyman. And now he shows up a changed man?

Just how changed was he?

Maybe it was kind of like this, imagine you have a grandfather who is gone visiting his family. And he wants to bless his grandchildren with a little cash. I know when I was a little kid, the one thing I loved about my grandfather was he always gave me $10 bucks. And in the early 1970s that was some serious cash for a kid. Now imagine the children are being disrespectful towards him, and maybe the rest of the family as well. They're being unkind, mouthy, and just the worst kind of brats. Maybe grandpa wanted to give them $50 each, but he just couldn't do it. This doesn't mean that the grandfather was literally unable to give his grandchildren something, but the circumstances were such that he just couldn't bring himself to give them anything.

And so, Nazareth is filled with unbearable unbelief, so much so that Jesus was unable to bring himself to do for them the things he'd done for others. The problem in Nazareth was not one of powerlessness on the part of Jesus Christ but had more to do with the inhabitants’ strong unbelief. Their unbelief grieved the works of the Holy Spirit. And the enemy blocked the minds of the people there. So much so that in Luke's gospel we're told that the people tried to throw Jesus over a cliff (Luke 4:29).

We shouldn't assume that the lack of miracles had anything to do with them deserving or not deserving the gift, because up till now we haven't seen that deserving a blessing had anything at all to do with Jesus' blessing people. Certainly, the demon possessed man didn't deserve being healed from those thousands of demons. Grace doesn't work that way.

I mean, Jesus gives the twelve disciples the power to heal and to cast out demons. He empowers them to anoint the people with oil and heal their afflictions. And there's no mention of whether or not they deserved it. However, there is a new aspect to things, there is this idea that they are to assess the situation and take into account how they are received in the villages and towns that they visit.

Mark chapter six concludes with these words: "Wherever He [Jesus] entered into villages, cities, or the country, they laid the sick in the marketplaces and begged Him that they might just touch the hem of His garment. And as many as touched Him were made well."

So, Jesus meted out his judgment in this evangelism mission trip. And the measure has to do with faith and how the people receive the good news. They were to determine their degree of faithfulness to and approval of the gospel message.

Mark 6:11
"And if any place will not receive you and they will not listen to you, when you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them.”

They preached the same message that John the Baptist preached. They preached about repentance. And they performed many miraculous things among the faithful. They did this with anointed oil.

Was the oil of some supernatural value, or symbolic?

Where does the miraculous power come from?

As far as I'm concerned, it's from The Holy Spirit. The oil represents the Spirit, and anointing is a point of contact. It has to do with activating the faith of those being blessed. In the same way that the woman who suffered from twelve years of hemorrhaging had the need to touch Jesus' clothes. It activates faith in people, and we've seen that faith is a critical factor in the blessing. Other than that the material item, in this case oil, is symbolic in its nature. Like holy water, crosses, a snake on a pole, Moses the man, the symbol has no power in and of itself. The power source is the Holy Spirit, and the conduit for that power is our faith. And because we are spiritual people living in flesh bodies, much of our spiritual life is wrapped up in our many conscious and meaningful things. Symbolic things. Tangible things. Things that activate our spirits.

Mark 6:13
"And they cast out many demons and anointed with oil many who were sick and healed them."

Our emotional response to these events has a great bearing upon how we receive them. We've seen how not being spiritually connected to the event makes it practically impossible for grace to work in the hearts and minds of the people. There are some folks who are just not going to find grace without the support of some materialistic item, superficial practice, or sacramental authority. Something tangible has to happen for their faith to activate.

This kind of thing happens in every Christian denomination, no matter their theological and doctrinal beliefs. People's faith is activated by the natural law, expressions of music and poetry, pomp and circumstance, art and architecture, popular culture, tribal community, continuous prayer, fasting and asceticism, and the Word of God written in the Bible.

Everyone's got something that activates their faith because we're spiritual beings living in the flesh. These things have no power in and of themselves. They are a focus of our attention. We project our faith upon them. And it is that faith that gives them power in our circumstances. The takeaway in this gospel story is that we need faith in order to receive our blessing. And sometimes something like oil can focus that faith for us. But keep in mind that practically an entire village was found to be contrary to faith and the gospel message because their tangible understanding of the things of faith was acting a stumbling block to grace.

Every form is an art form. Every-thing expresses some-thing to some-one. It's externalism and it tends to become ritualism, iconoclasm. It's a visual tradition and it's mostly harmless until it becomes an empty ritual and loses its meaning with mindless repetition. Take for instance, speaking the Lord's prayer. This can be a beautiful and very faithful, inspiring, meaningful thing, or it can become a dry purposeless act of formal repetition. It can lose its verbal content and degenerate into externalism when it is no longer a representation of faith but merely has become a form of duty.

This doesn't mean we should resist or remove all these forms. Everything about our human existence is wrapped up in forms. Sometimes function, sometimes art. Even the absolute removal of form is a form in and of itself. All forms communicate something, even the absolute unadorned forms send a message. And that's potentially another form of an idol if it becomes more significant than the faith it's meant to express.

Art for whose sake?

We're sensory beings. We get overwhelming senses all the time. Things cause us to respond and reflect because those things and those circumstances are communicating something to us. They are serving as symbols of transcendence. And again, even an empty sanctuary painted white with clear glass windows is sending a transcendent message. And that art form is communicating something to the people who visit there.

Our faith buildings and faith furniture and faith practices are expressing something about us and our faith.

What message does your form communicate?

Jesus walked into Nazareth and turned the tables on their form. He upset their order of worship by not conforming to it in the way that they had expected. They couldn't "do church" in the manner that Jesus did. His form was not theirs. What was Jesus teaching that caused them to stumble? We can't say with any degree of certainty, but we know that the core message that He and his disciples were preaching was "repent".

Need I say more?

What forms of worship are acting as stumbling blocks to grace for you?