WARNING PREACHY…
Mark 6:1-6
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. 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.”
5 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.
--
--
I have a cousin whose dad
owned a condo years back in some tourist town on the west side of
Michigan. When he went to sell the condo
one of Michigan’s celebrities, Kid Rock, was interested in it and set a meeting
with her father to inspect it. On the
day of the meeting my cousin went with her father but when they arrived she
apparently got star-struck and nerved out and waited in the car.
I consider this story a
contrast to what happed when Jesus went to preach in his hometown.
The Gospel of Mark is
largely concerned with the identity of Jesus.
Some people thought he was John the Baptist come back to life after
being beheaded by King Herod, some thought he was Elijah of old, and still
others thought that he was one of the prophets, but to the people of Nazareth,
he was just Jesus; Mary’s boy. The people of Nazareth were most familiar
with Jesus and they had the least faith of all peoples with the result that he
couldn’t do any great miracles there in his home town.
Familiarity Breeds Contempt…
In some ways, most of us
are like the people of Nazareth because we are often too familiar with
Jesus. We all have some form of
knowledge about Jesus that we believe and are accustomed to, and this
accustomed knowledge (whether right or
wrong) is what we are familiar with.
It is very common in our American culture to have some sort of
familiarity with Jesus and the church.
From the time of our births
we have each been raised by our parents to have a faith or belief system,
whether it’s a non-faith or the other extreme of a heavily denominated-faith;
each of us knows or believes something about Jesus. Right or wrong, it is this belief system that
causes us to be familiar with the idea of who Jesus is. And whenever someone suggests something
different than what we already think and know, we tend to get combative in the holding
of our own opinions and positions.
What We Need…
Disagree with me if you
like but if you truly don’t know anything about Jesus and church, please give
me a call and I will be happy to share with you what the Scriptures teach about
him.
For the rest of us, what
we all need is a Holy Spirit awakening in our souls and minds. We need God to shake us up and the Holy
Spirit to open our spiritual eyes as to who Jesus the Messiah actually is. Without such a revelation we will always be
familiar with our own ideas and denominational dogmas. For each of us, my prayer is that the Glory
of the resurrected Jesus might be fully revealed to us so that we shudder in
understanding who it is that we are in the presence of.
--
Acts 9:1-6
But Saul, still
breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the
high priest 2 and asked him for letters to the synagogues at
Damascus, so that if he found any belonging to the Way, men or women, he might
bring them bound to Jerusalem. 3 Now as
he went on his way, he approached Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven
shone around him. 4 And falling to the
ground, he heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why
are you persecuting me?” 5 And he said,
“Who are you, Lord?” And he said, “I am Jesus, whom you
are persecuting. 6 But rise and enter
the city, and you will be told what you are to do.”
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