Rejected

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A prophet is without honor in His country.

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Rejected! Mark 6:1-7 The prophet Isaiah in the 53rd chapter talks about Jesus hundreds of years before He came. He says that the Messiah would be despised and rejected of men and familiar with sorrow and grief. John records in the first chapter of his gospel that “He came unto His own things, and His own people rejected Him.” In this passage, we see the theme of the rejection of Jesus demonstrated. Jesus had just finished healing a woman with an issue of blood as well are raising Jairus’ daughter from the dead. There is a hard chapter break here, so we don’t know the time connection to this passage. What makes it more difficult is that Luke has Jesus’ rejection at Nazareth at an early part of Jesus’ ministry in chapter 4. There his kinsfolk were amazed at Jesus’ interpretation of Isaiah 61 to Himself but rejected Him when he used the example of Gentile women as paradigms of faith. As long as Jesus was their Messiah, they would accept Him. But to be the Christ for all nations was going way out of their comfort zone. They considered this blasphemy and intended to throw Him off the brow of a cliff and then stone Him is he survived the fall. As it was not the appointed time nor the means of Jesus’ death, He simply walked away. Mark’s account of this is much more brief. He does mention that His kinfolk were amazed at His teaching, and that that they couldn’t understand how Jesus changed from the child they knew into a prophet and healer. We have already seen that His immediate family had rejected Him and had tried to take Him away, thinking Him to be insane. Now the next level of kin at Nazareth could not resolve this dilemma. They knew where Jesus came from, at least they thought they know. Joseph must have died by this time as He is called the son of Mary who had brothers and sisters who lived there in the community. He was just a carpenter or common laborer, depending on how the Greek word is translated. But Messiah He could not be. It is possible that calling Jesus the son of Mary was a hint that they thought His birth to be illegitimate. Jesus notes their unbelief and states what has become a proverb, that a prophet is without honor in His own country. The short passage ends with the report that He was unable to perform many miracles there because of their lack of faith. Faith healers like to quote this verse among others to claim a relationship between faith and healing. There would seem to be some link as we had just seen Jairus humble himself for the sake of His daughter. He was a ruler of the synagogue and risked his reputation to ask for healing for his daughter. When the professional mourners laughed Jesus with scorn when He said the damsel was not dead but sleeping, He had these unbelievers thrown out. The woman with the issue of blood had believed that if He only touched the hem of His garment that she would be healed. And she was. If one believes, they have to come and ask. But we must be careful here as a lot of charlatan faith healers have deceived and fleeced the flock of God. Jesus’ healings were signs pointing to something greater, the Kingdom of God. He seemed to be more concerned about teaching than healing. Jesus’ ministry had started with what seemed to be mostly acceptance, especially with the common people. This does not mean that the grounds of their acceptance was necessarily legitimate. Some thought that He was to be a political Messiah who would overthrow the Romans and or the corrupt Jewish Sanhedrin. Even the faith of John the Baptist seemed to be somewhat shaken when the Kingdom and the Messiah He ascribed to Jesus did not seem to be working out as he expected. He even sent some of his disciples to Jesus to ask for confirmation. Jesus would have been acceptable to the Jewish people if only He had conformed to their preconceived ideas about the Messiah. But Jesus persisted in announcing His messiahship and His Kingdom on His own terms. As the Christ, this was His prerogative. Any king who bows to the will of his subjects is no king at all. John records in 6:15 of his gospel as a result of His miraculous feeding of the 5000 that He quickly had to dismiss His disciples to the boat because the people were about to seize Him and make Him King. Jesus would have none of this. The next day He would lose many of His followers when He accused them of being disciples for what they could get from Him. They wanted the bread and not the living manna. The ultimate rejection of Jesus would occur when the Jews “betrayed” Jesus to the Romans for execution. The Law forbade the handing over of a brother to a Gentile court. It is interesting that the same word in Greek used for Judas is the same one used by the Jews when they handed Jesus over to Pilate (paradidomi). Pilate, even though he had shown himself to be a cruel and violent governor, was still a better example of humanity than the Jews. He gave them a choice between Jesus and Barabbas. Barabbas, whose name ironically means “son of the father” was captured after making a riot. He was the type of Messiah the Jewish people, one who would take action against Rome. It is no wonder that they chose a political messiah over the real Messiah. They totally rejected Jesus and shouted that He be crucified. When Pilate asked whether he should crucify their king they shouted back: “We have no king but Caesar!” Their rejection of Jesus was so intense that they were willing to acknowledge themselves as subjects of the hated Caesar rather than God. But this was nothing new. In Samuel’s day, the people had asked for a king just like the other nations. God told Samuel to do so, even though they were rejecting Yahweh as king. What bitter fruit came from this rejection by the capricious hand of King Saul. The rejection of Jesus by the Jewish people also had tragic implications. Jesus clearly told them that the result of this rejection was that Jerusalem would be destroyed by the Romans. In many ways, the humiliation of the Jews was even worse than that of the Babylonian captivity. Before we become too smug, we must acknowledge that there is an identity crisis in many of our churches and denominations today. Some see Jesus as a pacifist and victim of man’s injustice and religious bigotry. Others see Him as a political revolutionary who overthrows the oppressor and politically liberated the proletariat, Others see Jesus as one of the great teachers of history. Others have very negative thoughts about Jesus. All of these are the result of trying to mold Jesus to fit our expectations. But when we reject the Scriptures and what Jesus says about Himself, we are as surely rejecting Him as much as the inhabitants of Nazareth did. Just like them, we think we know Jesus. And when we read that the Scripture presents a totally different one than the one we preconceive, we reject Jesus as surely as they did. Please note that I am using the “we” editorially. I confess the Christ of Scripture as do many others in the churches today. The “we” refers to the church as a whole, and not to each individual. God always reserves a remnant unto Himself. I can only hope that you are one of these believers. If not, I pray that the Lord Jesus will reveal Himself to you. There is nothing more important than getting the right perspective on Jesus and believing on Him as our Lord and Savior. So let us hold fast our confession. One hint we can have that we believe correctly is that what happened to Jesus will also happen to us if we are faithful. Whereas being rejected by family, friends, and neighbors is not in itself proof that we are Christians, we should realize that if people wholeheartedly accept our presentation of Jesus, we should beware. Jesus warns us that the people accepted the flse prophets and spoke well of them. Of course, we should expect that in the midst of rejection that some will hear and believe. But we are called to take up our cross and follow after Jesus, no matter what the cost of discipleship might be.
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