Mark 6:1-13
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Jesus returned to Nazareth where a year before He had been rejected by the people and evicted from the synagogue (Luke 4:16–30).
It was certainly an act of grace on His part to give the people another opportunity to hear His Word, believe, and be saved; and yet their hearts were still hard.
Keep in mind that He was ministering to people who knew Him well, because Nazareth was His “hometown.” However, these acquaintances had no spiritual perception at all.
In fact, their unbelief hindered Jesus from having a greater ministry among them.
What was their problem?
Why were they unable to trust Him and experience the wonders of His power and grace as had others?
They thought that they really knew Him.
After all, He had been their neighbor for nearly thirty years, they had seen Him at work in the carpenter’s shop, and He appeared to be just another Nazarene.
He was a “commoner” and the people saw no reason to commit themselves to Him!
HOW MANY OF YOU HAVE HEARD THE STATEMENT...
“Familiarity breeds contempt” is a well-known maxim that goes all the way back to Publius the Syrian, who lived in 2 B.C. Aesop wrote a story to illustrate it.
In Aesop’s fable, a fox had never before seen a lion, and when he first met the king of the beasts, the fox was nearly frightened to death.
At their second meeting, the fox was not frightened quite as much;
and the third time he met the lion, the fox went up and chatted with him!
“And so it is,” Aesop concluded, “that familiarity makes even the most frightening things seem quite harmless.”
The maxim, however, must be taken with a grain of salt.
For example, can you imagine a loving husband and wife thinking less of each other because they know each other so well?
Or two dear friends starting to despise each other because their friendship has deepened over the years?
Phillips Brooks said it best: “Familiarity breeds contempt, only with contemptible things or among contemptible people.”
The contempt shown by the Nazarenes said nothing about Jesus Christ, but it said a great deal about them!
This story really tells us all we need to know about the people in Nazareth.
A tourist, eager to see everything in the art gallery, fled from picture to picture, scarcely noticing what was in the frames. “I didn’t see anything very special here,” he said to one of the guards as he left. “Sir,” the guard replied, “it is not the pictures that are on trial here—it is the visitors.”
The people of Nazareth could not explain Jesus.
They didn’t take the time to consider Him as something different than what they had already decided He was.
They didn’t understand Him.
They were actually insulting Him as they stumbled over him.
The Bible Exposition Commentary Chapter Five: Will Anyone Trust God’s Servant? (Mark 6:1–56)
The people who called Him “the son of Mary” were actually insulting Him; because in that day you identified a man by calling him the son of his father, not the son of his mother.
The people of Nazareth were “offended at Him,” which literally means “they stumbled over Him.”
The Bible Exposition Commentary Chapter Five: Will Anyone Trust God’s Servant? (Mark 6:1–56)
“They could not explain Him, so they rejected Him.” Jesus was certainly a “stone of stumbling” to them because of their unbelief (Isa. 8:14; Rom. 9:32–33; 1 Peter 2:8).
14 He will be a sanctuary; but for the two houses of Israel, he will be a stone to stumble over and a rock to trip over, and a trap and a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
32 Why is that? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as if it were by works. They stumbled over the stumbling stone. 33 As it is written, Look, I am putting a stone in Zion to stumble over and a rock to trip over, and the one who believes on him will not be put to shame.
8 and A stone to stumble over, and a rock to trip over. They stumble because they disobey the word; they were destined for this.
Jesus healed people through compassion, not on demand or as a performance.
Our human minds may think, If he had performed a miracle here, perhaps they would have believed.
Jesus, however, knew their hearts. They had been presented with many opportunities to see, to hear, and to believe.
Some people have made up their minds and do not want to be confused with the facts.
“The performance of miracles in the absence of faith could have resulted only in the aggravation of human guilt and the hardening of men’s hearts against God.
THE PURPOSE OF HIS MIRACLES?
They pointed to His claims of divinity and his offer of salvation.
Some people would just not believe. Even if Jesus raised somebody up from the dead as He just did. Doing a miracle in this circumstance may have only hardened the hearts and made a mockery our gracious God.
NOW… while it’s NOT FAITH THAT HEALS, the presence of faith does have it’s positive effects. And the opposite is also true. The ABSENCE OF FAITH CAN AND WILL HINDER THE RECEPTIVITY TO GOD AND HIS ACTIVITY.
NOW, on the other hand… Healing takes place in many different forms in the bible regardless of the faith of the person involved, but healing is never granted as a reward for having enough faith. For example, Luke tells us of the time that Jesus sees this dead man being carried away. He was the only child of a widow. Jesus raised the young man with no evidence of faith from the widow, the crowds or the dead man.
Mark (A. The Climate of Unbelief (6:1–6))
As Christians, we can rest assured that our sovereign God knows what is best for us.
For some people, the “best” is to be healed, and we can praise and thank God for its occurrence. For others, the “best” is to remain as they are without healing. We can praise God for his continual presence in our lives and his graciousness, whether or not this results in physical healing. Mark’s statement except lay his hands on a few sick people indicates that there were some who were willing to admit their need and come to Jesus for help, even though he is a carpenter.