Proper 9: Gospel, Mark 6:1-13                                                  

Mark 6:1-13

Luther taught that we should all gaze upon the Lord Jesus to see God. That we should look nowhere else and to avoid unnecessary contemplation on God apart from Him. Luther was thoroughly Trinitarian, of course, but so rejoiced in the gift of the Son given to us that to look beyond that gift was an exercise rife with unnecessaries.

Our gospel spells out the point of what it means to see Jesus, all glories hidden in skin. Jesus, in His hometown synagogue is teaching so that “many who heard him were astonished” (v. 2). Their wonder fostered questions. Many questions that fired arrows into the bullseye of their crusty hearts. Just a couple, “What is the wisdom given to him?,” and “Is this not the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simeon? And are not his sisters with us?” (vv. 2b-3). 

The message, to quote a common phrase, “blew them away.” And the crowd who listened simply could not find resolution in the enormity of the speaker’s wisdom over and against his outward appearances. I think today, as in his own day, the opponents or questioners of Jesus stumble greatly here. If they have really taken the opportunity to read, or to listen to the teaching of Jesus, the incongruity of message and “messenger” is so great as to not only astonish folks, but to cause them to fear. As Jesus' message spread, the only way to deal with this “inability” to understand was to take the messenger out of the way. And they did.

The folks in the synagogue that day saw a man. And a man who was just like them and one of their own number. They knew the family. Oh, but the message He spoke came from a thoroughly different “parentage.” Tragedy is, Jesus the man, wanted them all to come into a new family with new brothers, sisters, mothers and fathers. 

Unbelief is a tragedy.