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? 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. And Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor, except in his hometown and among his relatives and in his own household.” And he could do no mighty work there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and healed them. And he marveled because of their unbelief.

And he went about among the villages teaching.—Mark 6:1–6

Introduction

In Mark chapter five, we saw that Jesus is stronger—he has authority over demons, disease, and death. But this should not be a cerebral head nod—these stories touch our hearts because we see Jesus’ heart of mercy on display for those in misery. These stories fill us with hope because we see the way Jesus fights for those who are beat up and beat down by things that are too big for them. Jesus fought for the man with a legion of demons with the result that he sat restored and whole at Jesus’ feet. We saw the way that Jesus became the Almighty advocate for a woman who had no one. We saw Jesus speak to a father to strengthen his faltering faith, and we saw him reach into death and pull a little girl out and then make sure she had something to eat. When people come to Jesus in need, they find he is incomparably powerful (able to do what no one can do), and incomparably merciful (willing to do what no one else is willing to do).

The contrast between the stories in chapter five and this story today could not be more different or more tragic. The season of high school homecomings is upon us. Alumni come and are welcomed back with open arms, especially famous alumni. Today’s story, the most famous alumni of Nazareth comes home and his homecoming is a tragedy.

Outline
1) What Jesus Does (vv. 1–2a)
2) How His Hometown Responds (vv. 2b–3)
3) How Jesus Responds (vv. 4–6). 

1. What Jesus Does (vv. 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.

Jesus leaves the Sea of Galilee and travels 25 miles to the southwest to his hometown of Nazareth. It seems like every country has a place that is something of an embarrassment to the rest of the country—it has something of a stigma. The Silicon Valley represents technological advancement, Wall Street the financial elite, Washington D.C. has the political movers and shakers, New England Ivy League schools are the educational elite. Imagine the contrast in your mind between someone who went to Yale or Harvard or Princeton and someone who went to a Cajun community college in Louisiana.

This is the way people understood Nazareth in Jesus’ day. His own disciples shared this view.

Philip found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found him of whom Moses in the Law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.”  Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”—John 1:45–46.

The irony is that no one is good, not even one—this applies to all cities in all time. There was only one that has ever been sinless—Jesus. So it turns out that the only thing good came out of Nazareth.

One commentator highlights the insignificance of Nazareth. It was about 60 acres of rocky hillside with a total population of 500 at the most. He points out that it is not mentioned in the Old Testament or other Jewish writings. It occurs 12 times in the New Testament and then does not appear again until two centuries after the birth of Christ. There is no church built in Nazareth until A.D. 325 (James R. Edwards, Mark, p. 175).

Jesus went to the synagogue and began to teach. In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus teaches at the synagogue in Nazareth in Luke 4. He takes the scroll of Isaiah and turns to the text in Isaiah 61 about the coming of the Messiah. He says that “today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4:21). It could be a reference to a different time or it could be a reference to this teaching, but either way they would have heard Jesus’ claim to be the Messiah.

The reader already has a hint for how this homecoming reception could go. Mark has already told us that Jesus’ family made the trip from Nazareth to Capernaum as unbelievers and they thought he was crazy. Luke 4 in particular is a haunting note of the way Jesus has been received by his hometown. They marvel at his gracious words, and as the interaction continues and Jesus mentions God’s mercy to the Gentiles, they get so angry that they try to throw him off the cliff. 

2. How Jesus’ Hometown Responds (vv. 2b–3)
   

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? 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. 

Their response started with astonishment, which led them to ask a series of questions, climaxing in taking offense at Jesus. We are going to trace this movement from astonishment to offense.

The astonishment comes from hearing the wisdom of what he says and the reports about the mighty works he has done. Then there is a moment of dissonance between the impressive present (what he has done) and the unimpressive past (where he came from).

They start rehearsing what they know about his background. He is the carpenter. A carpenter in that culture could work with wood, stone, or metal (carpenter, mason, or a builder). The most likely scenario in Palestine would be a “woodworking handyman.” In that day, it would be customary to craft plows or yokes, make furniture, stools, cupboards, beams for small buildings, or doors. Jesus would have been technically skilled and physically strong.

One commentator addresses the implications of this fact. “The airy weakling often presented to us in pious paintings and Hollywood movies would hardly have survived the rigors of being Nazareth’s tekton from his youth to his early thirties” (quoted in David Garland, Mark, The NIV Application Commentary, 1996, p. 231). 

They know his Mother: Mary. They know his brothers: James, Joses, Judas, and Simon. They know his sisters. They think they have him totally pegged and figured out. Thus there are two things that seem to stand in tension. He has done impressive things, but his background is completely unimpressive. He has done great things with his hands (miracles), but he used to work with his hands in Nazareth as a carpenter and there was nothing impressive about that. 

As they tried to make sense of the tension—is he extra special or nothing special? Is he spectacularly extraordinary or just kind of ho-hum vanilla ordinary? Will they be impressed or unimpressed?—they came to a conclusion: They were offended. Who does this guy think he is? He is making himself out to be something, and he is from nothing. 

His humble origin makes it unlikely that he could be a great person or have such great wisdom. The common carpenter trade sure didn’t produce a lot of brilliant philosophers or powerful generals. Wouldn’t God’s Messiah have a much more royal background? They can’t seem to see past the barrier of the ordinary—the veil of his humble background. We sing at Christmas: Veiled in flesh, the Godhead see. Hail the incarnate deity.

But there is an irony in their question. It is precisely the right question, but they answer it wrongly: Where did this man get these things? 

Consider the build-up of these questions in the Gospel of Mark:

What is this? (1:27)
Who is this? (4:41)
From where is this? (6:2)

3. How Jesus Responds (vv. 4–6)

And Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor, except in his hometown and among his relatives and in his own household.” And he could do no mighty work there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and healed them. And he marveled because of their unbelief.

The people started by marveling at Jesus’ teaching and the story ends with Jesus marveling at their lack of faith. He quotes a proverb to them about a prophet being dishonored only in his hometown and among his relatives and household (which Jesus already experienced back in Mark 3:21).

It says that “he could do not mighty work there except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and healed them” (v. 5).

This wording can make it seem that Jesus is limited and powerless unless people have faith. That is simply not the case here. It is not like the movie Elf where Santa’s sleigh can’t fly without Christmas cheer. “This baby used to run solely on Christmas spirit—you believed in me. You made my sleigh fly.” People need to believe in Santa in order for the magical sleigh to fly. The Santa meter needs to be full in order to fly. The Jesus “faith” meter needs to be full in order to heal.

What is going on here? Matthew makes it very clear that the real issue is the unbelief of the people. “And he did not do many mighty works there, because of their unbelief” (Matthew 13:58). The limitation came from their unbelief, not some inability of Jesus. Think for a moment of the relationship between faith and Jesus laying hands on people and healing them. In all of the stories in Mark, people either come to Jesus for healing because they believe he can or the sick are brought to Jesus by people who believe Jesus can heal. The widespread, cynical unbelief of the people is what prevented them from coming to Jesus or bringing others to Jesus for healing. One commentator says it just right:

The people of Nazareth already knew of Jesus’ miracles (6:2) but refused to believe. Their cynicism prevented most from bringing their sick to him for healing. Only a handful did so, and he healed them. Doubt has trouble believing; unbelief obstinately refuses to believe (David Garland, Mark, p. 238).

Jesus can’t get over how hard their hearts are and how blind their eyes are. Unbelief is a shocking sin—so shocking that Jesus marvels at it. The surprising irony is that the demons always recognize Jesus’ true identity (1:24, 34, 3:11; 5:7), but humans are always questioning Jesus’ identity (1:27; 2:7; 4:41; 6:2).

Main Point: Unbelief is the stubborn refusal to see Jesus’ wisdom and power as pointers to his divine identity as the Son of God.

You could shorten the main point and say unbelief is the rejection of Jesus as the Son of God. I think we need to use the language of the text in order to drive the point home deeper. Faith knows the source of Jesus’ wisdom and power—he is the divine Son of God. Unbelief stubbornly rejects this truth despite the clear evidence otherwise.

This unbelief in Jesus’ homecoming forms a stark contrast with the faith on display in chapter five (vv. 23, 28, 34, 36). In each case, faith preceded the miracle. Jairus and the woman with the flow of blood both approach Jesus because they have faith.

So what really happened in Nazareth? Why was there such widespread unbelief? Let us diagnose it for a moment as a historical issue in Jewish culture. One commentator makes a fantastic link between two notable Jews: Josephus and Jesus. 

Compare, for example, Josephus’s introduction of his qualifications to the readers of his Life. He gives a brief rundown of his genealogy to identify himself as descending from a noble family (Life 2 § 7; J. W. 5.9.4 § 419). He comes from priestly descent, those considered to be of the highest rank (Life 1 § 1; see J. W. 1.1.1 § 3; 3.8.3 § 352; 5.9.4 § 419; Ag. Ap. 1 § 54). He also claims royal stock, the Hasmoneans, on his mother’s side (Life 1 §§ 2–4). He boasts that he excelled all his compatriots in his exact knowledge of law and that he is uniquely capable of interpreting the Scriptures for a Greek audience (Ant. 20.12.1 § § 262–65). Regarding Jesus, therefore, it would have been a shock in the ancient world that the supreme God would come to us in one from such a humble town, from such a humble family, and from such a humble trade. We would ask what the Nazareth hometown folk asked: How does this Jesus dare rise above his roots? (David Garland, Mark, p. 235).

This is one way that we see the biblical Gospels have the ring of truth. The false gospels are very different. They invent fanciful stories of what Jesus did in his youth—trying to make him out to be a divine performer. He made a dead fish hanging in the marketplace come alive and start swimming in a nearby pool of water.

That is the telltale sign of unbelief in Nazareth. Jesus doesn’t fit their categories and their expectations or their “tastes.” They want a stunning supernatural Jesus who has glorious credentials to wow them. The more glorious then the more obvious.

The problem with humanity is that it wants to be the judge of God. It is as if we think we are the judges on America’s Got Talent and Jesus is the performer and the judges will decide his fate. So we bring all of our own criteria with us. What will impress us? What will stand out and convince us? How can he prove it to us?

Humanity wants a spectacular sign of God, or, like the devil, a great display of divine power (Matthew 4:1–11, Luke 4:1–13). But it does not want God to become a human being like one of us (John 1:11). The people of Nazareth see only a carpenter, only a son of Mary, only another one of the village children who has grown up and returned for a visit. If only God were less ordinary and more unique, then they would believe. The servant image of the Son is too prosaic to garner credulity. God has identified too closely with the world for the world to behold him, too closely with the town of Nazareth for it to recognize in Jesus the Son of God. Humanity wants something other than what God gives. The greatest obstacle to faith is not the failure of God to act but the unwillingness of the human heart to accept [how God has acted] the God who condescends to us in only a carpenter, the son of Mary (James R. Edwards, Mark, p. 175). 

We will see widespread unbelief many times throughout this Gospel. One of the most painful is at the end when the chief priests and rulers mock Jesus and say “Let the Christ, the King of Israel, come down now from the cross that we may see and believe” (Mark 15:32).

The Royal Image and the Servant Image of the Son

This is the issue in the Gospel of Mark, which has been on display even in the Father’s testimony in Mark 1:11: This is my Son (from Psalm 2:7–9, the powerful Son of God who has power to destroy the nations), with whom I am well pleased (and from Isaiah 42:1, “Behold my servant … in whom my soul delights”).

Sometimes you see the Royal image of the Son and at other times you see the Servant image of the Son. One does not have to choose between them. Jesus is both. That is what people don’t see. One does not have to choose between his humble earthly origins or his glorious divine identity. He is fully God and fully man. He was in the beginning with the Father. He existed in the form of God, one in glorious fellowship with the Father. He did not regard his equality with God as something to use for his own advantage, but he humbled himself by taking the form of a servant. He went from a heavenly sphere of existence where he was always worshiped and adored to an earthly sphere of existence where he was a lowly servant—a common man working a trade in a town of no notoriety.

Why is the world so full of unbelief? Unbelief is a lack of will to believe because we are dead in sin and wedded to the world and blinded by the devil. We bring worldly standards and categories and use them in our judgment of whether God is true and right. God will not cater to our idolatrous categories.

Gospel Bridge: Unbelief Still Fails to See the Hidden Wisdom and Power of God in the Cross of Christ

People still reject the cross today because it looks foolish and weak. It was the same in Paul’s day as in our day today.

For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.—1 Corinthians 1:21–25

The gospel always addresses the categorical idolatries of our day. In that day the two perennial idolatries were wisdom and power. The Greeks valued philosophy and intellectual attainments. They were proud enough to think they could think their way to God with their superior intellect (IQ test). The Jews valued power and signs that would prove God’s presence. They would stand there with their arms crossed and say, “Prove it with power. Jump through a high enough hoop and I will believe in you” (like a dog show).

The Greeks would hear about a salvation that came through something shameful (not noble) like crucifixion as foolishness (the opposite of wise). The Jews would regard salvation through crucifixion as weakness (the opposite of power).

You who value wisdom, take another look at the cross. What greater wisdom could be on display at the cross? What other plan of salvation could make it possible for God to justify the ungodly while remaining just himself and not sweeping sin under the rug of the universe. All sin will be paid. Either by us in hell or by Christ on the cross.

You who value power, take another look at the cross. God took something that looks so weak and yet through it defeats the most powerful enemies in the universe: sin, Satan, and eternal death—without destroying us! This is loving power and powerful love. 

Conclusion

How Sweet and Aweful
(Taste and See: The Pleasure Narrative)

“Faith comes by hearing and hearing through the word of Christ” (Romans 10:17). God does not cater to our fancies about how we would like him to appear to us. He comes to us by sending his Son—an unimpressive birth in a manger in the “little town” of Bethlehem. He grows up as a common laborer in a despised, backwoods town. He is a man of sorrows, despised and rejected by men. He chooses 12 disciples. Large crowds follow him, but many walk away when he says something too hard for them to hear like they have to eat his body and drink his blood. All his disciples abandon him in the end. Peter denies him three times. He is mocked by the Roman soldiers and then scourged and tortured. He is mocked on the cross by the religious leaders and even those crucified on his right and left reviled him.

But the cross of Christ is the hidden power and wisdom of God. This revelation of God humbles humanity to the core. Thousands will not be humbled. They will make a wretched choice and rather starve than come. Don’t stubbornly starve.

Some say, “You are not living a power or wisdom narrative, but a pleasure narrative.” Dear friends, do you see how the death of Hugh Hefner is such a glaring warning? I read that he paid $75,000 years ago to buy the burial plot next to Marilyn Monroe so that (in his mind) he would spend eternity next to her (his first cover girl). How totally tragic! Dear friends, eternity is not about being dead next to someone forever—it is about living with Someone forever. You can’t defeat death, so you need to be with the One who defeated death. It is not about being buried next to someone but about being baptized into Someone—baptized into Christ and buried with him to walk now in newness of life—for all eternity living with him in glory on the other side of the grave. You don’t have to pay anything to buy this. Jesus paid an infinite price that no one could afford in order to purchase the right to have you be with him, so “that where I am you will be also”!

If you are a believer today, don’t assign a cheap value to that faith. Many people whom I pray with after services are worried about whether they have loved enough, given enough, done enough—and those things are good. But your assurance is not based on the degree to which you are like Christ, but the degree to which you are in Christ. Which is all the way! You can’t be almost in Christ any more than you can be almost pregnant. Don’t downplay the absolute miracle of faith. Jonathan Edwards said it best, “You contribute nothing to your salvation except the sin that made it necessary.” Don’t let this all become familiar and ordinary. O to see and savor and sing of the power of this great salvation again! 

Sermon Discussion Questions

Outline

• What Jesus Does (vv. 1–2a)
• How His Hometown Responds (vv. 2b–3)
• How Jesus Responds (vv. 4–6)

Main Point: Unbelief is the stubborn refusal to see Jesus’ wisdom and power as pointers to his divine identity as the Son of God.

Discussion Questions

• Why did Jesus’ hometown respond with offense against him? What did they miss?
• Why did Jesus not do many miracles in Nazareth?
• How is the wisdom and power of God in Jesus on display in Mark 1–5? How is the wisdom of power of God on display in Mark 15–16?

Application Questions

• This passage strongly warns against the folly of unbelief. What is unbelief? Can you put it into your own words? Name some of the symptoms of an “evil, unbelieving heart that falls away from the living God” (Hebrews 3:12). Where does unbelief show up in your life—even in partial, not full-blown, ways?
• How do the stories of faith in Mark 5 compare and contrast to the response in Jesus’ hometown? What areas in your life do you need to bring to Jesus in faith that he is wise, powerful, and merciful?
• Are you trusting Jesus as Savior and Lord? Does that trust feel small to you, or does it feel like an indescribable miracle? Are there people that you have identified who need to hear the gospel of God’s saving power and wisdom in Christ? Do you have a strategy of when and how to share it?

Prayer Focus
Pray for a grace to see and savor the power and wisdom of Christ—especially in the cross of Christ.