A PROPHET
IS NOT HONORED IN HIS HOMELAND
1He went away
from there and came to his hometown, and his disciples followed him.
2And 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? 3Is 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.
4And Jesus said
to them,
“A prophet is
not without honor, except in his hometown and among his relatives and in his
own household.”
5And he could do
no mighty work there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and
healed them. 6And he marveled because of their unbelief.
And he went
about among the villages teaching.
MARK 6:1-6
COMMENTARY
After Jesus had
returned to the western shore of lake Galilee, and after resurrecting Jairo’s
daughter and coping up with the unbelief of those present who mocked Him on
that day (Mark 5:40), He walked back to his hometown of Nazareth, where He had
grown up and from where He was known as ‘of Nazareth’, to minister to them the
message of salvation.
But on the first
Sabbath, when our Lord preached to them from the Jewish Scriptures; the Jews
there present, who had known Jesus from childhood, as well as all his earthly
family, rejected Him on those grounds.
They knew Jesus
had supernatural knowledge of the Torah and the Prophets, and that He could
perform miracles and healed the sick like nobody else could; but the knowledge
of the poor social status of his family, the fact that his earthly reputed
father, Joseph, was a manual laborer, and his mother a dutiful homemaker, and that
they had brothers and sisters like anybody else, it was incompatible with their
idea of a Holy Man or a Teacher of the Law.
The Doctors of
the Law, like Theologians of today, had decades of learning directly from an
older reputable Elder, also a Doctor of the Law; and enjoyed an academic level
of knowledge superior to the average Priest or Rabbi, and never the less,
Jesus, without all this, interpreted the Scriptures without any formal education
in theology.
The miracle
workers of the past, were pious ascetics who lived a very austere lives, but
Lord Jesus lived like an average human being, drinking, and eating, and
working, without any formal religious life like the aspirants to the Temple
Priesthood or the Rabbinic councils or Scribes; nevertheless, He was the
biggest miracle performer of the time, and He used to be criticized for this (Matthew
11:19).
So, they asked
themselves, where Jesus had acquired all this knowledge, and could perform all
these miracles from, proving that they knew they were real and correct, but
they rejected Him on the grounds of his family origins, including the unbelief
of his own brothers regarding his self-proclaimed Messianic title (John 7:5).
Jesus could not
perform many miracles there. Note it does not say that He could not perform miracles
at all, since there was nothing external that could interfere with his own
power. He did perform some miracles, like He always did anywhere else, but only
on those who with faith came to Him asking for help. But He did not perform
miracles on those who knowing Him to be divinely blessed, rejected Him for carnal
reasons. They did not receive the blessings from God, who decided not to
perform in them any wonder, but to leave them in the hardness of their hearts.
However, in his ever-existing
mercy, Lord Jesus Christ stayed there, among those unbelieving people, preaching
repentance and conversion, in Nazareth and all Galilee, because He hope that
they would come to repentance and be saved.
Omar Flores.
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