The Contempt of the Hometown Crowd Text: Mark 6:1-6
Introduction: The Poison of Proximity
There is a peculiar kind of blindness that afflicts those who think they see the best. It is the blindness of the insider, the malady of the long-time church member, the spiritual stupor of those who have grown up in the house but have never met the Master of the house. We often think the greatest threat to faith is the militant atheist out on the street corner, shaking his fist at the sky. But a far more subtle and deadly threat is the respectable unbelief that can grow in the very pews of the church. It is the unbelief of familiarity.
Familiarity, as the old proverb goes, breeds contempt. And in our text today, we see this proverb demonstrated with heartbreaking clarity. Jesus comes to His own hometown, to the people who watched Him grow up. They knew the sound of His saw and hammer. They knew His mother, His brothers, His sisters. They had more firsthand data on the humanity of Jesus than anyone else on the planet. And it was precisely this proximity, this mountain of mundane information, that became their great stumbling block. They could not see the divine because they were too fixated on the ordinary.
This passage is a solemn warning to every one of us. It is possible to be astonished by Jesus and still be offended by Him. It is possible to hear His wisdom, see His power, and then dismiss Him because He does not fit into the neat little box we have constructed for Him. The people of Nazareth had a category for "carpenter's son," but they had no category for "God in the flesh." And so, when God in the flesh stood in their synagogue and taught, they took offense. Their unbelief was not a passive lack of information; it was an active, hostile rejection of the truth that stood right in front of them. And that rejection had devastating consequences.
Let us attend, then, to this account. For the sin of Nazareth is a perennial temptation for the people of God. We must ask ourselves if we have allowed our familiarity with the gospel to become a callous on our hearts, preventing us from receiving the King when He comes to His own town.
The Text
And Jesus went out from there and came into His hometown; and His disciples followed Him. And when the Sabbath came, He began to teach in the synagogue; and many listeners were astonished, saying, "Where did this man get these things, and what is this wisdom given to this man, and such miracles as these performed by His hands? Is this man not the carpenter, the son of Mary, and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon? Are not His sisters here with us?" And they were taking offense at Him. And Jesus was saying to them, "A prophet is not without honor except in his hometown and among his own relatives and in his own household." And He could do no miracle there except that He laid His hands on a few sick people and healed them. And He was marveling at their unbelief. And He was going around the villages teaching.
(Mark 6:1-6 LSB)
The Astonishment That Curdles (vv. 1-3)
The scene is set with a homecoming. Jesus, now a famous teacher and miracle worker, returns to Nazareth.
"And Jesus went out from there and came into His hometown; and His disciples followed Him. And when the Sabbath came, He began to teach in the synagogue; and many listeners were astonished..." (Mark 6:1-2a)
He does not come in a corner. He goes to the synagogue on the Sabbath, the central place of worship on the central day of worship. He is presenting Himself to His people according to the established patterns. And their initial reaction is exactly what we would expect. They were astonished. The word in Greek is ekplesso, which means to be struck out of one's senses. They were blown away. They could not deny the reality of what they were hearing and seeing. The wisdom was undeniable. The reports of the miracles were credible.
But astonishment is not faith. Amazement is not adoration. Their minds acknowledged the power, but their hearts were already beginning to rebel. And so their astonishment immediately curdles into a series of four suspicious, cynical questions.
"...saying, 'Where did this man get these things, and what is this wisdom given to this man, and such miracles as these performed by His hands? Is this man not the carpenter, the son of Mary, and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon? Are not His sisters here with us?' And they were taking offense at Him." (Mark 6:2b-3)
These are not the questions of honest seekers. These are the questions of a prosecuting attorney. First, they question His source: "Where did this man get these things?" They see the fruit, but they are determined to poison the root. Since He did not go to the right rabbinic schools, His wisdom must be illegitimate. Second, they question His authority: "what is this wisdom given to this man?" They frame it passively. They acknowledge the wisdom, but they refuse to acknowledge the Giver. Third, they question His power, speaking of "such miracles." They cannot deny the mighty works, but the very reality of them is an affront.
The fourth question gets to the heart of their rebellion. "Is this man not the carpenter...?" This is the linchpin of their unbelief. They are reducing Him to what they can explain, to what they can control. He is the carpenter. He is Mary's son, a subtle insult, perhaps hinting at the rumors surrounding His birth, as it was customary to identify a man as the son of his father. They list His family members, people they see every day. Their logic is this: "We know His family. They are ordinary. Therefore, He must be ordinary. This display of extraordinary power and wisdom is an offense, an uppity pretension." They stumbled over the Son of God because He had sawdust on His clothes. The Greek says they "were taking offense at Him," they were scandalized by Him. The Incarnation itself was a stumbling block to them.
The Diagnosis of Rejection (v. 4)
Jesus, knowing their hearts, responds not with anger, but with a sad, diagnostic proverb.
"And Jesus was saying to them, 'A prophet is not without honor except in his hometown and among his own relatives and in his own household.'" (Mark 6:4 LSB)
This is a timeless principle. The hardest hearts are often the ones closest to the truth. Those who believe they have the prophet figured out are the least likely to hear his message. The rejection is most acute in concentric circles of familiarity: the hometown, the extended family, and finally, the immediate household. His own brothers, we learn in John's gospel, did not believe in Him at this time (John 7:5). They were embarrassed by Him.
This is a profound warning against the kind of spiritual pride that comes from "being in the know." It is a warning to those of us who have been in the church our whole lives. We can become so familiar with the story of Jesus that we no longer feel its weight. We have tamed Him, domesticated Him, and made Him into a mascot for our cultural or political tribe. We have, in effect, reduced Him to "the carpenter." And when He speaks a word that challenges our comfortable categories, we, like the people of Nazareth, take offense.
The Consequence of Unbelief (vv. 5-6)
Their unbelief was not a neutral opinion. It had real, tangible consequences. It created a spiritual atmosphere in which the grace of God was repelled.
"And He could do no miracle there except that He laid His hands on a few sick people and healed them. And He was marveling at their unbelief." (Mark 6:5-6a LSB)
Now, we must be careful here. The text does not say that Jesus' power was somehow nullified or that He was rendered impotent by their skepticism. God's omnipotence is not contingent on our faith. Rather, the issue is one of divine purpose. Miracles in the ministry of Jesus are not magic shows to entertain skeptics. They are signs that are intended to confirm the truth of His word and call forth faith. Where a community has collectively and stubbornly decided to reject the word, to provide signs would be like casting pearls before swine. It would be a judgment, not a blessing.
Their unbelief short-circuited the flow of blessing. They could have been the epicenter of a great revival, a flood of divine healing and restoration. Instead, they received only a trickle. Jesus still, in His grace, healed a few sick people. This shows that the problem was not a lack of power in Him, but a lack of receptive faith in them. He is always gracious, but He will not force His kingdom upon those who are determined to refuse it.
And what was Jesus' reaction? He marveled. This is one of only two things the Gospels record Jesus marveling at. He marveled at the great faith of a pagan centurion (Matt. 8:10), and He marveled at the stubborn unbelief of His own people. Their rejection was so irrational, so contrary to the evidence, so spiritually suicidal, that it was a source of wonder to the Son of God. They had front row seats to the visitation of God, and they chose to be offended. They saw the light of the world and slammed the door in His face.
Conclusion: From Familiarity to Faith
The story ends with Jesus leaving. "And He was going around the villages teaching" (v. 6b). The tragedy is palpable. The blessing came to their doorstep, and they refused to open it. So the blessing moved on. And so it is today.
The sin of Nazareth is the great temptation of the comfortable church. It is the temptation to reduce Jesus to a manageable size, to strip Him of His authority, to explain away His demands. We do this when we hear a sermon that convicts us and our first thought is, "Who does he think he is to tell me how to live?" We do this when we read a hard command in Scripture and we immediately begin to look for loopholes. We do this when we prefer the traditions of our church over the plain teaching of the Word of God. We are acknowledging His carpentry skills but denying His lordship.
The people of Nazareth were stuck at astonishment. But the gospel demands that we move from astonishment to submission. We must move from a detached admiration of His "wisdom" to a heartfelt embrace of Him as our Lord. We must move from acknowledging His "miracles" to trusting Him as our Savior.
The question for us is simple. When Jesus comes to our town, to our church, to our home, how do we receive Him? Do we see Him as He is, the eternal Son of God, worthy of all honor and obedience? Or do we see a mere carpenter, someone to be explained, managed, and ultimately, dismissed? May God grant us the grace to see Him aright, and to bow the knee, lest He pass us by, marveling at our unbelief.