TEXT:
“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. Mark 6:3 (ESV)
Whenever I want or need a good hard dose of reality about who I am
or how important I am, all I need to do is go back to Odenton,
Maryland, the small town situated about halfway between Baltimore and
Washington D. C. where I spent my childhood years. Back there I’m not
called “Pastor” or “Reverend” like I am around here. Neither am I
called “Father,” as I sometimes am when I’m making visits at one of
the local hospitals or having lunch with my wife at a restaurant after
church. In Odenton I don’t command any respect and I have no
authority to exercise. No, back in Odenton, where things have changed
dramatically in the forty-three years since I moved away, most people
haven’t the slightest idea who I am. And those precious few people
who do remember my family don’t even know my name. They refer to me
simply as “Al Litke’s boy--the younger one.”
I suppose that shouldn’t surprise me. Our Lord’s observation in this
morning’s Gospel is as true today as it was in His day: “A prophet is
not without honor, except in his hometown and among his relatives and
in his own household (Mark 6:4). The old saying has some truth to it:
“Familiarity breeds contempt.” The more familiar that we are with
someone, the more difficult it is for us accept that person as an
authority (or to be accepted as an authority by that person). I never
got anywhere trying to speak authoritatively about spiritual matters
with my mother, because, as far as she was concerned, I wasn’t a
spiritual authority of any kind; I was just her kid. Who did I think
I was, anyway? I guess that’s just the way it is--and the way that it
always will be. If even the Son of God Himself “got the cold
shoulder,” so to speak, among the people who He was most familiar
with, how could one of His humble servants expect to be treated any
better? In an age when many Christians are pursuing a familiarity
with Jesus unknown in earlier generations, the passage before us this
morning reminds us of two things that we dare not forget in our
relationship with our Lord and Savior. Let’s take a look at each of
them.
The first thing that we need to understand if we are going to have a
legitimate and meaningful relationship with Jesus Christ is that He is
not by any means our equal; He is our Superior. This is something
that Jesus’ hometown acquaintances just couldn’t accept. Our
relationship with Christ is not reciprocal; it is a relationship that
is based totally and completely on His grace toward us. We aren’t
partners with Him in accomplishing our redemption; we are always on
the receiving end as He showers upon us day after day the blessings of
salvation. So much grief and frustration (to say nothing of spiritual
harm) is done when people get into their heads the idea that they have
to meet Jesus halfway or that they have to give Him permission to work
His wonders in their lives or that in some way they have to do
something to enable Him to save them. All of these ideas and
attitudes boil down to nothing short of a denial of God’s redeeming
grace in Jesus Christ. You and I are redeemed children of God for no
other reason than that God in His mercy sent His Son to live and die
and rise again for us and also gave us His Holy Spirit to work faith
in us through the Gospel. If we believe that we had anything at all
to do with bringing this about, we are in fact trying to take credit
for what God has done.
But once we are brought into the state of grace by the power of the
Holy Spirit, we indeed do have the capability and the responsibility
to do the things that promote spiritual growth and to avoid the things
that bring about spiritual decay. But even those things we can do or
avoid only through the power of the Spirit of God who lives in us.
The Spirit’s work in our lives is encouraged when we make use of the
means of grace through which He works: His Word and Sacraments. If we
fail to make use of these, how can we expect to grow spiritually? We
can seek the wisdom and power of God all that we want, but if we don’t
look for them in the place where God has told us that they are, then
we’re not going to find them. Never underestimate the importance of
being in the Word on a regular basis and in fellowship with our Savior
and with one another through the Sacraments, for this is where God has
promised to meet us and to speak us.
Another thing that Jesus’ hometown crowd had a hard time accepting
was the fact that He cannot be controlled. The Jesus that they knew
as a boy growing up, working with Joseph in his carpenter’s shop, was
fine. He was manageable. But this Jesus who came back home preaching
about the kingdom of God and sin and repentance and forgiveness was
just too much for them to take. Everybody prefers to deal with people
and circumstances that are predictable. In fact, a pretty good case
could be made that when relationships go sour, more often than not the
reason why that happened is that one of the parties involved stopped
being predictable, and the other party just couldn’t handle it. We
need to be very careful about this attitude ourselves in our
relationship with Christ. We must always listen very carefully to
what our Lord is really saying to us in His Word and not try to read
into it what we think He ought to be saying.
A number of years ago I read a book written by a Baptist pastor
entitled Why Does Jesus Make Me Nervous? The subtitle was “Taking the
Sermon on the Mount Seriously.” The whole premise of this book is
that if we really listened to what Jesus is saying to His followers in
that often-quoted sermon, and if we believed that He really means what
He says, we’d be shaking in our boots. We like to hear Jesus say nice
things like “Take heart . . . your sins are forgiven” (Matthew 9:2)
and “Come to Me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give
you rest” (Matthew 11:28), but we’re not all that thrilled when He
says something like: “Whoever loves father or mother more than Me is
not worthy of Me and whoever loves son or daughter more than Me is not
worthy of Me. And whoever does not take his cross and follow Me is
not worthy of Me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever
loses his life for My sake will find it” (Matthew 10:37-39). We are
not at liberty to edit or censor the Lord’s Word according to our
liking; we are simply to hear it, believe it, and proclaim it “as is.”
It seems that a lot of people these days are looking to Jesus as a
Friend. He certainly is our Friend, but He’s a lot more than that. I
have a lot of friends, but not one of them will be of any help to me
when I face the judgment of God. Before God’s throne we need more
than a friend; we need an Advocate--a Redeemer--a Savior. And in
Jesus Christ we have all of that--and infinitely more. With a genuine
humility born out of a realization of who we are as sinners, the
Spirit of God leads us and empowers us to take comfort and to have
confidence in the power and love of the One who God sent to be our
Savior, knowing that we are His solely through His grace.
Amen.
May the Lord bless your hearing of His Word, using it to accomplish in
you those things for which He gave it. May you be enriched and
strengthened in faith that you may leave here today to go out into our
world armed with the whole armor of God, prepared to be able
ambassadors of your Savior Jesus Christ. He who calls you is
faithful, and He will do it. Amen.