Introduction

Good morning. If you have a Bible nearby, please turn with me to the Gospel of Mark. This morning we’ll be continuing our preaching series through the life of Christ. In the last few weeks, we saw a series of events where Jesus demonstrated his divine authority over the wind and sea, over demonic spirits of darkness, and even over human life and death. From our perspective, it might seem obvious that Jesus is the divine Son of God. But for the next three weeks we’ll be working through a different section of Mark – and interestingly – even surprisingly – the focus here isn’t so much be on God’s greatness being further revealed, but instead the focus ends up being on God’s greatness being firmly rejected. It might seem confusing how a theme of rejection could be encouraging or helpful for Christians like us to think through. But I trust that we’ll get a lot out of these passages as we continue to work through God’s Word together.

We’ll be in Mark Chapter 6 this morning. If you’re using one of our church Bibles, you can find our text on page 789. I’ll be reading verses 1 through 6 this morning. But before I read our text, please pray with me.

[Pray and Read Text]

One of the most difficult things for a young man to do, is to ask a girl to get lunch, or to spend time with him in a focused way – to go on a date. And there can be a variety of reasons why this is difficult. It could be difficult because the guy doesn’t exactly know what to say. He might have a hard time expressing in words, and so asking a big question like this might seem intimidating. Some young men may feel a bit paralyzed with the question, “Is this the right girl? Am I really sure I want to go for it?” And yet I think across the board, the biggest reason why it’s difficult to ask a girl on a date is because she might say no. There’s this crushing concern – if this person I care for pushes me off, if this person rejects me, it will feel really hard.

Of course, rejection isn’t just a concern that young men have. Just about all of us have experienced it before: rejection from a group of peers, being cut from a sport team, feeling alienated from your own family members, not getting chosen for that promotion at work – rejection can take a lot of different forms. And sometimes the fear of rejection is the sort of thing that makes us anxious in social situations, or that keeps us awake at night.

But what we see in our text today, is that when the Son of God came down to save us, he experienced rejection, too – in a very real, human way. He can relate to us, and our disappointments. Now, as we dig into our passage this morning, one of our goals will be to understand why people rejected Jesus – why it’s happened then, and why it continues to be common today. But we’ll also take time to consider how Jesus responded to rejection – and how it informs the way we should respond to rejection, too.

To do this, we’ll consider our text under three headings. First, we’ll look at The Reasons Why Jesus is Rejected. Second, we’ll consider the results when Jesus is rejected. And then third, we’ll learn from the example of Jesus’s right response to rejection.

These will my three points: The reasons why Jesus is rejected, the results when Jesus is rejected, and Jesus’s right response to rejection.

The Reasons why Jesus Is Rejected

So first, in spite of the recent publicity Jesus has gotten for his healings and teachings, why do people react to him the way they do, here in our text? What are the reasons why Jesus is rejected, here? It’s valuable to reflect on this because the human heart really hasn’t changed much. And the reasons why people rejected Jesus historically are common reasons why people continue to dismiss Jesus and his teaching today.

In verse 1, we’re told that Jesus went away from there – he went away from the town where Jairus lived by the Sea of Galilee. And he came to hometown with his disciples (a trip of about 25 miles, probably a two-day journey). And in this case, the hometown that’s being referred to is Nazareth. That’s where Jesus spent the majority of his youth and young adulthood, even though he was born in the town of Bethlehem.

And as he comes into Nazareth, make sure you notice – there’s no mention of crowds gathering to see him. Already, this is different from the other towns and places where Jesus has been travelling. Twenty-five miles away, by the Sea of Galilee, Jesus draws crowds wherever he goes. He can hardly go down the street without people pressing in around him, as we saw in our text last week. But as he comes to Nazareth, there’s no crowd.

And we see, in verse 2, that when the Sabbath day came, Jesus went to the synagogue – the place where the local Jews worshipped. And he was granted the floor to teach the local Jews – to teach from the Scriptures. Remember, you would expect this to be a rather friendly crowd. These are people who had known Jesus for much of his life.

But as Jesus begins to teach – the attitude of the people toward Jesus begins to change. Verse 2 goes on to tell us that “many who heard him were astonished.” This might sound like a positive reaction at first, almost as though people are amazed at how far Jesus has advanced. But the mood of this astonishment actually isn’t positive at all. Instead in the remaining verses, here, the additional descriptions of the people react to Jesus makes it clear that they aren’t willing to accept his teaching.

Because in verse 3, his former neighbors raise all kinds of questions about his legitimacy. They’re clearly skeptical – such that at the end of verse 3, we’re told that “they took offense at him.” The Greek word here is skandalizo. You might be able to hear it – there’s a connection between this word skandalizo and our English word scandal, or scandalized. Essentially, the people in Jesus’s hometown end up feeling that he’s scandalous. They can’t bring themselves to honor Jesus as someone sent from God. And this explains why Jesus comments on their unbelief, later – in verse 6. These people from Jesus’s own hometown reject him.

But why? What are the factors that make it so hard for people to accept him? Well, we can identify a number of contributing reasons for this in the text.

For one thing, people reject Jesus because of his training – or perhaps, more accurately, because of his lack of formal training. Just look at verse 3. People in Nazareth are asking, “Where did this man get these things?” Because the people were well aware – they had seen Jesus grow up. He hadn’t put in long hours to train as a scholar. He hadn’t been a long-term student under any of the major Jewish rabbis of the day. And so the source of his knowledge – the content of his preaching – it was a mystery. They couldn’t account for it. But instead of reaching the conclusion that Jesus’s wisdom was from God – that it must be from God, that was too hard for them to accept. And so they decided that Jesus’s words must just be self-invented – that he was just teaching his own imaginative ideas as though they were something that everyone should believe. And so they found Jesus offensive, because it seemed that Jesus was just trying to force his half-baked personal opinions on them.

But contributing to this – the people of Nazareth decided to reject Jesus because they were offended by his normalcy – his ordinary humanity. As far as we can tell, there was nothing about his physical appearance unusually distinctive or impressive. You might remember, when John the Baptist began his ministry, he had some unusual features – and Mark told us what they were. He had a strange diet, he wore camel-skin clothing, and he had a leather belt.  But in the case of Jesus, there’s no indication that he had unusually piercing eyes, or special clothes. He didn’t walk around with a heavenly glow around him. But Jesus, in his true humanity, was very ordinary man.

And so that’s why – still in verse 3, here, his old neighbors and cousins and such – they continue to ask their skeptical questions, “How are such mighty works done by his hands? Is not this the carpenter?” I think you can hear the cynical tone in what they’re asking. These people are looking at Jesus’s hands – very ordinary human hands. And they’re considering Jesus’s work as a carpenter – or the Greek word could also mean stonemason – they’re thinking about his work experience. And it just doesn’t seem possible that this ordinary carpenter guy could really be performing mighty signs and wonders. The seeming normalcy of Jesus makes it hard to accept his true, divine identity as the Son of God.

But it isn’t just Jesus’s normalcy that’s a problem. There’s also the issue of his familiarity. People had developed certain perceptions of who Jesus was – you can see this in the text – he was the carpenter. He was the son of Mary. This son of Mary label is especially interesting. Because you may remember, Mary became pregnant with Jesus before her marriage to Joseph – it was a supernatural virgin conception and birth. But from the perspective of people in town, most people probably thought that Jesus was born out of wedlock. And based on these prior assumptions, they had learned to label Jesus a certain way – and they weren’t willing to reconsider those labels.

And this is often how people to operate, isn’t it? There’s a pastor I got to know a number of years ago – the church he grew up in sent him out to start another church – to be a church planter. And you might expect that having that history with the sending church – the “mother church” – would be a really good thing. But actually, my pastor friend told me that it made the process harder for him. And that’s because when he was being interviewed and evaluated for the role – he was interviewing with people who remembered when my pastor friend was a baby. They had knew him when he was an emotionally unstable child. They were witnesses of his awkward adolescent years, and his unimpressive transition into adulthood. And so even though several years had passed since he had moved out of the area – even though he had developed a lot as a young man, because of this history – because they had seen the good, the bad, and the ugly – they weren’t so sure if he should be trusted with a church plant. Of course, they eventually realized how he had matured, and they affirmed his good fit for the work.

But in the case of Jesus, that affirmation doesn’t come. The people have heard reports of Jesus’s miracles – but they aren’t willing to believe them. Even though Jesus is now highly respected in surrounding regions, the people he grew up with simply aren’t willing to reconsider how they’ve labeled Jesus – they aren’t willing to revisit their old opinions about him. Instead, they think, I’m familiar with Jesus. I know about him. And he’s just the carpenter. He’s just Mary’s son, the brother of James and Joses and others – they can’t see him as anything else.

But of course, the last reason why Jesus is rejected – perhaps the key reason – is because of his authority. When he stands up in the synagogue, he teaches powerfully, confidently. We saw that this was Jesus’s style of teaching back in Mark Chapter 1, verse 22. Except at that point, Jesus was teaching in a different city, and the people were astonished and impressed by it. Because he taught them as one who had authority, and not like the other Jewish teachers. Outside of his hometown, the authority of his teaching was received with respect. But here in Nazareth, the people reject it, and are offended by it – because they aren’t willing to hear it from Jesus.

And it’s interesting, Mark doesn’t even bother to tell us what Jesus said. We’re supposed to see, issue wasn’t that Jesus used the wrong words, or that he wasn’t very good at explaining. The issue wasn’t even necessarily that the people were able to find fault with the content of what Jesus was saying. But the issue was Jesus himself – his authority was something that the people were not willing to listen to. The people refused to hear the message because they had already rejected the messenger. And if this is how people rejected Jesus, you can expect that you and I and other Christians may have our words and witness rejected for similar reasons.

The Results when Jesus Is Rejected

Yet further along in our text, we see the results when Jesus is rejected. And this is my second main point. The results when Jesus is rejected. In verse 4, Jesus grieves, “A prophet is not without honor, except in his hometown, and among his relatives, and in his own household.” It would seem that at this time, this was something of a common expression. And if you’re familiar with the history of the Jewish people, which is the context where Jesus was teaching, you’d understand why this would have been a common expression.

Because historically, God had a special relationship with the Jewish people. And he sent messengers to them – these prophets. He did this to keep them aligned with his ways, and to keep them alert to his ongoing work in the world. But unfortunately, the Jews had a bad track record of rejecting these prophets – sometimes even by putting them to death.

And I wouldn’t blame you if you started to wonder why God would send these prophets, only to have them rejected. But you see, there was a bigger purpose in it. The rejection of these Old Testament prophets by the Jews was something God expected – and something he intended in order to foreshadow how his divine Son would be rejected.

And so the first result of Jesus being rejected here, was that he fulfilled the pattern of a true prophet of God. He was rejected by his own people, like countless other prophets had been. But even more than that, the rejection of Jesus directly fulfilled Scriptures. It’s spoken about in Isaiah 53, verses 2 and 3, “For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.”

It’s clear here – Isaiah 53 describes how God’s special chosen servant will be rejected. And it’s all predicted in advance – hundreds of years before the time of Christ. And it’s merciful of God to tell us this in advance. Because otherwise, I don’t think that this is how we would expect God to work! After all, his power’s limitless! If he wanted to snap fingers and impress the socks off of people, he could do that!

But instead of sending us a dazzling, bulletproof superhero from the sky – he gives us a humble servant who enters into our suffering, and who feels our pain. We have a Savior who knows what it means to wrestle against temptation, and who knows what it’s like to be misunderstood, and disliked, and despised. And so when we call out to Jesus – the person we’re dealing with isn’t just a textbook-trained pilot, who’s never flown a plane. But we’re speaking to a Savior who has experience, who intimately knows the innerworkings of the human heart, and the mind-games we play with ourselves, and the emotional weight that we carry. He knows us, and he cares for us, and he will help us.

And so even though it seems bizarre and counter-intuitive that the Son of God would come as a man, and that he’d come to his hometown to be rejected by creatures made from dust – it’s not a mistake. In fact, this is part of what makes Jesus such a perfect, well-rounded Savior. Because the hard situations we face are the same types of situations he himself has known and overcome. When we’re grieving, when we’re stressed, when money is tight, and when we’re rejected – Jesus knows. Since he intentionally came to earth and suffered – he knows your suffering, and he knows the solution.

But here’s another significant result of Jesus being rejected. Verse 5 tells us: “And he could do no mighty work there, except that he laid hands on a few sick people and healed them.” So the result of the people rejecting Jesus, was that they ended up seeing very little special activity from Jesus. He performs only a few little miracles, to heal sick people. But the text says that there are no mighty works.

In fact, the wording here almost makes it sound like the unbelief of the people cripples Jesus somehow, as though their skepticism makes Jesus powerless. But that can’t be what’s happening here. Because Jesus’s greatest miracle is undoubtedly his own permanent resurrection from the dead. And even though virtually no one believed or anticipated that it would happen – even though his own disciples thought the situation was hopeless – his power wasn’t at all limited to rise from the grave.

So the reason why Jesus wasn’t able to perform a mighty work in Nazareth probably had nothing to do with his miraculous powers being constrained or limited, and instead the issue was probably that Jesus wasn’t given the opportunity to perform miracles. From what we can tell, the hard-hearted people of Nazareth weren’t bringing people with ailments or injuries or unclean spirits to Jesus. They weren’t seeking his help. They were relying on themselves, or relying on other things, instead of giving Jesus the floor to work, and to prove his legitimacy. If the people had trusted, if they had asked – much more could have been done! But since they do not ask, they do not receive.

And this is important for us to think about. Because I think you and I – as Americans – I think we tend to pray very small prayers – prayers where we aren’t expecting God to do very much. I want to be careful here, because even our smallest, most basic needs are things that we depend on God for, so praying for small, basic things is a right and wonderful expression of worship. But my concern – even with myself – is that we don’t pray for God to do God-sized things. We don’t pray expectantly and earnestly that churches would be stuffed to standing-room only on Sunday mornings. We don’t pray continuously for liberal university professors at CMU, who are hostile to Christianity, to be brought to repentance and faith. We’re often too nervous to pray that God would use us, in spite of our clumsy words, to be witnesses for Christ in our neighborhoods and workplaces – that God would use us to encourage faith, to invite others to Christ, and to see transformed lives. We don’t pray that God would use our children and grandchildren, or our nieces and nephews, to powerfully bring the gospel to remote places of the world, where people have never heard the name of Jesus. We often don’t bring very big prayer requests to Jesus. We often ask very little, and so we see Jesus doing very little.

And so it’s worth taking time to ask yourself – is there a reason why my prayers are so small? I say that I trust Jesus with my life, that he’s the powerful Son of God, that he deserves the worship of all people, everywhere – but am I actually living and praying out of the conviction that these things are true?

There are still mighty works of spiritual rescue and restoration that Christ intends to do in the world – the physical healings here are a sign of that – but the real rescue and restoration the world need is that which touches our souls. And so as a church in Mt Pleasant, let’s be the type of people who come ourselves to Jesus, and who bring others to Jesus – who are regularly pleading for his greater power to go forth in the world. Because if we aren’t ignoring Jesus, but are instead asking Jesus to heal and to help – that’s when Jesus is pleased to do his mighty work, and demonstrate his glory.

Jesus’s Response to Rejection

But, of course, the people of Nazareth don’t step out in faith like this. And as they reject Jesus, it’s helpful for us to see how Jesus responds. And so this brings us to my third and final point – Jesus’s right response to rejection.

There are two aspects of Jesus’s response that are mentioned here in our text. First, in the first half of verse 6, we see that Jesus marvels. “He marveled because of their unbelief.” That’s what we’re told here.

And it’s an interesting response. Because just a moment ago, the people were marveling about Jesus – they were astonished because of how he was teaching in the synagogue, as though he were a great scholar or teacher. They were surprised because Jesus was acting in a way that seemed abnormal to them – even inappropriate – based on his background as a carpenter.

But we’re supposed to realize here – Jesus teaching in the synagogue – that’s not big news. The thing that’s really astonishing – the thing that’s really abnormal and inappropriate, is that the people of Nazareth are hardening their hearts against the Son of God.

I think here in America, it seems very normal to us for people to harden their hearts against Jesus. It doesn’t seem so strange that people would reject him. But it should seem strange. It should seem bizarre to us that any rational person would observe the fine-tuned engineering of the universe, and conclude that it’s a cosmic accident. It should be surprising to us that people would deny the historical evidence for Jesus’s resurrection from the dead. If we’re just nodding along, thinking, “Oh, yeah – unbelief – that makes sense,” then we aren’t operating with the same perspective as Jesus.

Unbelief shouldn’t make sense – it doesn’t make sense. The Scriptures account so well for understanding reality. The life of Christ is so compelling, and so clearly a fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies, made hundreds of years earlier. And yet even today, people reject him. It might be common. But it isn’t clever. It’s not coherent.

And I want to encourage you in this – because I think that some Christians have been taught to believe that the Scriptures are somehow anti-science, or outdated, or unintelligent. But don’t believe it for a minute. Christianity is thoroughly sensible. The Bible can stand up under the weight of people’s questions – even if you aren’t sure how to answer every question you’re faced with. It shouldn’t be surprising to us when people receive Jesus – but it really should be shocking to us, that so many people don’t see his legitimacy. Because it was shocking to Jesus himself. He marveled over their because of their unbelief.

But Jesus’s response to being rejected was right in another way – not only because he marveled over their unbelief, but also because he maintained his faithful work. You’ll see this at the end of verse 6. After being rejected, we’re told that “he [Jesus] went about among the villages teaching.” It’s such anti-climatic comment. It might almost seem like there’s not much meaning to it. But it’s here for a reason.

Just consider, when you’ve been rejected – I’m assuming that most of you know that feels like – when someone has told you that they don’t like you, they don’t want to play with you, they don’t want to help you, what affect does that have on you emotionally, physically, psychologically? Well, I think for many of us, it produces self-pity – we feel humiliated. And so, related to this, often rejection alters our view of self – we might feel less confident. We can very easily operate as though our identity and worth is connected to how many people accept us, rather than how God accepts us.

But when we’re rejected, it’s common for something else to happen in us. We often spend a lot of time longing for that relationship to be restored. We might be tempted to spend time replaying events in our mind. Maybe I could have said this differently. Maybe I could have worked harder. Maybe there’s still a way that I could change their minds. Even if that relationship had played a somewhat minor role in our lives up to that point – sometimes when we’re rejected, we become fixated on getting back that favor and approval from the person who rejected us in a way that expends our mental and emotional energy.

But notice what Jesus does when he’s rejected. He isn’t fixated on self. He doesn’t fall apart, even though he doesn’t have the support of his old friends and family members. And he doesn’t fixate on trying to please and pacify the people who rejected him. But he keeps putting one foot in front of the other, and he maintains his faithful ministry. Just as our text says, “He went about among the villages teaching.” He remained focused on the good work God has given him to do, to proclaim the good news of the kingdom.

And when we’re rejected by people – for our fashion, for our personality, or for our faith – it’s right for us to remember where our sense of worth comes from – and who’s approval it is that we’re living for. If people like you, that’s great. That’s icing on the cake. But that’s not what you’re living for. It can’t be. Instead, we were made to know and enjoy God – to find acceptance from him. And if you have his favor, by receiving the One he sent to save you – if you have God’s favor through faith in Jesus – then that’s the pillar that’ll hold up the house. That’s the mountain fortress you can seek shelter in when you’re faced with rejection.

We have brothers in sisters in the faith who really understand the dark side of what rejection can look like. Christians in Communist China are sometimes carried away to prisons to be “reeducated.” In some parts of India, people who choose to follow Christ might be cut off from family, shunned by their community, and even treated with open violence and hostility. Christians in Iran who leave Islam face a federal death sentence. You can just imagine that in all these situations, the temptation is huge, to just go with the flow. Do what everyone else is doing. Believe what they believe. Say what they say – so that you can meet their expectations. So that you can find their acceptance.

But Jesus doesn’t bend to the expectations of other people – he’s not craving the acceptance of the world. Instead, he is secure in his relationship with God. And he is determined to carry out the right kind of life that God would have him live.

So don’t miss this. I don’t know what kind of situations you might be faced with this morning. I don’t know how strong a temptation it is for you to conform, to fit in, to find approval from the students or co-workers you interact with. But whether you’re facing rejection now – or sometime in the years ahead – don’t get pulled off focus.   Don’t linger in Nazareth, trying to appeal to the demands or desires of an unbelieving audience. But press on in faithful work, living for an audience of one. Live for the Lord.

I don’t want to diminish that rejection is hard. And even when we respond with faith, it may still be draining for us emotionally and even physically. But be comforted in knowing – we have a Savior who understands, and who upholds us in our weakness. And as we trust, as we pray, we can expect that the Lord will do a mighty work for his people. Let’s pray: