Hometown Time Machine

Have You Seen a TARDIS?

My hometown has a time machine. I’ve never seen it, but I’m totally convinced it’s around. I’ve never noticed a TARDIS, a souped up DeLorean, any Flux Capacitors, or a WABAC machine. But I know it’s there somewhere.

Why? Because every time I go home, I travel back in time. I suddenly become twelve years old again. Instead of being a husband, dad, and grandfather, I believe the lie that I’m still an underachieving, awkward middle schooler.

Who Says You Can’t Go Home?

Let me put it another way. Jon Bon Jovi asks the musical question, “Who Says You Can’t Go Home?” In many ways, author Thomas Wolfe seems to have the most appropriate answer. “You Can’t Go Home Again.”

In Mark’s bio of our Savior, Jesus apparently has a similar problem. We read about the time the Lord comes back home only to be dismissed by the people who watched Him grow up. Prophet? Messiah? Are you kidding me?!? He’s just Joe and Mary’s Boy.

Who Is Jesus?

It’s a key moment in Mark’s account of Christ. The mega-theme of the first eight chapters focuses on His identity. Who is Jesus? The author provides story after story where people wrestle with this question. As a result, Mark drops it all at our feet and forces us to decide for ourselves.

Here in Mark 6:1-6, we see our Savior heading back to His hometown after some very crazy days. It all begins with Jesus’ weird, bug-eating cousin baptizing Him and the other two Members of the Trinity show up to fully endorse Him as the Son of God (Mk 1:4-11).

A Rapid-Fire Pace

With the rapid-fire pace of an action movie, Christ stares down the devil (Mk 1:14-15), assembles His ragtag team (Mk 1:16-20; 2:13-14; 3:13-19), performs one miracle after another (Mk 1:23-34, 40-45; 2:1-12; 3:1-7, 10-12; 4:35-41; 5:1-43), and teaches like nobody before or since (Mk 1:21-22; 4:1-34).

While Jesus draws huge crowds, He also draws the attention of Jewish religious leaders. According to them, He’s preaching and teaching without a license (Mk 2:6-7, 16, 24-26; 3:2-6, 22). Even His own family has serious doubts, not just about His identity but His sanity (Mk 3:21, 31)!

No Garden Variety Teacher

If you’re scoring along at home at this point in Mark’s Gospel, it’s becoming pretty stinking obvious that this radical Rabbi/Carpenter from Nazareth is no garden variety traveling teacher. Could He be divine? Could He be the long awaited Hero God promised to send?

As Jesus rolls back into Nazareth, He’s stepping back into the hometown time machine. The folks living there just can’t see Him as anything but Joe and Mary’s oldest Boy. The carpenter’s kid. And who can forget the local scandal her pregnancy caused?

Heading Home

Mark picks up the story with Christ and His team hitting the road from Capernaum, which was just the scene of doubleheader of healing (Mk 5:21-43). “Jesus left that part of the country and returned with His disciples to Nazareth, His hometown” (v1).

He’s heading home. Ah yes, Nazareth. These days, just about every person on the planet knows it as the city where Jesus grew up. It’s a destination vacation. To this day, the local chamber of commerce leverages their hometown Boy made good. Don’t forget to visit the gift shop on your way out!

A Hick Town in the Boondocks

But a couple of thousand years ago, Nazareth is anything but famous. It’s a hick town in the boondocks of Galilee. The population of this bump in the road is a couple of hundred if you’re being generous.

If you want to confirmation of its image as a hillbilly hamlet, check out what one of Jesus’ own disciples had to say about it when found out that’s where He’s from. ‘“Nazareth!” exclaimed Nathanael. ‘Can anything good come from there?’” (Jn 1:46).

A Second Chance

This isn’t Jesus’ first homecoming after beginning His ministry. Luke tells the story of a previous visit to the local synagogue when our Savior reads from Isaiah 61 and basically announces that He’s Messiah (Lk 4:16-31). Take about a mic drop moment.

Yeah, that didn’t end well. Local yokels not only aren’t buying it. They just see Him as Joe’s Boy, NOT the Anointed One. Next thing you know, they run the Lord out the synagogue and try to throw Him off a cliff.

While some much smarter Bible experts think Mark tells the same story Luke describes, I tend to agree with A.T. Robertson. He believes Jesus is giving Nazareth a second chance. And why not? It’s where His mom and the rest of His family lives.

Our Savior on the Sabbath

When the next weekend rolls around, we see Jesus making His return to the local house of worship. “The next Sabbath He began teaching in the synagogue, and many who heard Him were amazed. They asked, ‘Where did He get all this wisdom and the power to perform such miracles?’” (v2).

No surprise to finding Him teaching in the local synagogue. If it’s a Saturday, chances are you’ll probably find Jesus teaching God’s Word at a worship service somewhere (Mt 4:23; 9:35; 13:54; Mk 1:21; Lk 4:15, 31; 6:6; 13:10; Jn 18:20).

A Sucker Punch

When Jesus teaches, you can count on people being blown away. Some things just go together. Peanut butter and jelly. Bacon and eggs. Batman and Robin. Anytime you see Christ on the platform, you’ll find an audience in the palm of His holy hand (Mt 7:28; 13:54; 19:25; 22:33; Mk 1:22; 7:37; 10:26; 11:18; Lk 2:48; 4:32; 9:43).

Mark’s word choice that the NLT translates as “amazed” is interesting. It’s the Greek verb εκπλησσω/ekplesso. It literally means to punch unexpectedly, like a surprise attack or a sucker punch. It’s being shocked almost to the point of panic and fear.

Jesus teaches in a way that catches us off guard. He shocks. He astounds. He overwhelms. He bewilders. That’s exactly what happens this particular Saturday at the synagogue in Nazareth.

The Crowd Turns Ugly

But without warning, the crowd turns ugly. That’s when the time machine does it’s magic. They suddenly don’t see Him as the Teacher of God’s Truth. Wait a minute! That’s Joe and Mary’s oldest Boy.

“Then they scoffed, ‘He’s just a carpenter, the son of Mary and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas, and Simon. And His sisters live right here among us.’ They were deeply offended and refused to believe in Him” (v3).

Christ the Craftsman

First of all, did you know this is the only time Jesus is called a carpenter in the entire Bible. Yup. You’re looking at it. As a matter of fact, the only time someone refers to Christ as “just the carpenter’s Son” in Matthew’s version of this same event (Mt 13:55).

Actually the word we translate as “carpenter” (Gr. τεκτων/tekton) actually means craftsman, artisan, builder, or maker. It describes someone skilled in using a variety of hard materials like wood, stone, and metal (possibly all three).

Swinging a Hammer

If you’ve ever been to Israel, you know there’s not exactly a lot of lumber. Stone was and is the predominant building material in the land. I’m not saying Jesus and His adoptive dad weren’t carpenters. But chances are, they weren’t simply carpenters.

For instance, there was a massive construction project in Caesarea Philippi at the time. It’s just 38 miles from Nazareth. Did Joseph and even Jesus work there as craftsmen, carpenters, and masons?

It does seem clear that the Lord clearly carried on the family business, swinging a hammer just like His earthly dad. The Son of God isn’t some squeaky clean holy man afraid to get his hands dirty. He’s a blue collar laborer who knows what it means to put in a hard day’s work.

Building and Restoring

So what does being a carpenter have to do with being our Savior? I love how David Naugle puts it. A craftsman makes what is needed and restores what is broken. In very simple terms, he creates and redeems. That’s EXACTLY what Christ does. For us. For His creation.

Jesus is the Master Craftsman. He’s making something special in each one of His followers. No matter what you’re like now, He guarantees to complete the project (Phil 1:6). You can bet we’ll all be His masterpiece (Eph 2:10).

Dredging up an Old Scandal

Mark points out how the locals refer to Him as the “son of Mary” (v3). Either Joe has already died or they’re dredging up the old scandal of being conceived before His parents were married. Probably both. In other words, they see His status as Messiah and prophet as well as His birth as all illegitimate.

NOT an Only Child

Check out the size of Jesus’ family! He’s got at least seven siblings. Some religious traditions try to say Christ was an only Child. There’s just one little problem with that. The Bible. Kinda difficult to work around that.

Jesus is the first born and the oldest of five boys. While His brothers and sisters didn’t believe their big Brother was Messiah at first, that all changes when He came walking out of the cemetery three days after His funeral.

James not only ended up believing in His big Brother, but went on to lead the church in Jerusalem (Acts 12:17; 15:13; 21:18; 1Cor 15:7; Gal 1:19; 2:1, 12), and write a book of the Bible called, what else, but “James.”

Kid brother Judas, also known as Jude (you DO understand why he would shorten his name, don’t you?) also wrote a letter to the followers that’s in the NT.

Triggering Trouble

The naysayers mention Jesus’ family as a way of dismissing Him. So much so that they’re “deeply offended” (v3). This is a powerful word in the original language (Gr. σκανδαλιζω/skandalizo). It’s where we get our word “scandal.”

It means to totally reject someone or something while at the same time becoming angry and indignant. It comes from the Greek word σκανδαλον/skandalon which describes the trigger or trip wire in a trap.

Who Do You Think You Are?!?

What Jesus says and does in the synagogue that Saturday triggers trouble among the people of His hometown. They’re memory of Him trips them up. They didn’t just blow Him off. They blow up.

Can’t you just hear them? I can’t believe You would do such a thing!  How dare you!! Who do You think You are?!?!? Spoiler alert: He’s EXACTLY who He thinks and says He is…the one and only Son of God.

Powdered Butt Syndrome

When the hometown crowd turns ugly, it’s almost like Christ saw it coming. “Then Jesus told them, ‘A prophet is honored everywhere except in his hometown and among his relatives and his own family’” (v4). This is apparently a common saying back in the day.

It’s sorta like what financial guru Dave Ramsey likes to call the “powdered butt syndrome.” That’s when people have a hard time taking guidance from whose diaper they’ve changed.

Naugle says sometimes we’re just too close to people and too big for our own britches to recognize the true greatness of others, even if they’re standing right in front of us! Jesus experiences that first hand in His hometown.

The Hero from Nazareth

A couple of interesting points when Jesus uses proverb. Our Savior clearly sees Himself as a prophet. This would be a fulfillment of a prediction Moses made a few thousand years before (Dt 18:15; Acts 3:22; 7:37).

But the locals can’t swallow that Jesus is Messiah, much less a prophet. Ironically, previous prophets had predicted that the Hero whom God promised to send would be actually be a Nazarene, which comes from one of the Hebrew words for “Branch” (Is 11:1; Mt 2:23).

Christ’s Kryptonite?

We then read one of the saddest verses in the New Testament. “And because of their unbelief, He couldn’t do any miracles among them except to place His hands on a few sick people and heal them” (v5).

If you’re like me, this has me scratching my head. Did their unbelief limit His divine power? Is their rejection some sort of divine Kryptonite to Christ?

Get into Position

Well, we can be sure of one thing. Jesus didn’t stop being God! I think John MacArthur nails this one. This verse suggests that because the locals don’t believe Him, folks don’t come to Him for healing like they do down the road in places like Capernaum.

Their disbelief put serious limits on their ability to receive God’s blessing. It’s a powerful warning that we need to do everything possible to place ourselves in position to be on the receiving end of His grace!

Knocking Jesus’ Socks off

As God in the flesh, few things catch Jesus off guard. The great Nazarene rejection is one of them. Mark writes, “And He was amazed at their unbelief” (v6). He doesn’t lose His cool. He doesn’t blow His stack. He feels sorry for them.

There’s only one other time when something knocks Jesus’ socks off (well, I guess He probably wasn’t wearing socks, but if He did, they would be off!). That’s when a Roman army officer trusts in Christ’s heavenly authority to heal one of his employees (Mt 8:10).

When People Don’t WANT to Believe

A.T. Robertson finds an interesting contrast between these two events. With the Roman soldier, Jesus marvels at finding faith where you might not expect it. With His own hometown, He marvels at the lack of faith where you might expect it…and that includes His own family!

Here’s the bottom line, the very sad bottom line. Some people just don’t want to believe. There’s nothing you can do, nothing you can say, no evidence you can provide that will change their mind. Jesus is staring back at a synagogue full of those very people.

Nazareth in the Rearview Mirror

And with that, our Savior packs it up and puts Nazareth in His rearview mirror. “Then Jesus went from village to village, teaching the people” (v6). Mark literally says Jesus went in a circle visiting the other small towns.

A truckload of NT scholars think the last half of verse six probably belongs in verse seven. But take just a moment to consider the emotion of that moment. This is where Jesus grew up. These are the people Jesus He’s known the best and longest. Neighbors. Friends. Family. How it must have broken His heart to get the cold shoulder to the greatest news ever offered.

When You Go Home

What’s it like when you go home? If you’re like many people, you’ve changed a lot since you left. You’ve grown up. If you’re a follower of Jesus, God is changing you from the inside out. He’s making you more like His Son.

As a result, you may think there’s a time machine hidden in your hometown too. When you head back home, the folks who knew you may have a hard time seeing you as anything but that goofy teenager who left town a couple of decades ago.

A Divine Appointment

Maybe you’ve tried to explain the change. Maybe you’ve attempted to share the story of what Jesus has done in your life since you left. Don’t believe the lie that you’re still the same kid they remember.

Take advantage of those opportunities. God is providing a divine appointment to tell them about the One who’s turned your life right-side up. It’s an open door to share the Good News and personally introduce them to your Savior.

Give God the Benefit of the Doubt

And don’t forget to turn that around. Ever run into someone years later and figured they were the same person you knew back in the day? They mention their faith in Christ but you have serious doubts.

Give God the benefit of the doubt. As Jesus says a little later in Mark, “Everything is possible with God” (Mk 10:27). Don’t forget there are a lot of people who aren’t buying what He’s done in your life!

In the meantime, I’ll keep looking for that hometown time machine.