Unbelief

Mark 6:6 might be one of the most worrisome verses in the New Testament. 'And (Jesus) marveled because of their unbelief...' Jesus was taken aback and amazed by the lack of faith He found in Nazareth. Most of the time in the first six chapters of Mark, people are amazed at Jesus, this time, Jesus is the one who is amazed, and not in a good way.

Jesus has gone home, for the last time as Mark records it. Back to Nazareth, one final teaching opportunity for His disciples before He sends them out two by two. He's asked to teach in the synagogue. I don't know whether or not this is the same occasion as Luke 4, but i want to say that it is. Why would the men of Nazareth try to kill Jesus and then have Him back to speak? It doesn't seem all that likely.

So Jesus teaches and people question Him, they insult Him (son of Mary, wink wink, nudge nudge), they're not really interested in what He has to say. In Nazareth He couldn't heal many because of their unbelief. This doesn't mean that Jesus is like Tinkerbell, He doesn't need our belief to give Him power, but it means there were no crowds, there were no women clinging to the edge of His garment, not desperate fathers with dying daughters. Just a few sick people.

And Jesus was amazed. Ouch.

How does He deal with this unbelief. Maybe we should pause and ask how we would deal with this unbelief. He knows that a prophet is not without honour except in his hometown, and he identifies himself with the faithful men of God in that way. I don't know what i'd do next, but i'm not i wouldn't have my own 'sons of thunder' moment here. You don't believe? Then BANG! i'll give you something to believe in. Y'know, something gracious like that. Jesus doesn't do that, instead, He carries their unbelief, and yours and mine, and dies under the weight of it.

What happened at Nazareth was in miniature what happened everywhere. Jesus came to His own and they rejected Him. He went to Jerusalem, and they rejected Him, eventually, most of His closest followers turned their back on Him, as He bore their sins on the cross.

This is how Jesus deals with our unbelief. He dies for it. He dies because of it, and rises three days later, and by His Spirit now graciously shows us His glory in the face of God. Before we saw nothing valuable in Jesus. We obscured His teaching with our irrelevant questions and oh-so-clever slurs. Now? Now we see, now He's died and risen we see who He is, and we can cry out 'i believe, help my unbelief!'

Jesus came and we didn't believe. We didn't want to know. And He took that unbelief and He killed it, and left it in the grave. Now He shines glorious from the pages of history, and we see Him, not just as the 'son of Mary,' but as the risen Son of God. And as we see, we believe.