Fr Matthew Reese

“‘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 offence at him. Then Jesus said to them, ‘Prophets are not without honour, except in their home town, and among their own kin, and in their own house.’ And he could do no deed of power there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them. And he was amazed at their unbelief.” — Mark 6:3-6.

Dear Friends,

As I was reading some commentaries about this morning’s passage from Mark, I was particularly struck by the contradictory character of unbelief.

One scholar pointed out that the challenge for Jesus’s fellow Jews seems to have been “how could this carpenter be God?” But for the early Christians, the question was flipped on its head: “how could God be a common carpenter?”

I wonder which of these poses the greatest challenge for all of us?

To me, at least, Jesus’ humility and ordinariness are that which make the Gospel story all the more compelling.

In a time when kings and emperors were elevated to the status of demigods with supernatural powers, God’s incarnation in Jesus—a humble tradesman preaching the forgiveness of sins—is so utterly illogical as to be true.

The false prophets of the world seek after riches and power—they ride into cities on chariots. Jesus’ triumphal entry is undertaken on a borrowed donkey and the procession does not lead to a temporal throne, but rather to the cross.

And yet the eyes of Jesus’s compatriots were so focused on a vision of worldly power, that they could not see the glaring manifestation of the other-worldly… even as he preached in front of them.

And without faith, “he could do no deed of power there—except [of course] that he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them.”

The lessons of this passage are twofold, it seems to me: First, that God’s power looks nothing like the worldly power that we fear and crave. And second, that God works miracles in us through faith.

So today, let us open our hearts to that.

Yours in Christ,

—Fr Matthew