NOTES for Mar 6:1-6
1 And he went out from thence, and came into his own country; and his disciples follow him. |
2 And when the sabbath day was come, he began to teach in the synagogue: and many hearing him were astonished, saying, From whence hath this man these things? and what wisdom is this which is given unto him, that even such mighty works are wrought by his hands? |
3 Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James, and Joses, and of Juda, and Simon? and are not his sisters here with us? And they were offended at him. |
4 But Jesus said unto them, A prophet is not without honour, but in his own country, and among his own kin, and in his own house. |
5 And he could there do no mighty work, save that he laid his hands upon a few sick folk, and healed them. |
6 And he marvelled because of their unbelief. And he went round about the villages, teaching. |
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There is only one real barrier between a person and God: distrust. More precisely, there are many barriers, but only this one proves truly insurmountable. Everything else can be overcome, if not by the person, then by God, through the joint effort of two wills seeking a meeting. Distrust, however, is insurmountable precisely for God. If a person persists in it, the wall between him and God becomes absolute.
God could enter a person's life and even his heart without asking for human consent at all, but such an entrance would simply destroy the person as a free personality, as the image of God. Not wanting that outcome, God, if a person does not trust Him, simply steps aside, removing Himself from the life space of the one who does not want to see Him. Or, as another version, who wants to see Him only as he wants to see Him. Of course, no human being can see God as He is.
There is, however, a significant difference between natural human limitation and the limits a person arbitrarily chooses for himself. God as a person sees Him is one thing; God as a person imagines Him for himself is another. For a person in a fallen state, it is at times not so simple to distinguish one from the other. A convenient picture of a convenient "god" often hinders communion with God even more than open unwillingness or obvious sin. The same is true with Christ: whoever does not want to see Christ in Christ sees in Him the kind of person he is used to seeing in life.
This danger is especially great in His hometown, where Jesus is "known" especially well, and judging by the evangelist's account, no one is going to revise that knowledge. This is understandable: if they revised it, they would also have to revise their own lives and their relationship with this Man who seemed to have been familiar for so long. It is easier to leave everything as it is and not trouble oneself. This desire to leave everything as it is leaves no room for a miracle, just as it leaves no room for the Kingdom.
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Readings for 5 May 2025
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