"The Stone of Stumbling and the Rock of Offence"

Mark 6:1-6

   I don’t know if you’ve ever experienced this in your own life, but I have found that the most difficult people to teach and talk to about Jesus and the Gospel are members of my own family.  They are all Christians, and yet they believe some things that are contrary to the Word of God.  But it’s hard to talk to them and try to correct these false beliefs, because regardless of how much education I’ve had and regardless of the fact that I’m a pastor, to my family I’m not Pastor Kistler with an M.A. and an M.Div., trained in the Scriptures; I’m just the older brother or I’m just the son.  And these relationships always get in the way when discussing the various teachings of the Word of God on which we disagree.  Regardless of the fact that the Scriptures clearly reveal that some of the things my family believe are false, if I point this out to them, it simply becomes another case of sibling rivalry, and feelings are hurt and personal offense is taken.  If someone not related to them were to instruct them in the Word of God it would be different; they’d have more respect for that person, because all the familial baggage wouldn’t be there.  And I imagine it would be even harder if your family members were non-Christians.  As far as speaking the truth of God’s Word to one’s own family members, it’s just as Jesus says, “A prophet is not without honor except in his home town and among his own relatives and in his own household.”
   In the Gospel text for today Jesus Himself experienced this.  Here He had been preaching, teaching, and performing many miracles.  He had recently freed a man from the legion of demons who possessed him and cast them into a herd of swine; He had healed a woman of her hemorrhage when she came up from behind Him and touched His garments; and He had brought Jairus’ little twelve-year-old daughter back to life.  Now He had come to His own home town of Nazareth where He grew up, and the people there took offense at Him:  ”Where did this man get these things?  What is this wisdom given to Him and such miracles as these performed by His hands?”  Why were they so offended?  You’d think they’d have been excited to have Jesus come home and visit them.  You’d think they’d have been proud that one of their own had become such a celebrity.  But as is often the case when someone in your family or someone you grew up with becomes famous and has a lot of gifts and abilities that you don’t, you become jealous.  ”Where did Jesus get all these gifts and abilities?  How come we don’t have these gifts?  He’s no one special.  He’s just a carpenter, the son of a carpenter.  We know who He is; we grew up with Him.  Does He think He’s better than us?”  These people were treating Jesus as if He were the younger brother in a family, and every older brother or sister knows that part of being an older sibling means you get to boss your younger siblings around.  They don’t tell you what to do; you tell them what to do, and there’s no way that they could ever be any better or better off than you; it just wouldn’t be right; it just wouldn’t be fair.  So, perhaps the people of Nazareth were thinking that now that Jesus was famous and had all these gifts and abilities that He was going to come in and act like the big brother towards them and boss them around and lord Himself over them, the little people.
   The Nazarenes weren’t really that much different from us in this regard.  They thought of Jesus as simply one of themselves, perhaps someone even less than themselves, someone they could control and boss around.  He was, after all, just a carpenter to them.  And that’s the box they tried to keep Him in.  That was the Jesus they knew Him to be, and He couldn’t be any more to them than that; they wouldn’t let Him be any more Jesus than that to them.  Who is Jesus to you?  What kind of a Jesus do you have?  What kind of a Jesus do you allow Him to be to you?  What is the box you try to keep Jesus in?  And how do you respond when He moves outside that box?  When He brings suffering and the cross into your life or when He doesn’t do what you want Him to do or give you everything you ask for, do you take offense at Him?  When He convicts you of sin or false doctrine, do you get angry with Him, try to justify yourself, or blame others?  We often act like Jesus is our own personal Jesus.  Like the Nazarenes we have a lot ideas for our Jesus about who He should be and how He should act towards us that don’t come from the Scriptures. Then when Jesus breaks those molds, we act like these Nazarenes and take offense at Him, because we can’t control Him; we can’t be like the older sibling and boss Him around.  Jesus does what Jesus does, and that is often offensive to us.
   But Jesus didn’t come to be the big older brother and boss us around, lording Himself over us.  Jesus is a brother that every sibling should love to have, because this brother came to serve.  Everything Jesus did He did for you, to the point of even giving His life for you on the cross to save you from eternal death.  Jesus is the perfect brother, a brother who gives His life to serve His brothers.  Who wouldn’t want a brother like that?  The Nazarenes had nothing to be jealous of concerning Jesus.  He didn’t come to them to show off His abilities and gifts in order to prove how successful He had become or to make Himself out to be better than they or to lord Himself over them and boss them around.  He came to save them by giving Himself as the sacrifice for their sins on the cross.
   And yet this very giving of Himself is offensive to people.  ”Who does this Jesus think He is, telling me that I’m a sinner and need to be saved?  Who does He think He is, that His death is supposed to wipe out my sins and reconcile me to God?  He was just a carpenter, just a Jew, just a Nazarene, just a man.”  But God reveals Himself under signs of weakness.  He revealed Himself as a man, a Jew, a Nazarene, a carpenter, and a dead man hanging on a cross, and all this is offensive to people, because they don’t think God should appear in such ways.  And when He does appear under such signs of weakness, people reject Him, because they are only going by what they see with their eyes, and what they see with their eyes doesn’t fit with their ideas about God.  Instead of going by what our eyes see and our false ideas about God which come from our heart, we should be listening to what the Word of God says about Jesus.  The Word of God comes not from our hearts but from the Spirit and tells us the truth about Jesus.  Those who don’t listen to the Word of God will be offended by Jesus.  The Nazarenes were offended by Jesus, because instead of listening to the Word, they judged Jesus by His outward appearance and by their relationship to Him.  They thought they knew Jesus, but in fact they really didn’t.  They didn’t know Him as the Son of God, their Savior, but simply as a carpenter, the son of Joseph and Mary.  They didn’t know Jesus, because they didn’t know His Word.  And this is why they were offended.  He didn’t act like the Jesus they expected Him to be but like the Son of God that He was.  
   And many Christians are still offended by Jesus today, because they don’t listen to the Word of God.  They don’t listen to what it teaches either about who Jesus is, or about how He reveals Himself.  The Word teaches that Jesus reveals Himself through the weak signs of His Word, Baptism and His Holy Supper.  But many want a Jesus who reveals Himself through private revelations or dreams or by way of miraculous signs, wonders, and displays of glory.  Instead of rejoicing that Jesus comes to us through His Word and Sacraments, many Christians expect Him to work apart from these means, and are offended when told that Jesus does not promise to work apart from them.  Many Christians are also offended surprisingly enough by the cross of Jesus.  They don’t want to see Jesus hanging on the cross; crucifixes are an offense to them.  Jesus is risen, and that’s all they want to know.  But the Apostle Paul says, “We preach Christ crucified.”  Jesus is risen to be sure, but He keeps pointing us back to the weak-looking sign of His cross where His blood, sprinkled upon us at Baptism, was spilled as the payment for our sins.  
   It’s through these signs of weakness - the Word of God, the Sacraments, and the cross of Christ - that God’s power is perfectly displayed and through which Jesus comes to you as He came to His own people to deliver His gifts.  But when people take offense at Jesus and the weak-looking signs He chooses to use, they hinder Jesus’ gifts from coming to them.  It was because the Nazarenes refused to believe that Jesus was the Son of God, their Savior and only saw Him as a carpenter that Jesus could not give His gifts to them.  Unbelief hinders you from receiving the gifts that Jesus wants to give you.  This is why no one is to come to communion apart from faith in the words of Jesus concerning this Supper.  Where there’s no faith in Jesus’ words, His gifts are not received.
   And so instead of being recipients of Jesus and His gifts, the people of Nazareth got the Jesus they expected and no more.  They believed that Jesus was just a carpenter, and just a carpenter is all they got.  The same goes for us.  What kind of Jesus do you have?  What kind of Jesus do you expect?  Do you have a Jesus you can control and boss around?  Do you have a Jesus that controls and bosses you around?  Do you have a Jesus that can only do so much?  Do you have a Jesus that doesn’t care about you and doesn’t hear you prayers?  Do you have a Jesus who only gives you partial forgiveness?  Or do you have the Jesus who loves you, gave Himself completely to you, died for your all sins, and whose blood applied to you at your Baptism cleanses you from all sin?  Do you have the Jesus of the Scriptures, who has done everything for you and your salvation and who causes all things that happen to you to work together for your good?
   It’s this Jesus alone who is your Savior.  It’s this Jesus alone whose bloody sacrifice on the cross has reconciled you to God.  And it’s only this Jesus who, since His resurrection from the dead and His session at the right hand of the Father, now delivers His gifts of forgiveness, life, and salvation to you through His Word, Baptism, and the Lord’s Supper.  This Jesus is both the Son of Mary and the Son of God.  Yes, as a man He did have physical brothers and sisters and a physical mother, but you who believe in Him and have been baptized into His Name are His true brothers and sisters, His true family, with God as your heavenly Father and Jesus as your brother.  Yes, He was a carpenter who built many things out of wood, but with the wood of His cross He has built His Church, and you who believe and bear that sign by way of your Baptism are all members of that Church.  This Jesus comes to you, His people, today as He came to His own home town of Nazareth to do His work of teaching, absolving you of your sins, and feeding you on His body and blood.  Here your crucified and risen Brother is delivering all the benefits He won for you through His life, death, and resurrection.  May He never be to us a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense, but the rock of our salvation and the chief cornerstone of the Church which He has purchased with His own blood.  Amen.

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