“Offended by the Ordinariness of Jesus”
Mark 6:1-13
7/5/09
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Warning: Offensive
language will be used in today’s sermon. As a matter of fact, offensive language
has already been used in today’s liturgy. Not only that, but you were met with
offensive language when you pulled into the parking lot of the church today.
That sign that we have out in front has been displaying offensive language every
day now for a whole year. From the hymnals in the pews, to devotional literature
like Portals of Prayer, all contain offensive language - not because of any
four-letter words that you might find there, but because they contain the Word
of God. Now, of course, some people try to make that Word less offensive by
ripping certain quotations of Scripture out of their context and separating them
from Jesus. But when preached and taught in its truth and purity, the Word of
God will always be offensive to sinners, because of the one whose Word it
is.
Today’s Gospel text is an example of this, as the people from Jesus’ own
home town of Nazareth, the people who knew Him best (or at least thought they
knew Him best), took offense at Him. The reason they were offended was because
to them Jesus had always seemed rather ordinary - an ordinary kid, playing with
their ordinary kids, an ordinary adult doing the work of an ordinary carpenter.
He did all the normal things that any ordinary human being did. Nothing really
extra-ordinary stood out about Jesus, while He was growing up in an ordinary
family in this rather ordinary town. But now here He was, preaching and teaching
with extra-ordinary wisdom and authority, and performing all kinds of
extra-ordinary works, things that not even their ordinary priests and religious
leaders were doing. In fact, this Man that they thought they all knew was
speaking and acting as if He were God! And this is what caused them to take
offense at Him.
If there was anyone who could not be ordinary in any way,
shape, or form it was God. And given the extra-ordinary ways in which God
appeared to people in the O.T., there was no way that this Man could possibly be
Him. Where was the glory? Where was the fire? Where was the smoke and thick
darkness that surrounded God when He showed up in the O.T? The miracles were a
bit perplexing, but they might have been explained by the fact that many of the
O.T. prophets, including Moses, performed miracles. Even so, how did Jesus
suddenly come up with these powers? How did He go from being a lowly carpenter
to being what He was presenting Himself to be today? The people of Nazareth were
not just a little bit jealous of Jesus. But they were especially not ready to
accept that this ordinary Man who grew up among them was God Himself and that
the words, wisdom, and works that they were hearing and seeing were the words
and works of God.
For this reason, because of their unbelief, they didn’t
benefit from Jesus’ words and works. By taking offense at Him, they blocked His
gifts from coming to them. For insisting on the ordinary, the ordinary is what
they got from Jesus. In the end, for such an offense, they would not receive the
extra-ordinary life that Jesus came to give them. Instead they would die the
ordinary death of sinners, only to suffer eternally under God’s wrath in hell.
Now, this is a lesson for us in two ways: first, that we don’t take offense
at the ordinariness of Jesus and so block ourselves from receiving His gifts,
and second, that we don’t become offended when others take offense at the
ordinariness of Jesus and reject us for proclaiming Him. Because by nature we
look for God to work in mysterious ways, we miss the extra-ordinary ways He
works through ordinary things. Jesus Himself is an example of this. Again, if
the people of Nazareth were told that God was coming to visit them that day,
they never would have pictured Him coming to them as a Man, least of all as the
neighborhood carpenter. They would have expected Him to come in a Mt. Sinai way,
with fire, smoke, earthquakes, and the like. If Moses himself hadn’t been able
to look at God’s face, they wouldn’t have been able to, either. But God in fact
did come to them that day, veiled, however, behind human flesh. The Apostle Paul
writes that in Christ all the fullness of deity dwells bodily. And so we can say
that by way of Jesus’ incarnation, the ordinary body and blood of this Man are
the body and blood of God. Accordingly, we confess in the Nicene Creed that
Jesus is God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God. And yet, in the flesh
He looked so ordinary - too ordinary, as a matter of fact, to the point where
without the work of the Holy Spirit no one would recognize Him as God. We would
reject Him, too, just as His own people did, who handed Him over to the Romans
to crucify.
The crucifixion itself is an offense. The ultimate display of
ordinariness was seen in Christ’s death on the cross. There Jesus died the way
ordinary criminals were executed. It was a very shameful way to die, and to this
day it’s the height of offense to Jews to claim that God gave Himself over to
any kind of death at all, least of all to this particular death. Not only was it
bloody and shameful, but according to the Scriptures, anyone who was put to
death in such a way was under God’s curse. How could God ever be found there? On
Mt. Sinai, yes, but not on Mt. Calvary! Still, even in His ordinary death, Jesus
was doing something extra-ordinary - atoning for our sins with His blood. Some
extra-ordinary Mt. Sinai things happened there at Mt. Calvary to show that God’s
wrath on account of our sins was being poured out on His Son instead of us.
Through that ordinary death, Jesus was doing His extra-ordinary work of saving
you from the wages of your sin.
This salvation is now being delivered to you
in very offensive ways - through the ordinary elements of water, words, bread,
and wine. Like the flesh of Jesus, here too God is hiding behind these very
ordinary things to perform very extra-ordinary works. God speaks using ordinary
human words. They’re words you can look up in any Hebrew or Greek dictionary.
When God uses them, however, they do some very extra-ordinary things. With His
Word God created all that exists out of nothing. With His Word Jesus performed
many mighty works during His earthly ministry, including healing the sick,
casting out demons, and raising the dead. And now with His Word He forgives you
all your sins and promises you eternal life. When Jesus puts ordinary human
words to work in His mouth, they do what He says.
It’s His words that cause
the water, bread, and wine to do the extra-ordinary things that they do. When
His Word is connected to water, suddenly the water ceases to be ordinary water
and becomes something extra-ordinary - a Baptism, a washing of regeneration and
renewal by the Holy Spirit, doing such extra-ordinary things as giving you new
birth, crucifying and raising you with Christ, clothing you with Him, and
sprinkling you with His blood. Luther even writes that “the blessings of Baptism
are so boundless that if timid nature considers them it may well doubt whether
they could all be true.” When the Lord’s Word is connected to ordinary bread and
wine, they too become extra-ordinary and are the body and blood of Christ in His
holy Supper. There they deliver to you the forgiveness of sins, life, and
salvation that Jesus won for you with His body given and His blood shed on the
cross.
Now, these things we’ve known, since we were taught them from the Word
of God in our catechism classes. But today’s Gospel lesson reminds us that Jesus
continues to hide Himself and His extra-ordinary works behind these humble,
ordinary looking things, so that we might not get bored with them or become
offended by their weak appearance and be tempted to look for Jesus to show
Himself in more glorious ways. If we do that, we too will block ourselves from
receiving His gifts just as these Nazarenes did.
But we are also to proclaim
these ordinary looking things, even though the world will be offended by them.
The Gospel is an offense to unbelievers, because it proclaims the Man Jesus
Christ to be the Son of God, whose blood shed on the cross cleanses us from all
sin. The Apostle Paul writes that the Gospel is foolishness to Gentiles and a
stumbling block to Jews, but to us who are being saved, it is the power and
wisdom of God. It is God’s power of salvation for all who believe it. Don’t be
surprised, however, if you are rejected as Jesus was, when you tell this good
news to others. The natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God,
because they are foolishness to him.
Now, we would expect the world to take
offense at the preaching of the Gospel, but even within the Christian Church
there are those who take offense at the Scriptural teaching on Baptism and the
Lord’s Supper. Just as Jesus was rejected by His own relatives and neighbors in
His home town, so we will be rejected by some of our own brothers and sisters in
Christ for practicing infant Baptism, for confessing that Baptism now saves us,
and for trusting in Christ’s words that the bread and wine in His Supper are His
true body and blood. Regardless of the offense that people take, however, we
must continue to proclaim the Word of God, whether people receive it or not, as
Ezekiel was told to do in today’s O.T. lesson.
But there’s one more reason
why we are going to be rejected, and that is because of who we are now in
Christ. By way of our Baptism into Him God has taken us ordinary sinners and
made us into something extra-ordinary - saints. Now, you and I certainly neither
look nor act like saints most of the time. And it’s not because of our
righteousness or because we’re better than everyone else that we are called
saints. But because Jesus’ holiness and righteousness have been given to us, now
God declares us holy. And because the world rejects the holy Son of God, it will
reject His saints also. That’s what the disciples of Jesus were to expect when
He sent them out. Not everyone would accept them or their message. The same goes
for you. You will be a double offense to those who reject Christ, not only
because you carry the extra-ordinary message of the Gospel, but also because you
are an extra-ordinary people, God’s holy people in Jesus. But anyone who rejects
you for proclaiming such good news rejects Christ and only harms himself, as he
blocks the Lord’s mighty work of salvation on his behalf.
Jesus, His Gospel,
and His Sacraments are all offensive. They are offensive because they are too
ordinary looking and do not conform to our idea of how God should manifest
Himself, what He should be doing, and where He is to be found. But all those who
do not take offense receive the salvation that the Lord gives them through such
ordinary things. You are those people by the grace of God. Come now and receive
your extra-ordinary Savior’s body and blood in this extra-ordinary Supper, where
you are the beneficiaries of His mighty work of salvation. Amen.