THE PEOPLE OF NAZARETH Rejecting the Familiar
THE PEOPLE OF NAZARETH knew Jesus well. They could recite his dossier. He was Joseph and Mary’s son, the carpenter. He had brothers and sisters, whom they could name (6:3). How could this same Jesus teach in the synagogue and cause such amazement?
Jesus was the young man from ’round the way, whom they had watched grow up. He came from an unremarkable family and did an unremarkable job in their unremarkable town—just like any of them. Yet they could not deny that his teaching in the synagogue amazed them. How could they possibly reconcile the unremarkable Jesus they knew from the neighborhood with the remarkable Jesus who now stood before them? The people of Nazareth had to decide how to resolve their dilemma. Would they claim that the past was past and acknowledge Jesus as an amazing teacher? Or would they reject him?
They missed the Messiah who had been in their midst all along
Their choice revealed more about them than it did about Jesus. Yes, they had observed the circumstances of Jesus’ upbringing, but they did not understand the big picture. By refusing to acknowledge that Jesus had actually become the amazing teacher standing before them, they revealed that they did not believe that one of their own could be God’s instrument for the miraculous. Thus, they didn’t think God could use any of them; they were unworthy and beneath God’s notice. The miraculous happened elsewhere. Not there in Nazareth. And not by one of their own (6:5-6).
The people of Nazareth resolved the conflict between their perception and the reality in front of them by rejecting the image of Jesus that was new to them. In so doing, they missed the Messiah who had been in their midst all along. Often, rejecting another person says more about the one doing the rejecting than it does about the one being rejected.