Wow.
It took an awful lot to amaze Jesus. In fact, I found only two occasions in the Bible where Jesus was amazed.
One of them was mentioned in today’s reading from the One-Year Bible.
It involved the Mark 6 account of Jesus’ attempt to minister in His hometown.
It didn’t go well.
At all.
In fact, the results were so sparse that the Bible says “He was amazed at their lack of faith.” (verse 5).
Jesus had been preaching for a while by the time He walked into Nazareth and so He naturally went to the synagogue where He had spent SO many sabbaths during His life and was invited to speak. Mark’s gospel said the people were amazed at His teaching.
But apparently not to the point of transformation but rather to the point of condemnation.
“Where did this man get these things?” they asked. “What’s this wisdom that has been given him? What are these remarkable miracles he is performing? Isn’t this the carpenter? Isn’t this Mary’s son and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas and Simon? Aren’t his sisters here with us?” And they took offense at him.” (vv. 2-3).
Six questions. Six insights into hearts that weren’t open to the wisdom being shared, but instead were seemingly tinged with pride.
“He’s no better than us because He grew up with us so who does he think he is?” was the attitude that appears to have flooded their hearts.
It seems that envy was at play here.
Listen, we need to do all that we can to avoid feelings of envy when somebody close to us is accomplishing more for the Kingdom of God than are we. It is important that we celebrate and encourage the successes in Christian service that others are having, rather than take pot shots at them because of hidden envy.
The same principle applies, of course, with success in the workplace or in school or sports or whatever.
Humility absorbs wisdom and celebrates the success of others. Pride does the opposite.
Let’s choose humility always.
That way, we won’t amaze Jesus with our lack of faith.
As always, I love you
Martin
