Amazed? - by Ben Boython
Our Church has a 2022 Bible Reading Plan, and on April 6, the reading was from Mark 6
What do you do with amazement?
When you see a professor or some wise aged person, and they share wisdom, rhetoric and insight with you, you tend to receive what they say. You do not know all their faults. You do not know their past. You do not know their family. You only know their credentials and their status. You only see the wisdom in action and most people tend to receive it, and want more! The idea here is that the person you are receiving from is higher than you - you have judged them to be superior to you, and therefore worth listening to.
Now consider someone you know. Or consider someone who you judge as inferior or maybe an equal. Consider a sibling or a good friend or someone you knew as a child but has now ‘grown up’. I want to say that if they share wisdom, rhetoric or insight, you tend to receive it less. Is this your experience?
When you are amazed, confounded, or unable to contend with someone who is so much smarter, so much wiser - what do you do? I would say that we measure what a person says by who we understand them to be, well before we have even heard what they have to say.
Jesus was belittled, Jesus was criticized. Jesus was limited by those who heard him, even though they were amazed. Truth is amazing and it will set you free. But while that is another blog post, the truth of Christ was such that those who heard it did not want to submit to it, and therefore determined in their heart to undermine it with their understanding of Jesus of being of a poor status, a lower person or equal to themselves! Consider Mark 6:
Jesus left there and went to his hometown, accompanied by his disciples. 2 When the Sabbath came, he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were amazed. “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? 3 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. 4 Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his own town, among his relatives and in his own home.” 5 He could not do any miracles there, except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them. 6 He was amazed at their lack of faith.
When you combine this with the idea of considering others better than yourself, you see that it is human pride or at best, procrastination, that reduces a person when it suits us.
Paul says it this way in Philippians 2:3:
Don’t be selfish; don’t try to impress others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves.
The people hearing Jesus in Mark 6 did not want to contend with their amazement, rather they subjected Jesus to their own understanding, and in their own way, reduced Jesus making Him equal to them, if not inferior.
When you reduce Jesus to a child and a brother, you cannot receive His wisdom. For Jesus was not just a child or brother, rather He is the Son of God. Jesus both understands us completely because He was a son of Mary, and brother of James, but He also is the Son of the most high God.
So what does this mean for us?
When we are amazed or challenged by the words and wisdom of Jesus, we need to wrestle with His wisdom and consider His words, and not dismiss His wisdom by dismissing divinity or humanity.
When we engage with people we know and have their measure, we need to remember to be humble, and think of them as better than ourselves, thereby protecting our hearts, and being open to amazement.
May we always be amazed by Jesus, and let us pray that the Lord never be amazed by our lack of faith!