April 25th 2009
When Jesus Couldn’t Do Miracles
W
hen Jesus returned to Nazareth early on in his teaching, familiarity caused the people in his hometown to treat him much less warmly than the crowds elsewhere, where his past was an unknown commodity.
“Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon? Are not His sisters here with us?” and they took offense at Him. (Mark 6:3, NAS)
As a result, there were no big miracles recorded in Nazareth at a time when Jesus was using miracles to establish his identity as the Son of God. In the previous chapter, a bleeding woman was healed simply by having faith and touching the hem of His robe as He walked to the home of a synagogue official, where He raised the official’s daughter from the dead. Yet in Nazareth:
And He could do no miracle there except that He laid His hands on a few sick people and healed them. (Mark 6:5)
Could? In my years as a Christian, I’ve read this verse at least three or four times and I’ve probably heard it preached even more often, but I never noticed it said “could,” not “would” or simply, “He performed no miracles there.” I checked a half dozen other translations this morning (thanks to a very handy YouVersion Holy Bible app on my iPhone) and all said “could” or “was not able.” The Message it was “because He couldn’t get over their stubborness.”
It wasn’t a matter of choice, then, it was a matter of power. Imagine that, the Son of God, the Trinity, powerful enough to create life or call down legions of angels, stopped in His tracks by a simple lack of faith, a bit of too much smarty-pants, know-it-all knowledge. C.S. Lewis wrote:
The disease that will certainly end our species … if it is not crushed, (is) the fatal superstition that men can create values; that a community can choose its “ideology” as men choose their clothes.
The people of Nazareth chose their ideology, going with the familiar and comforting – Jesus is just that carpenter’s kid – instead of forcing themselves to alter their reality and acknowledge something beyond their power of simple comprehension. As a result, lives there were not transformed.
All around our world, people are doing the same. They worship knowledge and become too familiar with explanations for everything that leave out Everything: God. Even Christians can become too familiar with Jesus and lose His power in their hearts, remembering that they once gave themselves to Him, but not realizing that His role has slipped and self-created values have gained prominence.
Could Jesus work a miracle in your life, even if He wanted to? I’m not sure I can answer “Yes!” in all truthfulness. Can you?
