This morning I want to see how well y’all know your bible. The fastest way to do that is of course with an arbitrary actualities analysis or what you might call a pop quiz. I am going to ask you 10 questions to see how well you know your bible. Now, if you are too timid to participate you are free to keep track of your score in your head. But if you know the answers and have the courage to share it please shout it out.
The first question to determine how well you know your bible is, after creating the heavens and the earth, on the seventh Day God ____. Next question. The name of the guy who built the ark is ____. Good, Good. How about another name. Father ___ had many sons. Many sons had father ____. Now I’m looking for an object. Before he became king over Israel, David killed Goliath with a ____. Now for the lightening round. Jesus was born in ____. Jesus died on a ____. After three days Jesus ____ from the dead. The wage of sin is ____. And finally, God so loved the ____ that he gave His one and only Son.
Wow. O.K. so you know this stuff pretty well. Probably because you have heard it all so many times before, right? Many of you have been studying the bible since you were little. Your momma and daddy probably read you these stories. You probably learned and relearned them year after year in Sunday School. These facts are not new to you. Every Christmas the preacher preaches about the baby Jesus being born in Bethlehem and you sing “Away in a Manger”. Every Easter, that same preacher shouts, “He is risen!” and you reply, “He is risen indeed!”
You know your Bibles very well and I am glad that you do, but I cannot help but wonder if you know it too well. That might seem like an odd thing for a preacher to say. How can a person know their bible too well? Didn’t we just read how God told Ezekiel to “eat the scroll”? Doesn’t God want us to devour His Word so that it fills us up? Didn’t our verse of the day just encourage us to hold the Word of God fast? You just heard me encourage the children to care for the Word of God like a beautiful flower that has been planted in the garden of their hearts. So, you might be a little confused to hear me say that I am concerned that you might know the bible too well. You might ask, “preacher, don’t you want us to know our Bibles?” The answer is absolutely I do. I want you to use and reuse your bible so much that the pages of your bible become dog eared, the binding starts coming apart at the seams, and the cover becomes a worn-out mess. I want you to be a scholar of the scriptures, a doctor of doctrine, and a gospel guru. I want you to know your Bibles, but I don’t want you to know them too well. Let’s take a look at our gospel lesson from Mark 6:1-6. The residence of Nazareth will help me explain what I mean.
The gospel of Saint Mark is the shortest of the Gospels. It is action packed and fast paced as it proceeds from one incident to the next. Although his target audience seems to be Gentile Christians, Saint Mark writes for an audience who, like you, is familiar with the gospel message. Saint Mark begins his gospel with these words, “The beginning of the gospel about Jesus Christ, the Son of God,” to ensure that his readers know the simple truth, that Jesus of Nazareth is the Son of God and the sinner’s promised Savior.
In the section of Mark’s gospel that we are going to focus on today Saint Mark has been describing the growing opposition that Jesus faced. The teachers of the law accused Him of Blasphemy when He forgave the paralytic’s sins. The Pharisees accused Him of doing what was unlawful on the Sabbath when He healed a man with a shriveled hand. The people of Capernaum thought Jesus was a joke when He arrived to heal Jairus’ daughter.
Having faced opposition nearly everywhere He went, Mark tells us Jesus “1 went to his hometown, accompanied by his disciples.” The Nazarenes knew Jesus better than anyone else. This is where Jesus was raised. It is doubtful any besides the members of His immediate family knew of His divine origins and miraculous conception (even though some of them seem to have forgotten that little detail). However, the Nazarenes knew Jesus. Some of them probably remembered the time Mary and Joseph lost Jesus, only to find Him “in the temple courts, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking questions.”[1] Gossip like that tends to spread in a small town. But they had to notice it did not spread from Jesus. Indeed, they must have noticed no sin ever came from Jesus. The Boy always told the truth, He never picked a fight, He never said an ugly word to anyone. The Nazarenes knew better than anyone what a special child Jesus was. They had watched Him grow up over the years. As a young man, they watched Him learn His father’s trade. Likely, many of them had furniture in their house that had been made by Jesus and Joseph. Although the prophet Isaiah tells us Jesus “had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.”[2] I would not at all be surprised if Jewish mothers were interested in marrying their daughters off to a good Jewish boy like Jesus.
The Nazarenes knew Jesus better than anyone else so when Mark tells us “2 When the Sabbath came, he [Jesus] began to teach in the synagogue,” you might expect the Nazarenes to break out in shouts of joy. Especially when you hear what Jesus was teaching them. Saint Luke tells us Jesus’ message to them was one of fulfilled promise. Jesus told the Nazarenes that He had been sent to “proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”[3] Jesus announced to the people who knew Him the best that He was the Son of God and the sinner’s promised Savior.
But if you are expecting the Nazarenes to break out in shouts of joy, you will be disappointed. Saint Mark tells us The Nazarenes were offended by Jesus. They asked, “…2 Where did this man get these things?” ... “What’s this wisdom that has been given him, that he even does miracles! They called Him “This man”. They act like they don’t know who Jesus is. They refer to His message as “these things”. They make it sound like He is speaking gibberish. They question the source of His miracles; a reaction that is reminiscent of the Jerusalem teachers of the law who accused Jesus of being possessed by Beelzebub, saying, “By the prince of demons he is driving out demons.”[4]
How is it that the people who knew Him as well as the Nazarenes knew Him could be so offended by Jesus? They knew Him, better than anyone they knew Him! Saint Mark tells us they knew Him too well. 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?” They knew Him as nothing more than the carpenter’s son. He might have been able to fool some uneducated fisherman and vulnerable woman, but they knew Him. They knew Him as Mary’s son. I can't help but wonder how many people remembered that Mary was found to be with child before she got married to Joseph. I wonder if there were any still alive that had picked up a rock to stone the adulterous girl. I wonder if they knew Jesus as the illicit love child of a promiscuous woman. They knew His siblings; they knew how they had once tried to go take charge of Jesus saying that their brother was “out of His mind.”[5]
The Nazarenes knew Jesus. They knew Him so well they could not accept Him as the Son of God and the sinner’s promised Savior. As a result, Saint Mark tells us Jesus, “5 could not do any miracles there, except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them.” Jesus was willing and able to do miraculous things in Nazareth. It’s just the Nazarenes were not interested. The Nazarenes knowledge of Jesus prevented them from enjoying the blessings Jesus had brought to so many other towns. Besides Jesus Himself, there is no record of a Nazarene being raised from the dead. There is no account describing how a legion of demons was driven from a Nazarene. There is no report of Jesus miraculously feed five thousand Nazarenes. Such blessings are not found among the Nazarenes, they knew Jesus too well for that.
Now do you understand why I said I don’t want you to know your Bible too well? I don’t want you to be like the Nazarenes. I don’t want you to miss out on the blessings that Jesus brings you. Jesus may no longer come to us driving out demons, healing our sick, and feeding thousands but He still comes to us with blessings. To those who are filled with fear of any and every kind Jesus says, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.”[6] To those who are suffering the stresses of life Jesus says, “Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?”[7] To those who are exhausted by the burdens they carry Jesus says, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”[8]
These are just a few of the blessings Jesus wants to share with you. Jesus has so many blessings He wants you to enjoy, but you have heard these passages before, haven’t you. Over and over and over again you have heard about a peace that transcends all human understanding. You know all about the well-fed birds of the air and the beautiful lilies of the field. And if you had a dollar for every time your weary and burdened bones were invited to come to Jesus for rest you would be a very wealthy person. You know this stuff. You know it very well. I bet you know Jesus better than a Nazarene.
You know your Bible very well. Is it possible that you know your Bible too well? Have you ever felt like preachers come and go but they all say the same thing; year after year the same thing. Have you ever sat listening to a sermon and felt like you were listening to Charlie Brown’s teacher? “Waa wa wa wa waa waaaa”. Have you ever felt like week after week worship is nothing but more of the same? Even though I try to present you with a variety of liturgies you have been singing the Sanctus since you were a little ankle biter. You know the Lord’s prayer in your sleep, I know you do because sometimes it sounds like you are mumbling in your sleep when we pray it. Have you forgotten the tenderness you once felt for the Babe of Bethlehem? Does your heart no longer ache when you hear Him cry, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?”[9] Are you no longer excited about the empty tomb? Are you no longer in awe of the God who so loved the world? Is it possible that you know your Bible too well?
Jesus, forgive us for acting like a Nazarene. We, more than so many, have been blessed to know you; from infancy we have known the Holy Scriptures which make us wise for salvation. Forgive us for becoming so familiar with You that we lose interest; forgive our monotonous prayers, forgive our mediocre meditations, forgive our halfhearted worship. Forgive us for knowing our Bibles too well. Please Jesus, please do not take Your blessings from us.
You know, there are some commentators who think Jesus’ visit to the village of Nazareth that Mark records for us in chapter six is actually the second visit Jesus made to His hometown. They say His first visit was the one when they tried to throw Him off a cliff. If that is true, then once again Jesus shows what a merciful and gracious Savior He is. Again, and again He comes to a stubborn and obstinate people repeatedly offering to give them blessings. But regardless of how many times Jesus visited Nazareth, you know for yourself what a merciful and gracious Savior you have. Year after year He invites you to hear how he lived, died, and rose again for your salvation. Week after week He sits with you who gather in His name and offers you the blessings of Word and Sacrament. Time and time again Jesus of Nazareth the Son of God and the sinner’s savior comes to us with blessing after blessing.
I want you to be a scholar of the scriptures, a doctor of doctrine, and a gospel guru. I want you to know your Bible. I just don’t want you to know it so well that you miss out on the blessings that Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God and the sinner’s Savior offers you. Amen
[1] Luke 2:46
[2] Isaiah 53:2
[3] Luke 4:18-19, Isaiah 61:1-2
[4] Mark 3:22
[5] Mark 3:21
[6] John 14:27
[7] Matthew 6:26-27
[8] Matthew 11:28
[9] Mark 15:34