As finite human beings living in a fallen world, we experience shock or surprise multiple times a day. An unexpected phone call or knock on the door, a breaking news story, an accidental spill of coffee on your freshly ironed shirt. Emergency rooms would cease to exist if this element of surprise weren’t part of being human. If we manage to go one day without having any surprises it’s a rare thing. But what about God? Is it possible for God to be surprised, stupefied, and dumbfounded? Scripture teaches that God is not only all-knowing (Psalm 139), but that he also sovereignly orchestrates every event from the rise and fall of world empires (Daniel 4:25b) to the hairs on our heads and the flight of every bird that swoops over them (Matthew 10:29-31). He knows and guides everything that has happened, is happening, and will happen. Period. So when it comes to genuinely catching God off-guard, the biblical answer reveals that to be an impossibility. Yet in Mark 6, we see Jesus choosing to express surprise over something he encounters.
Jesus decides to visit his small hometown of Nazareth and is asked to teach in the local synagogue on the Sabbath. The hometown hero who has put Nazareth on the map is preaching at church. What is he going to say and how will he be received? We would expect to find him welcomed with open arms. I mean imagine the conversation going on between his neighborhood playmates: “I kicked the ball around with the Messiah”. Or the conversation among those who purchased some of his masterpiece woodworking: “The Son of God built my dining room table or the harness for my oxen”. Still more imagine the exchange between his siblings: “We shared the same mother with God incarnate”. But the biblical account reveals the story was very different. Luke records Jesus’ sermon text to be the messianic prophecy of Isaiah 61. Mark, however, focuses his camera lens on the people’s reaction to Jesus. Mark says they “were astonished” and “took offense at him” (lit. stumbled over him). The reaction of shock and awe over Jesus’ identity is a common theme in Mark (1:22, 6:2, 7:37, 10:26, 11:18) and shouldn’t surprise the reader at this point in the gospel, but there is one thing they’d find surprising…“And he (Jesus) marveled because of their unbelief.” Let that sink in. Jesus marveled/was astonished/stood amazed/was surprised. The content of Jesus’ marveling? The serial unbelief lodged within the hearts of his own “hometown…relatives and…household” (v. 4). In the people’s rejection of Jesus, we smell a hint of their future rejection that would lead Jesus up a hill called Calvary. Its no surprise that Jesus never returns home and never teaches in the synagogue again.
What can we take away from this?
Unbelief is irrational. People don’t reject Jesus because of some irrefutable evidence or some logical argument that cannot be solved. Don’t get me wrong, some atheists and agnostics may feel their unbelief is reasonable, but we know the real truth behind it. People reject Jesus because they don’t want Jesus to be lord over their lives. The reason they currently do not love him is not truly reasonable at all, so don’t reason with them solely. I say solely, because we are to share Christ with them of course, for faith comes by hearing the word of Christ. But the true work that saves sinners is wholly God’s work. We share it and try to reason with them, but it ultimately boils down to God’s reasoning that saves. God says, “Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord. Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool” (Is. 1:18).
Unbelief is a heart issue. For those of us who do believe in Jesus, we cannot forget that we once lived in unbelief like the people of Nazareth. Even if we’ve always believed the content of the Bible ever since we first heard it, the only faith that saves according to the Bible is a faith that surrenders to Jesus’ lordship over one’s life (James 2:19). Rejoice that you rejoice in Jesus and don’t reject him. And pray for God to save your loved ones. The prophet Jeremiah hit the nail on the head when he said, “The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick” (Jer. 17:9). But remember that God can change the heart. He said through Ezekiel, “I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes” (Eze. 36:26-27). Remember the example of Lydia. Paul spoke with her about Christ and God “opened her heart to believe” (Acts 16:14).
Unbelief surprises Jesus. Since the only proper response to the authority of Jesus is one of broken-hearted repentance and desperate faith, anything less is appalling to the Son of God. And since we don’t want Jesus appalled by the unbelief of our loved ones, pray that their “reason would return to them” and they’d “come to their senses” and be saved. Pray hard also for your own heart (and that of your believing friends for that matter) to keep trusting in Jesus. Hold the cross before your mind’s eye each day and let its glorious news sink deep into your heart and keep you treasuring and trusting. Then, one Day, when Jesus surprises you at his return or at your death, you won’t be caught off-guard, but will be found believing and standing and living by faith in him.
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