“A prophet is only despised in his own country” says Jesus in today’s gospel. Jesus was and is much more than a prophet, he is the Messiah, the Christ, the one who came to save us from our sins. But he is much more than that, he is the Son of God, the 2nd Person of the Trinity who left the Father’s side in eternity, and took on a human nature like ours, and came to live with us. There is a scaling down here which is beyond our comprehension; we sometimes talk about the humility of God and we see it in this scaling down. If Jesus came to live with us, he had to live somewhere. The gospels tell us he was born in a town called Bethlehem which is near Jerusalem, but he grew up in a town called Nazareth in Galilee. At some point in his young life he became the town carpenter. In today’s gospel which is Mark, the first gospel written, the people of Nazareth say “this is the carpenter, surely”. When he was about 30 he left Nazareth to become an itinerant preacher, teacher, miracle worker, but in today’s gospel he goes back to his home town, and he stands up in the synagogue and reads and interprets scriptural texts. The people of Nazareth are very impressed, but they refuse to accept him. It’s that transition from Carpenter to someone standing at the front of the synagogue which is too much for them. The problem is he’s one of them, one of their own. Are we alright with Jesus being God and one of us?
Kind Regards.
Fr Maurice