When Jesus had finished telling these stories and illustrations, he left that part of the country. He returned to Nazareth, his hometown. When he taught there in the synagogue, everyone was amazed and said, “Where does he get this wisdom and the power to do miracles?” Then they scoffed, “He’s just the carpenter’s son, and we know Mary, his mother, and his brothers—James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas. 56 All his sisters live right here among us. Where did he learn all these things?” And they were deeply offended and refused to believe in him. Then Jesus told them, “A prophet is honored everywhere except in his own hometown and among his own family.” And so he did only a few miracles there because of their unbelief. (Matthew 13:53-58)One of the hardest thing for a preacher is to come home. He wants to come home and tell the people he knew what has changed his life. He sees them in his mind responding in amazement that he had changed so much, they want to know what caused the change, through his change he brings more people to the Lord.
But it doesn’t always work that way, even Jesus was to find out.
Instead of a changed person, many of them see a former kid acting silly. They think that he is acting better than he should, and they bring up constantly how he was before he left.
Isn’t this so and so’s kid. I remember when … and the person’s influence is hard to keep.
We want to go back and teach and show and bring the love and grace that so transformed us to those we love, but it just so seldom works that way.
Jesus came back and encountered nothing but opposition. Even though he was the best kid that ever graduated that high school, still people could not get over the fact that he was a home-town boy and, as such, was putting on airs.
In fact, the opposition to Jesus was so strong that he wasn’t even able to do many miracles there. The unbelief was so strong that it even stopped the power of the Son of God.
When Jesus was on the way to Calvary, he told someone that if these people could burn green wood this easily, how much easier it would be to burn dry wood. In other words, if they could accuse and kill someone who was innocent, how much easier it would be to accuse and kill someone who was sinful. If they could kill him, the Son of God, how much easier would it be to do the same to humanity, who was sinful.
The same holds true here. If they could turn aside the best person that little town ever produced, from the best family that ever lived there, then how can we expect to do any better?
Don’t bank everything on going home and telling your old friends how you have changed. They probably will not listen. And it is easier to impugn you and remember your past than it is to acknowledge that you are telling the truth.
No comments:
Post a Comment
To comment, post your comment and click the anonymous button. It would be nice if you signed it so I could know who you are.
You are welcome to say anything you want as long as it is nice. If I don't like it, or it is ugly, I will take it off, place it into the garbage disposal, grind it up, and allow it to be flushed into the Gulf of Mexico where it will be eaten by a fish and then excreted where it will lie on the bottom of the ocean until it is covered up by other comments.