Mark 6:1-6 – Jesus Rejected at Nazareth

Mark 6:2

1. Like all Jews, Jesus celebrated the Sabbath.
   1. The Sabbath starts at nightfall on Friday evening and lasts for 24 hours.
   1. Remembering to keep the Sabbath is part of God’s Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:8-11).
      1. Just as God worked to create the earth in six days and rested on the seventh, so man is meant to work six days and then rest on the seventh.
2. The synagogue was a natural gathering place for community activities.
   1. On the Shabbat, the Jewish people gathered in their synagogue to hear the Scriptures.
   1. In Jesus’ day, it also included the opportunity for just about anyone to teach Scripture, an opportunity that both Jesus and Paul used to teach about the kingdom of God.
3. When Jesus left Nazareth, he did so as a “carpenter”, but now when he returns he is a prophet and miracle worker with a wealth of disciples.
   1. The people in the synagogue are “amazed” at what Jesus says and does. Because Jesus taught in his hometown of Nazareth, the synagogue is full of people who have known him all his life. They don’t seem to have noticed before that there was anything special about Jesus.
   1. When a new preacher comes along who causes “astonishment”, it is not wrong in itself to examine the person and ask where he got it from.
      1. However, the Nazarene seems to suffer from the law of Jannah when they say that what Jesus says and does cannot come from God because he was just an ordinary “carpenter”.

Mark 6:3

1. Like Joseph, Mary’s husband, Jesus had previously worked as some kind of craftsman, stonecutter or carpenter.
   1. The Nazareths don’t want to believe in Jesus because they know his whole family and because Jesus used to be an ordinary “worker”, an ordinary person just like them.
2. When Jesus is called “the son of Mary”, it is pejorative:
   1. A man was never called his “mother’s son” even if his father was dead.
      1. The last time Joseph is mentioned is when Jesus is twelve years old, which probably means that Joseph died shortly afterwards (Luke 2:51).
   1. There may have been rumors that Jesus was an illegitimate child (John 8:41).
   1. But even though the malicious ones tried to knock Jesus, they were right; Jesus was born of Mary, but only adopted by Joseph.
3. Jesus was Mary’s firstborn child, these were her others (Luke 2:7).
   1. James became the leader of the church in Jerusalem and wrote the letter of James (Acts 15:13, James 1:1).
   1. Judas wrote the Epistle of Jude (Jude 1). 

Mark 6:4

1. Then as now, this is a saying that is all too often true when a preacher preaches in his home environment.
2. Moses called the coming Messiah a “prophet” and warned of the consequences of not listening to this prophet (Deuteronomy 18:18-19).

Mark 6:5

1. The power of God is communicated through Jesus when people believe in Jesus.
   1. Jesus could perform works of power if a person lacked faith but wanted to believe (Mark 9:24). But the Nazarethites neither believed in Jesus nor wanted to believe in Jesus.