A hen bereft of her chicks

Jesus left there and went to his home town, accompanied by his disciples.  When the Sabbath came, he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were amazed. “Where did this man get these things?” they asked. “What’s this wisdom that has been given him? What are these remarkable miracles he is performing? 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?” And they took offense at him.  

Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honour except in his own town, among his relatives and in his own home.” 

He could not do any miracles there, except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them. He was amazed at their lack of faith. Mark 6:1-5

Hey, what’s this? Jesus “could not do any miracles there”? The one who stilled the storm? who cleansed the lepers with a touch? who raised the dead? Is Mark really telling us that on this particular occasion in Nazareth there were things he was powerless to do?

True, “he was amazed at their lack of faith”, but would that really be enough to prevent him exercising his divine power? Apparently yes!

If that puzzles us a little, we might prefer to turn to Matthew 13:53-58, where the same story is told in words that are nearly but not quite identical. In verse 58 we are told, not that Jesus could not do any miracles there, but simply that he “did not do many mighty works there, because of their unbelief”. That’s very different. And it raises the question: how can we explain the differences between various gospel accounts?

How the Gospel-writers came to compose their respective Gospels is a hot topic of debate among the experts, though one big clue we have is the opening words of Luke’s Gospel: he tells us explicitly that “many people have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us” and that he, Luke, has “carefully investigated everything” in order to produce his own “orderly account”.

In other words, before Matthew, Mark, Luke and John eventually produced their finished books, it seems there were various documents, now lost, circulating around the new-born churches. They consisted, presumably, of reminiscences of Jesus, eye-witness accounts of various events, scraps of jotted-down recollections, summaries of his teachings, and the Gospel-writers gathered them and incorporated them into their own records as led by the Spirit – in a word, they were editors as well as original writers.

Quite possibly Mark and Matthew differ from one another because they were working from different notes that they had on their desks. And the notes differed quite simply because no two witnesses ever see an event in exactly the same way or use exactly the same words to describe it.

Isn’t this all a bit technical? Sorry if it is, but there is a vital truth about Jesus here which we need always to keep in mind: there were things which he, even though the Son of God, could not do, not because he didn’t have the ability or the power, but because to do them would have violated what he was all about. Call this a paradox if you like; but that’s the way it is: he could have done them – yet he couldn’t!

In this case the worshippers in the Nazareth synagogue “took offence at him” – they aren’t happy that the local boy they have known all his life has suddenly become a celebrity preacher and is stirring things up in their cosy little community.

Oh, they recognise the freshness and power of his preaching, and they marvel at the miracles they have already seen – but, after all, isn’t Jesus just “the carpenter… Mary’s son”, one of a family of sons and daughters? Miracles are all very nice, but we really don’t want anything going on around here which might force us to change our attitudes and our ways, now do we? (According to Luke 4 they actually tried to kill him.)

The fact is that there are all sorts of things which (here comes the paradox) Jesus could not do even though he could easily have done them. Here are a few random examples…

In the Garden of Gethsemane (Matthew 26) he states that he could have called on “more than twelve legions of angels” to protect him – but no, in a deeper sense he couldn’t… In his encounter with the rich young man whose money was his god (Mark 10) we are told that “Jesus looked at him and loved him”; but did he bargain with him or lower the bar for him? No. He could have; but he couldn’t do it… He wept over the doomed city of Jerusalem (Matthew 23), declaring his agony at their hard-heartedness, a hard-heartedness which presumably he could have over-ridden by his sheer authority; but no, he ends up “like a hen who longs to gather her chicks under her wings” – but which cannot.

There is nothing Jesus can’t do. But even he truly “cannot” act in contradiction to his divine nature or the role God his Father has appointed him to play.

All this raises the question: Are you, or I, preventing Jesus from doing something he would love to do? Are we like the people of Nazareth, set in our ways, resistant to change? Or like the people of Jerusalem, and treating him no better than the former prophets, and leaving him like a mother hen bereft of her brood (what a lovely image!)?

Jesus will not – cannot – bulldoze his way into our lives. He wins by wooing, not by coercing. Is there something in our lives – a habit, an attitude, a character flaw, a stubborn resistance - where it is time to yield to his wooing?

Let’s make no mistake: if we don’t, the day will come when we will bitterly regret it.

Lord God, you sent your Son to us not as one who bullies or browbeats, but as one who serves. Shine your light on any point in my life where I am stubbornly resisting your grace and mercy, and lead me, please, to change. Amen.