Mark 6:1–6 — He Has Come Close

This sermon is from Mark chapter 6 verses 1 through 6 and is titled "He Has Come Close."

Mark 6:1–6

It was delivered to Ecclesia churches on Sunday, August 10, 2025.

Today's passage is kind of positioned between this move of Jesus and his disciples coming

back toward his hometown.

And then in the next couple of verses after this passage, we will see the disciples sent

out again.

So if you're starting to see this movement, Mark is highlighting with unexpected outsiders

and insiders in Jesus' earthly ministry, you're definitely picking up on kind of what Mark

is putting down.

So if you remember a few weeks ago, we had this interaction with the Gentiles in Jaroset,

which kind of was a primarily Gentile region of the Jeresians.

And demons were cast into pigs

and the Gentiles were terrified

and most of them asked Jesus to leave the area.

Then Jesus returned to Jewish territory

and was called on by a synagogue ruler

to come and heal his daughter.

And a Jewish woman also was healed of her bleeding.

And the response was certainly better

with some than with others.

but if you remember the response of the Jewish crowd

of mourners there, they laugh at Jesus

when he says that the girl is sleeping.

And so he does heal her, he raises her from the dead,

in fact, and then he leaves the region.

So today we have Jesus going all the way back home,

not home to the house that he's been staying at in Capernaum,

but home to his hometown to Nazareth.

And we see this movement, right,

from the outskirts of Gentile territory

where he is rejected to Jewish territory

where he is mocked.

And finally to his hometown.

And I think we can kind of see where this is headed.

In every situation though, Jesus doesn't force his way in.

He simply invites them to hear and believe.

He's teaching in parables and saying things like,

"If you have ears to hear, then hear."

And the result is that some people do

and some people don't.

This last week in our midweek house church meal,

one of us was talking about how every summer

she had out of town family that came back into town.

And every year she kind of had these dreams of things going better

than they actually end up going.

We have this like idealized idea,

especially when it comes to family of how things are going to go.

And I can definitely identify with that expectation

that things are gonna work out more easily than they do,

especially when it comes to family.

Coming home is kind of a weird thing,

especially after that first period of time away from home,

if you can think back to the time

when you left home in the first place,

the habits and routines of your family

have changed without you,

and you've changed, and your habits and routines

are different, and home seldom feels

like the one that you left.

Jesus is going to experience that in a major way in this passage.

And while he doesn't seem particularly phased by the initial response of people,

in a very human moment, Jesus does wonder at their response and not in a good way.

So before we read this passage, Jesus is coming back to his hometown.

So let me just kind of set the stage of Nazareth for us.

Nazareth is a small town, way off the beaten path, and honestly kind of up in the rocks

on this side of the valley that is Galilee.

It is far from the lake, it is far from the road, it is pretty much far from everywhere

of note.

And during Jesus' time, it would have probably been a few hundred people max.

And they would have lived a pretty basic life there in homes made of mud and clay.

It also kind of had a reputation of being a place that nothing good comes out of.

We see referenced in another place, which is just something that people said about the

place, not a lot of high expectations for Nazareth.

Jesus has lived there for most of his life since he was a few years old.

If you remember, he moved there from Egypt.

So if we think all the way back to the birth of Jesus, Herod the Great tried to murder

Jesus very early on.

And so Joseph was warned in a dream and took them to Egypt until Herod had died and his

sons came into power.

And so it makes sense that Joseph would seek an out of the way town like this to live in,

giving the circumstances.

So this is the place that Jesus was raised.

And he was raised there for, best we can tell, about 25 years until he began his public ministry

at age 30.

So Jesus would have been taught the trade of his earthly father, Joseph, and he was

a builder of some kind.

And so this word that we see is carpenter.

But the truth is there's not a lot of wood in that area of the world.

And so probably he wasn't a carpenter with a wood shop, but was rather a mixture of

disciplines from planning to stone masonry to carpentry.

That word for carpenter is actually tecton,

which means a builder.

So he grew up learning those things from his dad.

He grew up going to synagogue here,

playing with kids here, including his siblings.

We'll talk about them.

So this is the hometown that Jesus left when he turned 30.

And now he's coming back to this hometown,

about six to eight months after leaving it in the first place.

Let's read.

This is Mark chapter 6, verses 1 through 6.

Mark 6:1–6

"He went away from there and came to his hometown,

and his disciples followed him.

And on the Sabbath, he began to teach in the synagogue,

and many who heard him were astonished,

saying, 'Where did this man get these things?

What is the wisdom given to him?

How are such mighty works done by his hands? Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary,

and brother of James and Joseph and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?

And they took offense at him. And Jesus said to them,

"A prophet is not without honor except in his hometown and among his relatives

and in his own household. And he could do no mighty work there, except that he laid his hands

on a few sick people and healed them. And he marveled because of their unbelief,

and he went about among the villages teaching.

So the people who should have known Jesus the best reject him.

This passage should be an invitation to us that proximity to the ministry of Jesus is not what

saves us, but rather our personal decision to respond to Jesus and draw near to the one who came

down and drew near to us. So let's start by talking about those who were close to the ministry

of Jesus. So Jesus is a well-known teacher at this point around the whole area. He has taught in

synagogues far and wide. He's performed incredible miracles. He's raised people from the dead even,

and doubtless this news would have reached Nazareth, at least some of the wonderful things that he had

done. Now they get a chance to witness Jesus teaching in their own synagogue for the first time.

Jesus comes into the synagogue with his twelve disciples, maybe more, and begins to teach.

Imagine how it must have felt to sit under the teaching of Jesus in person, to know that the

words that you're hearing are being spoken by the living Word of God. How surreal that would have been

to know that this man was a fully man and yet spoke with the authority of one who was also

God. Yet the response in Nazareth, the response of these men and women who saw

Jesus grow up and some who doubtless grew up with him, the response is to be

offended at him. Instead of asking like the disciples asked in the boat, "Who is

this?" with wonder in their eyes, they ask and wonder, "Who do you think you are?"

with disgust, their displeasure is going to come out

in a handful of ways here,

some of which are more obvious than others.

So the first thing that they ask is where he got his power.

And it's as if they're looking for the man

behind the curtain controlling the smoke show.

They wanna know who's feeding him this wisdom,

who's giving him answers,

who's giving him this miraculous ability

that they've heard so much about.

The one thing they refuse to believe

is that it could possibly be something inherent to Jesus,

part of his actual identity.

And so they want to know where did he obtain this from?

They go on to question his identity further,

asking, "Isn't this the tecton here rendered carpenter?

Isn't this the builder?

Isn't this the guy that we used to call to do small construction projects?

Now, a helpful detail is that while this would not have been a role without respect

in Jewish culture to be a builder, it would have been looked down on by the Gentiles.

And that's helpful because Mark is writing to primarily Gentile Christians in Rome.

And so they would have read this and understood that what these people were saying was something like,

"Isn't this the janitor?"

Right?

So the first dig at Jesus is that he's unqualified to speak and act with the authority that he clearly has,

because he wasn't trained.

In other words, you don't have authority, Jesus, because you haven't earned it.

It's a funny thing to say to the maker of the universe, isn't it?

The problem was that Jesus didn't fit what they expected from the traveling teachers

of the day.

There were plenty of Jewish charismatic teachers in that time, and they all had history and

training and pizzazz in a way that they entertained while they taught.

Most of them could name the rabbis that they had trained under, and they made their living

by traveling from town to town, developing a following.

But Jesus taught differently.

He acted differently.

He didn't pursue crowds.

Crowds pursued him.

And his authority didn't come from his reputation or his training.

It came from a different part of his identity.

It came from who he was.

And so finally, after they go after this aspect of Jesus' identity and training, right, isn't

he just a builder?

They start making comments about another aspect of Jesus' identity.

They start talking about his bloodline saying, "Isn't this the son of Mary?"

And indicate that his brothers and sisters are present.

Now, this is a little strange because why are they not saying the son of Joseph?

It would have been the normal way in a Jewish community to recognize someone similar to

a last name.

Instead, they say the son of Mary.

Most likely at least raising eyebrows at the origins of Jesus, at least being an interesting

story from about 30 years ago.

I'm talking about the whispered story in Nazareth

that Joseph is a father figure to Jesus

but may not actually be his father.

This is not the son of Joseph.

This is the son of Mary.

So let's talk about the family of Jesus

because here we have a household of people

who are related to Jesus through Mary,

who grew up with him and yet are not followers of Jesus yet.

Let's take a minute to address the fact that we also have his brothers and sisters mentioned

here, because since the early church, we have some folks who were very uncomfortable with this.

Historically, by about a hundred years after Jesus, we have groups within the church who,

rightly, want to honor Jesus as holy, but wrongly, are uncomfortable with his humanity.

To be fair, it is mind-blowing that the God who existed before time began, the maker of the universe,

would take on flesh and become a man. We call this the incarnation, and it's the most incredible

thing we've ever seen or heard about, and it's hard to wrap your mind around. And for some,

it led them to also develop additional traditions around people like Mary, giving her

a kind of holy status of her own. Saying things like, "Mary then must also be sinless."

And Mary could not have had any other children, and Mary also could not have died. Because,

let's be honest, it's hard to wrap your mind around the fact that God would choose the womb of

an imperfect woman as a vessel to enter the world. That that woman would have gone on to live a normal

life raising Jesus with brothers and sisters, that she would have needed the Savior she gave birth to

just as much as you or I. That is incredible. But according to a plain reading of Scripture

throughout Scripture, that's the truth. Let's just look at the evidence for a moment, just here

in this passage so that you're equipped to think through this, because we want our thoughts about

Jesus and his family to be formed by Scripture and not folks who created their own teaching

to deal with their own discomfort with the truth.

So first we have Jesus listed as Mary's son.

Joseph is not mentioned at all and this is immediately followed by his brothers who are

named.

So the most plain reading of this is that here is Mary's son, Jesus, and these are Mary's

other children.

Scripture is always clear about which child belongs to whom, going as far back as Genesis,

including half-brothers and sisters and how that worked out.

Traditionally, the Greek term used refers to siblings, not cousins, which actually has its own word in Greek.

And then the fact that the sisters are also mentioned, but not named, adds to this plain reading, because traditionally,

sisters would have been named unless they were married, at which point they were associated with their husband's house.

It's like when you introduce your sister saying, "And this is my sister and her husband,

she is the blood relation to you."

So the only reason to list his brothers by name and his sisters in addition is that they

were related to Jesus through Mary.

We also know from Jesus' comments a few chapters back in Mark 3, 31 through 35 that Mary and

And some of Jesus' siblings had earlier tried to stop him from teaching and take him back

home.

Remember, at that point, Jesus didn't even acknowledge them, saying that the people around

him who were listening to him were closer to family than they were.

And that seems harsh, but it means that neither Mary nor his brothers had believed in him

yet.

In other words, there were Gentiles who were closer to the family of God in this season

of Jesus' ministry than Jesus' own flesh and blood family.

So why should this matter to us?

It's an important detail to get right about the family of Jesus, particularly about Mary.

But why should this matter to us?

Well, first, it's just good to be able to take God at His word and believe in the humanity

of Jesus and not have to fabricate anything to make ourselves more comfortable about it.

Right? We want to follow Jesus for who he is, not follow a version of him that we're comfortable with

and can understand. We don't want a version of him that fits within the framework of our tradition

but has to bend and twist scripture to make him fit. If you want to know Jesus, you must know him

through the revealed Word of God, and that is Scripture. In this case, that means embracing

the wonder of Jesus being born of a woman who was incredibly humble and was chosen by God,

but also who needed the salvation of Jesus and needed to believe in Him for her salvation.

Second, it means that neither your bloodline nor your proximity to other Christians is going

to save you. So being born of Mary and raised in a household with Jesus himself wasn't enough

to save Jesus' siblings by proxy. Both Mary and her children still had to choose to follow

Jesus and it's apparent that Mary eventually did and that James and perhaps a few others

did as well. But their hope of salvation was not their blood relation to Jesus, it was

his shed blood for them on the cross and their choice to receive that. And so it is with us.

Those of you who are being raised in a Christian home, you are not saved by the faith of your parents.

We can introduce you to Jesus, we can teach you what he taught, we can pray for you,

We can try to set an example of faith for you imperfectly, but you must choose to follow Jesus

and declare him in baptism. That is what Jesus calls you to.

In the same way, proximity to the people of Jesus will not save you. You can attend all of the weekly

gatherings and sing the songs and be friends with good Christian people and do good works,

but until you choose to do the will of God, which is to receive salvation in the blood of Jesus

and be saved, you are on the outside of the family of God. This is why communion is only for those

who have believed and been baptized, because until you have chosen Jesus, you are not a part of the

family of God, but the invitation is open to you right now.

Finally, we have this statement in verse 5 that can so easily be misinterpreted when taken out of

context. If you read the verse in isolation, it could be twisted to sound like Jesus doesn't have

any power here for some reason, or that the faith of the people is what gave him power. But remember,

this is the same Jesus who speaks to the storm and it listens to him. This is the same Jesus who

a legion of demons begged, "Please don't torment us." This is the same Jesus who brought a girl back

from the dead a few verses ago by telling her to get up. So one thing that Jesus has never done,

He's never forced anyone to come to him for healing or otherwise.

So the problem here wasn't with Jesus. It was with the people who refused to come to him

in faith. That's why he wasn't able to do anything for them. For example, if I refuse to go to the

doctor and I just keep getting sicker, I could say the doctor could do nothing to help me and be

accurate because I never went to him. The sick who will not go to the physician

remains sick, but the ones who came to Jesus are those who it says he laid his

hands on them and healed them. Jesus, it says here marvels at their unbelief and

it is incredible that they have been so close and they've seen so much and

and they've heard him speak and still remain in unbelief.

And as a result, Jesus goes on to teach elsewhere.

So you remember when Peter thought

that they were going to be hometown heroes

in Capernaum at the start of Jesus' ministry?

I wonder how he feels now,

watching the people of Jesus' hometown

and even his own family reject him.

Puts things into perspective for him, I'm guessing,

and it should also put some things in perspective for us.

The relationship that we are invited to with God

has always been one of invitation.

All throughout scripture, we see the invitation to come,

but never coercion or forcing us to do so.

In Genesis, Adam and Eve were invited

to walk with God in obedience,

but they were also given the will and the ability to walk away,

which they did.

In Isaiah 53, after foretelling the coming of the Messiah,

God says that He will be despised and rejected by men,

which is what the disciples are witnessing in Nazareth.

The whole kingdom of God operates

on the principle of invitation to a point.

See, on the day that Jesus returns,

We know that everyone will bow before him because they will all recognize him as king.

But even on that day, our choice will be honored.

Because those who chose to follow and declare Jesus as Lord will be welcomed into eternity

with Jesus who they have known and loved.

But to those who made the choice to reject Jesus in this life,

Jesus will say, "Okay, depart from me."

And this means that our primary role

in the ministry of the gospel is also one of invitation.

We'll get into this again next week

as Jesus sends his disciples out with instructions

on how to respond to those who reject the message.

But it does help us to put things in order.

To know that a right response to the gospel

is first one of response to the invitation.

Before we can invite anyone else,

we must respond to the invitation of Jesus

to put all our faith in Him and to draw near to Him.

So what does it look like to move close to Jesus

where you are?

That's not a question that I can really answer for you

because I don't know where your heart is at,

but some possibilities.

Does it look like making the choice to declare,

"I trust in Jesus" and be baptized?

Does it look like receiving Jesus for who he is

instead of the version of him that you're comfortable with

or think you can fully understand?

Just a heads up, if you feel like you can totally

understand Jesus, you might have the wrong one.

Does it look like living out the call to discipleship,

not just appearing Christian in the socially visible ways,

but through choosing to be disciplined

to spending time with the Lord,

refusing to give in to temptation,

stepping out with a courageous kind of obedience

that relies on the strength of God at every step?

The call of Jesus is more than anything else,

an invitation to come near to himself.

which is an incredible invitation that the God of the universe would come near to us

in a way that we never could have approached Him.

That taking on flesh and becoming a man and willingly choosing the life of a servant

and a death of sacrifice just to offer us an invitation to come to Him freely.

Jesus has incredibly come close to us.

And we need only respond in faith to his invitation to come to him.

Ecclesia is a church of house churches gathering weekly in

Councilbluffs, Iowa and in homes throughout the week. We are a Bible-centered church

focused on preaching from Scripture and making disciples of Jesus. You can learn

more about our statement of faith and contact a pastor by visiting ecclaseachurches.org.