Fighting the Past: Mark 6:1-3
Our perspective frequently affects our perception. Walking through Walmart is a great proof case for this statement. All kinds of people go to Walmart; it is pretty easy to make snap decisions about who they are based on how they look, how they talk, how much they notice – or don’t notice – the people around them, or even how they manage their children. But you don’t need to go to Walmart to understand this. You can go to a family reunion and listen to how many times people talk about the past and how much people have changed. We like to talk about the good old days and the way things were rather than the present and what will be.
As Jesus travels about and ministers, He and His disciples move into the region of Nazareth. This is where Joseph and Mary originally came from, so this would be where Jesus was raised as a child. At some point, we know that Jesus moved to Capernaum and began His ministry there, but we don’t know when that shift happened in His life.
Per His typical custom, Jesus goes into the synagogue and starts to teach. There’s nothing wrong with this, traveling rabbis would do this all the time in Jesus’ day. What is interesting is how the people react. They hear the teaching, but they are astonished. They can’t seem to get past their image of Jesus as a carpenter.
In fact, they immediately make a connection about Him to His family. This is a very natural thing to do. We compare people to their family members all the time. It helps us feel a connection to the person. It helps us create a bond with the person by extending a bond we might have with a sibling or parent or aunt or uncle.
Here is the problem with that. When we make those connections, it usually puts the person in a box. In creating that relation, if we aren’t careful, we start to put limitations and expectations around them. We have a more difficult time seeing them for who they really are. In this case, they knew Jesus as a younger person. They have difficulty comprehending how Jesus has grown up and what God is doing through Him. Their own perspective limits what they can understand, accept, appreciate, and even support.
It is sad to say, but in the end these people have difficulty seeing God because they cannot stop seeing Jesus. They are blind to the power of God because they can’t get past the sixteen-year-old boy who learned how to be a carpenter. Their own mental perspective limits their perception.
It boils down to the fact that these people are more interested in their experience in the past than what God wants to do for them now. It’s sad when we miss out on things not because people are unwilling to give but because we are unwilling to receive. Our perspective frequently affects our perception.
