In the Gospel, Jesus proclaims a powerful new message, that tells of the kingdom of God, and his teaching draws attention from the crowd. It draws resistance from those unready to hear it, from people who want nothing to do with God and who are on the lookout for ways to poison those around them by attending religious services and attempting to silence voices of hope and new life. They’re sly about it. They ask, innocently: “Is not this Joseph’s son?”
As Jesus defends the message, one of inclusion of those whom the people of God hate, the naysayers prevail, and all in the house of God are filled with rage. Despite the message of hope and inclusion and a promise of fulfillment, despite what some in the house of God say of this Jesus of Nazareth, who preached good news to them, the congregation chooses exclusivity, apathy to the needs of others, and despair of their own circumstance as their way of looking at the world. And they drive Jesus to the edge of a cliff.
Good news, something to be marveled at, is a teaching arrived at, not by denying the love and grace of God and the power of the Scriptures, but by understanding them in a more complete way than they were known before. Good news is different from an alternative perspective, or a competing truth claim, or an outright rejection of what others have taught and known to be true.
Good news is understanding, and approaching comprehending, what God is trying to tell us for today, by relying on what God has told us through the Scriptures, what God has proven to be true and vital in the life of the Church, what God has revealed to the world with clear evidence, and what God has shown us in the longing of our hearts and the tears in our prayers.
Good news is within each one of us, waiting to be understood by us, waiting to be shared by us, and waiting to make a difference in the community around us. Good news comes from God, spoken by the Spirit, dwelling in our hearts, until a moment when we are centered, and we discover a thought or a feeling, which presents itself to us. It rests on our hearts, and it seems important, unshakeable, so that we have to listen to it, and maybe even share it, so that those around us who are despairing might have hope, and those who are burdened with guilt and regret might be released from their struggle, in order to move forward. We share this good news, even if it drives others to drive us to the edge of a cliff.
It’s easy for people of faith to dismiss Jesus. There is nothing, in their recollection of him, that would inspire interest or imagination in them. They know him, his family, his childhood, his dusty sandals, his tears, his poverty, his scandal. By all appearances, he is unremarkable, weak, helpless, and nothing to look at. But that is the hidden truth of God. As one writer put it:
The mystery of God’s love is not that our pain is taken away, but that God first wants to share that pain with us … The truly good news is that God is not a distant God, a God to be feared and avoided, a God of revenge, but a God who is moved by our pains and participates in the fullness of the human struggle.[i]
And maybe you can excuse Jesus’ neighbors for their impatience and disbelief. They have, day by day, been looking forward to the salvation of Israel. And day by day, nothing happened –
no chance encounter, no moment of revelation, no grand liberation from their oppressors. At the end of each day, the faithful were disappointed and exhausted, just trying to garner the energy and the hope to wake up, show up, meet the sunrise, and greet the next day, only to find more waiting, more praying, more searching for the anointing of the Spirit of the Lord.
We know what it is to wait. We waited through a pandemic. We have, day after day, been unsure when it will end, but still garnering the energy and the will to negotiate the latest challenge. It doesn’t always have to be a pandemic. It can be an illness in the family, or a strained relationship, or a financial setback, or a roadblock that just won’t budge. But you can only keep it up for so long.
Our plans can get disrupted, whatever the trauma or the tragedy. We each have had occasions when we experienced something of our own frailty and vulnerability. We are, ourselves, much like Jesus – by all appearances unremarkable, weak, helpless, nothing to look at.
And much like the people of faith in the synagogue, we are on the lookout for salvation, for comfort and consolation. We wish we could find something to marvel at, the way Moses marvels at the burning bush, the way Jesus will wonder at the faith of the centurion, the way the people marvel at Jesus, their longtime neighbor, someone they’ve known for years and never thought twice about before.[ii]
We can spend our lives, our attention fixed on the sunrises and sunsets; looking forward to special days like Easter or the lunar new year, filled with lanterns, firecrackers, and dances; watching the strong and mighty, the well regarded, the elite; hungering for a hint of grace. But consolation, something to marvel at, is found where we least expect it. It likely won’t be with a great reunion of family and friends and festivals.
We can only discover it when we direct our attention to the presence of the Holy Spirit, reflecting in our own solitude, growing more accepting of ourselves for who we are: By all appearances unremarkable, weak, helpless, nothing to look at. Because that is exactly what God made us to be and what Christ became for us. And when we can stop bemoaning life as it is, we can begin to embrace the promise, joy, hope, and love of those close to us and even within us.
What new marvel might you see within you today? What is keeping you from listening to it and sharing about it? Maybe today you could light a candle, allow your attention to focus on it for an hour, mark the halfway point between Christmas and the first day of Spring. What in your life is halfway between hibernation and reawakening? Maybe this week, you could talk to a friend, or your pastor, about what God is putting on your heart, to transform your life, and your community, and this world. Will you commit this hour to find something to marvel at, in what is otherwise dismissed as unremarkable, weak, and helpless? Will you see yourself as a wonder? I pray you will. Amen.
[i] Henri Nouwen, Bread for the Journey. San Francisco: Harper, 1997.
[ii] Marvel, from the Greek θαυμάζω (thaumazō), meaning to wonder at (cf. Lk. 4:22; Lk. 7:9; Acts 7:31).
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