Hidden Power

 Jesu Juva

St. Mark 6:1-13                                                    

 July 7, 2024

Proper 9B                        

 Dear saints of our Savior~

        Familiarity breeds contempt—so the saying goes.  The closer you are to people—the more time you spend with them—the more space you share—the more likely you will end up being annoyed with them.  You get a taste of this when you go on a family vacation.  You love your family, right?  But after a week of sharing the same hotel room, driving in the same car, breathing the same air, being up in each other’s business—that familiarity often devolves into contempt, or worse. 

        You may notice something similar when you return to the place where you were born and raised—the place where they knew you when you were just a whipper-snapper.   And those folks (God bless ‘em!) they still remember all the windows you broke, all the times you got sent to the principal’s office, all the things you tried to burn-down and blow up with fireworks right about this time every summer.  This is why the Psalmist prays, “Lord, remember not the sins of my youth.”  And while the Lord does indeed choose to forget your youthful misdemeanors, the folks from the old neighborhood—they sure don’t forget.  They know too much (which is why I could never be a pastor in my old hometown).

        In Mark chapter 6 Jesus goes home to Nazareth to hang out in the old neighborhood. And He brings His disciples along.  It’s the Sabbath so, of course, Jesus is in the synagogue.  And seeing as how He’s the local boy made good, a real rising start among the rabbis, the synagogue is packed to the rafters.  Expectations are high.  Maybe a miracle or two will be performed.  But as Jesus begins to teach, you start to pick up on a negative vibe coming from the hometown crowd:  Who does this guy think he is?  Isn’t this the carpenter who used to fix our tables and chairs? Isn’t this just Mary’s son?

        Mark says they “took offense” at Him.  Their familiarity with Jesus bred contempt for Jesus.  They were offended.  “Scandalized” is the literal term.  Jesus tripped them up—caused them to stumble.  He came to His own, but His own did not receive Him.  They said, “Hey, that’s just little Yeshua, Mary’s kid.” In Jerusalem they had said, “Can anything good come from Nazareth?”  But it seems that not even the people of Nazareth thought that the Messiah could come from there—and certainly not the kid who grew up down the street.  They stumbled because Jesus was just too ordinary—too much like them.  He didn’t glow.  He didn’t have a shiny halo.  He was just plain, old, ordinary Yeshua—the son of Mary. Seeing Him step into the pulpit scandalized the hometown crowd. 

        The whole idea of the incarnation—that God should become a man—is scandalous.  It’s just not how a respectable God ought to do things—that He should be born of a virgin, grow up in a small town, work as an obscure carpenter, be baptized by His cousin, John, and then announce to the world that He’s the Messiah, the Son of God.  Really?  And as if that’s not hard enough to swallow, His moment of glory—His hour of power—comes when He hangs from a cross on a dark Friday afternoon and rises from the dead three days later.  And if that doesn’t trip you up, then try to swallow the fact that this Jesus now comes to you, through time and space, to give you His forgiveness and love—all through the ridiculously unspectacular forms of water and words, bread and wine—and through mortal, fallible messengers like me.

        Do you see what’s going on here?  God hides His power.  You can’t go by what you see.  Seeing is not believing.  Faith comes by hearing.  We walk by faith, not by sight.  If you judge Jesus by what you see—if you judge what happens in the Divine Service by what you see—you too will stumble and be scandalized.  Or, you can hear and believe.  Trust in the hidden power of God.

        Few people have understood the hidden power of God better than St. Paul.  That’s why Paul could boast about his weaknesses, as he does in today’s reading from 2 Corinthians.  He actually boasts about how badly things were going for him.  How many preachers have you heard recently who were willing to brag about how God didn’t answer their prayers?  Three times Paul pleaded with the Lord to remove that thorn in his flesh—that painful affliction that harassed him day and night.  But Jesus did not remove that thorn.  Paul could see that thorn and feel the pain of that thorn.  But what mattered more were the words Jesus put into his ears—words that could only be believed:  My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.

        There it is:  God hides His power.  It’s there!  It’s perfect! It’s working all things for your eternal good!  That power will one day steer you right through the valley of the shadow of death.  But for now, it’s hidden.  You can’t see it.  You can’t always feel it.  You can only believe and trust that the power of God is for you—for you, and not against you.  Let the thorns in your flesh remind you of the thorns and the nails that Jesus endured for you, as your substitute, bearing all your sin, leaving behind sacred scars of love.

        But as you know, it’s hard to overlook those thorns in our flesh—our weaknesses, our frailties, our pain and suffering.  When we feel the pain of those thorns it’s often tempting to question God—to doubt His power, to doubt His mercy and love.  It’s tempting to conclude that either God is working against us, or, that there is no God.  Few things challenge a baptized believer more than when our repeated prayers for relief go unanswered—and all we have left to fall back on is the promise of Jesus:  My grace is sufficient for you; my power is made perfect in weakness.

        The church needs to remember these words of her Lord.  For everywhere you look the church of Jesus Christ appears to be getting weaker and weaker.  Everywhere you look it seems that the faithful are being swept away by the lies of our culture, trumpeted by the media, taught in classrooms, enshrined by our courts.  Everywhere you look, persecution is increasing.  Freedom of religion is decreasing.  It’s so easy to become discouraged—to be scandalized by despair and hopelessness. 

This is why.  This is why we must always remember:  God hides His power.  That power is made perfect in weakness.  His power over sin and death—His power over darkness and the devil—His power to save you and raise you from the dead—is hidden—cloaked under the cover of weakness and darkness.  “It is finished.”  But as sure as Jesus is risen from the dead, we know:  We are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.

What was true for Jesus on the cross—what was true for Paul with his thorn—is also true for us:  When I am weak, then I am strong.  When we are at our weakest, God’s power is at its greatest.  The crucifix behind me tells the whole story.  For it shows the glorious hidden power of God, a power made perfect in suffering and weakness, a power that conquers sin by becoming sin, that conquers death by dying, a power that keeps on praying, “My God, my God,” trusting that His grace is sufficient.

God’s grace is sufficient for you.  It’s truly all you need.  It is enough.  It overcomes your sin, your death, the devil, the world, and your own sin-filled flesh.  That power of God is hidden.  We can’t see it; but, we can hear it and we can believe it.

Right after His rejection at Nazareth—just as His ministry seemed to dead-end—just as His popularity plummeted—Jesus sent out the Twelve two by two.  Just when Jesus’ power seemed most hidden—that’s the moment He chose to send them off on a journey with no food, no luggage, and no money.  The timing here was no accident.  This timing was to teach the Twelve.  They would have nothing—nothing but the Words of Jesus on which to stand.  Their only “power” would be the promises of Jesus.  That’s how it is for every pastor and missionary sent by the Lord.  That’s how it is for you, too.  His grace is sufficient.  His hidden power propels and sustains us.  When we are weak, He is strong.   

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.