Our Honorable Prophet
Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his hometown and among his own relatives and in his own house.” (Mark 6:4)
When Jesus went to his hometown of Nazareth, the people there were not very welcoming to Jesus. Sure, they asked him to teach in their synagogue, but they didn’t like what he taught them or what he claimed. They questioned his authority to teach and to do miracles. And Luke tells us that they tried to throw him off a cliff, but Jesus walked right through the crowd.
The people of Nazareth failed to recognize Jesus as the Messiah. They saw him as one of their own, and they became offended when he claimed to be the Messiah. But that had happened to many of the prophets as well. When they claimed to speak God’s Word, the people of Israel refused to listen to them. The people of Nazareth rejected Jesus even though they knew who he was.
Many people in our world today reject Jesus, even though they know who he is. They refuse to listen to God’s Word and would rather listen to the things they want to hear. And no matter how hard we try to convince them that the Bible is God’s Word, they will not listen. But this should not discourage us, because we have God’s Word. We know what God tells us in his Word, and we know that we have eternal life because God rejected Jesus instead of us. He punished Jesus for our sakes. This is what the world is rejecting. This is the message that our prophet, Jesus, brings to us. Amen.
The VBS song for today is “Marvelously Made” By Concordia Publishing House