Actin The Fool

Have You Lost Your Hearing

The People of Jesus are perplexed by Jesus and Jesus is perplexed by the towns people.

Why couldn’t do any miracles there maybe because people simply didn’t bring the sick and needy to him.

Once there was a man who dared God to speak.

Burn the bush like you did for Moses, God.

And I will follow.

Collapse the walls like you did for Joshua, God.

And I will fight.

Still the waves like you did on Galilee, God.

And I will listen.

And so the man sat by a bush, near a wall, close to the sea

and waited for God to speak.

And God heard the man, so God answered.

He sent fire, not for a bush, but for a church.

He brought down a wall, not of brick, but of sin.

He stilled a storm, not of the sea, but of a soul.

And God waited for the man to respond.

And he waited …

And he waited …

And waited.

But because the man was looking at bushes, not hearts;

bricks and not lives, seas and not souls,

he decided that God had done nothing.

Finally he looked to God and asked, Have you lost your power?

And God looked at him and said, Have you lost your hearing?

Max Lucado, A Gentle Thunder : Hearing God through the Storm (Dallas, TX: Word Pub., 1995), 9.

Many act as if the problem with their relationship with God is based on the fact that He has not acted on their behalf, here we see the challenge from God’s point of view. The startling unbelief, the lack of bring the needs to him, It is not like Jesus is offended and throwing a fit. “Fine you’re not getting any of this...”

They simply brought no one to him, they brought nothing to him (doubts, questions), they simply walked away...

Baker New Testament Commentary: Mark 6:1–6a the Rejection of Jesus at Nazareth

But whatever the situation may have been with respect to these few, the Nazareth audience as a whole turned its back upon Jesus. By and large the sick remained unhealed, the sinners unpardoned.

The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Volume 9: Matthew–Mark (Revised Edition) Commentary

For most people “a few healings” could hardly be called “doing no miracles” (France, 244). The point is that, even under the restraints of unbelief, the kingdom of God keeps squeezing through. The tiny mustard seed grows on through the night. The tragedy for the townspeople of Nazareth was that Jesus could have done so much more if they had only believed.