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Class #6: Mark 6:1-6 *
Orientation
 One
of the challenges to Jesus'
honor was over taxes. Jesus
responded by asking to see a
Roman coin (12:13-17; see
below). At right, a coin issued
by Caesar Augustus, the
emperor in power when Jesus
was born. Presumably
some of these coins would still
have been in circulation
around 30 A.D. The front (at
left) shows a bust of
Augustus while the back (at
right) shows a comet.
In
6:1-6,
Jesus returns to his
hometown of Nazareth, a
village of about 200 people.
Since this is where he lived for the first
20-30 years of his life,
these people knew him when
he was in the 1st century
equivalent of diapers, when
he was a boy learning to
walk, when he was a
teenager, when he was
nothing more than a
carpenter.
Therefore
they are astonished to hear
him speak so insightfully in
the synagogue. They cannot
believe that a simple,
manual craftsman whom they
have known all their lives
could speak the way Jesus
does. In essence, they are
challenging his
honor.
After all, the
rest of his family--his
mother and his four
brothers--do not speak like
that. From the villagers'
point of view, Jesus is
reaching for more honor than
is his due. He is acting
uppity, and by the end of
verse 3 they are offended.
So they criticize him.
Since
his honor and reputation are
being attacked, the
conventions of 1st century
culture require Jesus to
respond with a forceful
defense if he wants to
retain his public honor.
There are two primary ways
of doing this: either by directly
challenging the honor
of the other person(s) in a declarative
statement, or by indirectly
challenging the honor of the
other person(s) in a
question.
In
this instance Jesus chooses
the former. He bluntly
claims he is
nothing less than a prophet
(verse 4), an extremely
honorable role in Jewish
society. Then he calls their
own honor into question by
implying
that people outside the
village are better judges of
honor than they are.
In
many other stories in the gospels,
Jesus chooses the latter method
of defending his honor: the
method of asking his
opponents a
question in response. The
gospels consistently portray
Jesus besting his opponents
in this never-ending game of
challenging the honor of
others and defending one's
own honor. As you study the
examples below from Mark, notice how honor is
challenged and defended. In
each of the stories below, Jesus
wins the game. (The only
time he loses honor during
his public ministry is
during a conversation with the
Syrophoenician woman in 7:24-30.
Notice how graciously Jesus
concedes that she has bested
him.)
Once
Jesus is arrested, he stops
defending his honor, and
consequently loses it. At
his trial he refuses to
answer questions or respond
to charges. He accepts
ridicule, torture, and
death. By the time he is
nailed to the cross, all his
honor is gone in the public
eye.
But by raising
Jesus from death, God
vindicates Jesus and gives
him greater honor than he
had before. One reason
Christianity had such power
in the 1st century was
that Jesus Christ,
risen from death and
vindicated by God, is exceptionably honorable.
In the eyes of the church,
Jesus has more honor even
than the Roman emperor.
*
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