Mark Chapter 6

"He could not do any miracles there, except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them. He was amazed at their lack of faith."
verses 5-6

Jesus hit a wall in his hometown. We know little about his life from age 12 to 30, and can safely assume that he kept a low profile through these years. In verse 3, the townspeople refer to him as the carpenter, not the carpenter's son, giving us a clue that he had taken up his stepfather's trade in early adulthood. Did he perform miracles during this time? Did he engage his own family and friends with amazing teaching? Perhaps, but this story indicates that his life wasn't too far from average. His brothers were not convinced of his divinity until after his resurrection.

So imagine the townspeople's surprise when, at around 30 years of age, Jesus comes home and announces he is the Messiah. His teachings and miracles are no less amazing, but they are received differently here because these people have a history with Jesus, and it doesn't include him being the Son of God. They can't get past the years of preconditioning that tells them he is just a carpenter, one of 5 brothers who grew up in the area.

I am thankful for the Christian upbringing I received. I was introduced to Jesus at an early age, and I avoided many painful experiences because of it. At the same time, I recognize that because I have been immersed in Christianity and church life since toddlerhood, I have developed what author Philip Yancey calls "immunity to the gospel." I don't expect the ground to move beneath my feet when I hear or read about Jesus, simply because I've heard about him so many times. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of times in my life (40 Sundays a year for 30 years = 1200 church services), I've watched rooms full of people hear the gospel and not be moved. My years of preconditioning have made me calloused to the greatest message and the greatest person in the history or the world--and I count myself among his followers.

Perhaps for this reason, some of the Christ-followers I admire most came to faith in Jesus as adults, and many of them had little or no connection to the church earlier in life. One who stands out is John Tinsley, who became a Christian in middle age. He had never read the Bible before. His first Bible study was the book of Acts, which tells the story of the dramatic spread of Christianity throughout the world. John did not know, as most Christians do, that you are supposed to read Acts merely as an historical document and not actually do what the first Christians did. He kept asking why Christians did not live today like those in Acts did, and his group had no answer for him. So John and his wife Gretchen packed their bags and moved to Romania, where I found him planting churches in that formerly communist country. He did so, in part, because he hadn't been preconditioned not to. He was not immune to the gospel, and neither were the people in the Romanian towns and villages who were hearing about Jesus for the first time.

Thankfully, there are antidotes to gospel immunity. God answers the prayer to be re-awakened to the wonder of Jesus. Reading Mark can chip the crust off of our hearts as we're re-introduced to him. As you read of his miracles, his radical life, his unique teaching, and perhaps most of all his relationships and his intense love for people, guard yourself from being unaffected or unmoved. Jesus is still amazing, and familiarity doesn't change that.