SKANDALON 4 (d): Jesus a 'scandal' in Nazareth

Almost from the beginning of his ministry, Jesus was a stumbling-block, ‘scandalizing’ different groups of people in different ways. First there was the contempt, bred of familiarity, shown to him by his own people in Nazareth (Mark 6.1-6). They had known him for virtually all of his life; he had grown up among them and gone to the local school; they knew his mother, Mary, and his brothers and sisters. He had never been away to university or received any special training. He was their carpenter – and a carpenter should stick to his hammer and nails, not stand up in the synagogue to lecture them, or set up as a rabbi with his twelve disciples. In short, they were ‘scandalized in’ him – the scandal of inadequate qualifications for a Messiah. As John said (1.11): “he came to his own home” (he uses the same phrase in 19.27 to describe his taking of Mary away from the crucifixion “to his own home”), “and his own people did not receive him.” What a tragedy!