Bearing Witness: A Meditation on Mark 6

Two key elements emerge from our Gospel reading this week, relating to the teaching of Jesus.  The first has to do with His ministry among His own countrymen and kin, and the other with His sending out of His disciples.  Both focus on the witness born of the Word of God, and the results of that witness.

First Jesus returns to teach in His own home town.  One might think that if the eternally begotten Son of God, the very Word of God made flesh, came back home, He would be regarded as a hero-- but that was not the case.  Rather than listening to Him, many began to deride Him by calling into question His pedigree, authority and education.  How could this Jesus, who they knew at least from a distance during His years growing up, be an authority worth listening to?  Sure, they might not have ever been able to pin any sin on Him even during adolescence, but they knew His blessed mother and brothers well enough to know that Jesus was fully human.  They didn't see Jesus wearing the royal purple of a king, flashing about His educational credentials from the Temple theologians, or showing off in a self aggrandizing way.  Why should they listen to Him?  Why was His Word any better or worthwhile than their own?

Jesus marveled at their unbelief, and quoted a now famous saying:  a prophet is not without honor, except in his own country and in his own house.  From a purely human perspective, we know this to be true.  Any of us who still have the blessing of living brothers or sisters, mothers and fathers, can quickly get a reality check on our own pride from those who watched us grow up.  Any time we need to pop our bubble of self importance, we can ask our siblings or parents to comment on the vast stupidity we displayed in our youth, and they will know much of our weakness.  If you came back to your own family with your own words of wisdom, they might treat you the same way Jesus was treated.

But then again, Jesus was not simply bringing back the sinful and broken words of a sinful and broken man.  Jesus was in Himself the very Word of God, and spoke forth those things which the Father and the Holy Spirit sent Him to speak-- words of repentance from evil, faith in His Gospel of salvation, and life forevermore in His Name.  These prophetic words were powerful, cleaving the darkness of human sin, and piercing the demonic gloom of our fallen world.  They broke the devil's shackles with which he imprisoned us, restoring to us a life that we hadn't known since the fall of our first parents.  The Words of Jesus brought forth saving faith and repentance in all who would hear and believe in Him.

Of course, we know Jesus' pedigree and authority to speak such words of life, while many of His contemporaries may not have.  We know of His life, death, and resurrection for the salvation of the world, of His prophecies fulfilled.  We know that He is in Himself all wisdom and truth, the very Word of God which abides forever.  Many of His contemporaries did not.  But regardless of what they knew about Jesus, His Word was still truth-- the Law He preached was still valid, His call to repentance still binding, and His Gospel of salvation still powerful to save.   The Word still proceeded out from Jesus to seek and to save the lost, accomplishing its work every time:  hardening the hearts of those who refuse to believe, or enlivening those who receive it by faith.

This is why Jesus can send out His disciples two by two in the second part of our reading.  Jesus and His disciples know that the disciples are not the Word, but rather that they bear witness to the Word on the divine authority of God the Word who sent them.  The disciples went forth into the world with nothing but that Word, because adding anything to it at all would be sacrilege.  That Word of God, the full counsel of His Law and Gospel, was and remains the power of creation, salvation, and judgment for the whole cosmos.  That Word of God bound and cast out demons, healed the sick, and raised the dead-- but most importantly, it cracked the hard hearts of dead sinners, so that they might be born from above unto life everlasting.  That Word of God carried those who bore it into the world, and changed the world through all who would hear and believe it.

This is the task of the people of God, even today.  We are called to bear witness to Jesus as the Word of God, bearing witness to His saving Word by faith in His saving Word.  Jesus, who gives to us His very Body and Blood as the sacrifice for our sins, gives to us all the riches of His Kingdom by the power of His Word, and it is this Word that He sends us out to speak into a dark, demonic, dead, and dying world.  We have nothing more, and we need nothing more, than His Word.

As in Jesus' time, so too in our own, there will be people who reject His Word.  There will be people of every stripe and kind who find every way possible to resist Jesus' saving call to faith and repentance.  Given any particular time and place, the reception or rejection of Jesus' Word may be greater or lesser, but His Word still goes out through His people to do His divine work.  Whether our nation's leaders and courts, or even the population as a whole, chooses to hear and believe Jesus, it is not our duty to measure the result-- only to bear witness.  The Word will do what Jesus sent it to do, and we must remain content to abide in that Word even if it is despised by the world it comes to save.

Ultimately, we know that the Word of Christ reigns supreme, even over Supreme Court justices, presidents, legislators, lobbyists, media moguls, and every one of us.  To those who reject Jesus and His Word, they receive the frightening sight of Him shaking the dust off His sandals in judgement of them for all eternity-- a judgement that leaves them left lost in their trespasses and sins, because they refuse his forgiveness and grace.  For such who have heard, known, and rejected the Word of Christ, it will be more tolerable in the day of judgement for even Sodom and Gomorra, because seeing the fulness of revelation and salvation in Christ is a gift they did not receive.  Though fire and brimstone rained down upon their cities reducing the entire population to ash, it is the eternal fires of hell which await all who reject Jesus Christ.

But for those who repent and believe, Jesus and His blessed Gospel are the power of God unto eternal salvation.  Be we small or great, rich or poor; be we popular or despised, celebrated or persecuted; be we many or few, trumpeted or shouted down, this eternal truth remains:  we are the children of God, inheritors of the Kingdom of Heaven, awaiting in hope a new heavens and a new earth by grace through faith in Jesus Christ.  This Word of Christ remains and endures long after the last star has burned itself out, and the very universe is dissolved by the fire of judgment.  Though the earth itself give way, the Word of our salvation abides forever, making of us eternal witnesses to our God's mercy, grace, and salvation.  Here in the death and resurrection of Christ we live, His Word abiding in us by grace through faith.  Here we shine forever as witnesses of His saving grace and His unfathomable love, as stars in the heavens which never fade.  Here we bear witness, that all might hear, repent, believe and live.  Amen.