The Scandal of the Incarnation

Today's Gospel narrates the rejection of Jesus by the townspeople of Nazareth. The word Mark uses to describe the people's reaction to Jesus is skandalon, which could be translated as "scandalized," but is rendered here as "they would not accept him." Skandalon is a piece of rock or stone on which a traveler trips. It is a symbol of a crisis or doubt, which causes one to lose faith or trust. This is what happens in Nazareth: the townspeople fall because they cannot bring themselves to believe in the "local boy" who made a stir in other towns by his preaching and the miracles he performed.

The unbelief of the townspeople is not so hard to understand. First, they seem to take seriously what others have been saying about them: "Can anything good come from Nazareth?" (Jn 1:46). Perhaps they believe that this applies to Jesus, too. Second, Jesus is but a carpenter who occupies a low level in society. The Greek tekton is also used for an artisan or a manual laborer. This is what the book of Sirach says about the farmer, the carpenter, the smith, and the potter, who are all manual laborers: "nor are they prominent in the assembly. They do not sit on the judge's bench" (38:33). Lastly, Jesus' family is quite modest and does not enjoy a prominent position in Nazareth.

But the problem is evident not only in Nazareth but also in Jesus' whole life on earth. That the Messiah, the Son of God, would choose to become a man and be numbered among the poor defies human logic. Worse, he died the death of a criminal. Jesus has just about reached the depths of human folly.

We have to keep in mind that God's ways are not humans' ways. For the apostle Paul, the incarnation is the most sublime of all truths. He writes, "The foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength. God chose the foolish of the world to shame the wise, and God chose the weak of the world to shame the strong" (1 Cor 1:25, 27).