Wisdom Incarnate
Gospel Reflection for January 31st, 2024
“And on the Sabbath, He began to teach in the synagogue; and many who heard Him were astonished, saying, ‘Where did this man get all this? What is the wisdom given to Him? What mighty works are wrought by His hands!’” Mark 6:2
In today’s Gospel, we hear that the people were amazed at the signs and preaching of Our Lord. The greater context of this Gospel is that Christ raises Jairus’ daughter from the dead in the previous chapter and then comes to His hometown of Nazareth and is rejected by the people there. St. Mark tells us:
“‘Is not this the carpenter, the Son of Mary and the brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sister here with us?’ And they took offense at Him.” Mark 6:3
There is a stark juxtaposition happening here. On the one hand, the people are amazed at what they see and hear. This man raises the dead and preaches like no one they have ever heard but on the other hand, the people believe that they know Him. This is the crux of the problem. The people of Nazareth believe they know who Christ is since He grew up there.1 The people have the idea that they are certain they know the origin of this man. They give Him the identity of a carpenter, no doubt because Joseph was a carpenter and during the hidden years of Our Lord’s life, He labored in the surrounding area working with wood. They identify Him as Mary’s Son and the bother of certain individuals.2 All of this adds up to the people of Nazareth assuming that they know who is in front of them, knowing His lowly origin, and taking offense at His great signs. This, of course, leads to rejection.
In reality, the people don’t know Him at all. He is not only the Son of Mary and a carpenter, who has been given great wisdom. Instead, He is Wisdom Incarnate. He is not given Wisdom… He IS Wisdom:
“All wisdom comes from the Lord and is with him forever. The sand of the sea, the drops of rain, and the days of eternity—who can count them? The height of heaven, the breadth of the earth, the abyss, and wisdom—who can search them out? Wisdom was created before all things, and prudent understanding from eternity. The source of wisdom is God’s word in the highest heaven, and her ways are the eternal commandments.” Sirach 1:1-5
This is what the people miss. They are so focused on the human origin of Christ, namely, His human nature from Mary, that they do not see the manifestation of His divine origin, that of the Father before all ages. The miracles that He performs and the words of wisdom by which He captivates the people are the signs of His Divine Personhood.
God Himself, Wisdom Incarnate, stands before them and they are too blind to see. Why? St. Mark tells us:
“And He marveled because of their unbelief.” Mark 6:6
It was their lack of faith. Faith is what believes in what cannot be seen. The Divinity of the Son could not be seen in the same way His humanity could, it was veiled, and so the people had to rely on faith. But that faith was lacking because they held on to what they thought were the lowly origins of Jesus of Nazareth.
We are 2,000 years removed from these events. We don’t have the opportunity to see Christ walking into our town as the people of Nazareth did. Our encounter with the Lord is in the Eucharist but we encounter Him in much of the same way as the people in the Gospel. He is present, body, blood, soul, and divinity, right in front of our eyes, and yet, He is veiled by the accidents of bread and wine. St. Thomas Aquinas tells us that the only thing that can detect the presence of Christ in the Eucharist is the virtue of Faith.
The people of Nazareth encountered Wisdom Incarnate but could not see through the eyes of faith past the presuppositions that they had. We encounter the same Wisdom Incarnate in the Holy Eucharist and we have the opportunity to respond with Faith.
Cf. Matthew 2:23.
A note on the claim of Jesus’ siblings: Two possibilities at work here would account for siblings of Christ. The first is a linguistic issue. In the native language at the time, Aramaic, there is no word for cousin and so anyone of that relation would just be referred to as brother or sister. The two Gospels we hear of the siblings of Jesus in, Matthew and Mark, are both written by Aramaic speaking Jews. This would explain why they, in their writings, use the terms ‘brother’ and ‘sister’ when referring to the familial relations of Jesus. We know that Cleopas, who is mentioned in a number of passages, was the brother of St. Joseph and he and his wife Mary had children, one of whom may have been an Apostle. The second explanation lies in the pious tradition that St. Joseph was an older man when he married Mary and was a widower with children from a previous marriage. This would make these brothers and sisters what we would understand to be stepsiblings. Of course, this requires belief in the Tradition of an older Joseph rather than a younger Joseph. The Church has not, and probably will never, make a definitive statement on the age of St. Joseph and so Catholics are free to hold either opinion. This author holds to the younger Joseph tradition and so I find the first linguistic option to be the more likely account.
Beautiful reflection! I would add that we often fail to see Christ in the other. Many of whom have just consumed the Eucharist and Christ abides as much in them as in me. This is the ground of social justice. ‘Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.’