Reading today’s Gospel, we may wonder whether what Jesus experienced when he returned to His hometown of Nazareth was proof of the saying ‘familiarity begets contempt’. The people are astonished by His wisdom and the miracles they have heard about, yet instead of believing in Him, they asked, “Is this not the carpenter’s son?” They might have seen him in the workshop of St. Joseph the carpenter, his house, the way he cried as a baby and the way he walked as a toddler.
The One We Once Knew
It might be similar to when we have known someone from childhood; we continue to see them as the little boy or girl we once knew. The people of Nazareth looked at Jesus in this way. Their version of Jesus, so to speak, did not “grow up.” They remained attached to the image of the carpenter’s son they had always known, and so they never came to know Him according to the fullness of who He truly was. This is not the case of familiarity begetting contempt, but of their stone hearts preventing them from knowing Him as the Son of God, the Messiah who shall save them. “He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him.” (Jn 1:10).
The Necessity of Faith
This faithlessness resulted in something sad: “He did not work many miracles there because of their lack of faith.” But, if Jesus is really merciful, why didn’t He perform miracles anyway? This reveals the necessity of faith. Faith is the condition by which we open ourselves to receive the grace that God desires to give. For God never forces His gifts upon us. He freely offers them while respecting the freedom He Himself has given us. When we resist His grace or if we never desire to grow deeper in our spiritual life, we shall not find any ‘miracles’ nor eternal life, not because the power of God depends on our choice, but because it has found no welcome in our soul.
This is why throughout the Gospels Jesus repeatedly says, “Your faith has saved you,” (Lk 7:50) and “According to your faith be it done to you” (Mt 9:29). For when we truly believe in God, we not only assent to His truthfulness, but also we surrender ourselves to him. Isn’t this the case when we ask someone for directions, that if we believe him to be saying the truth, we surrender to his instructions and follow them?
Surrender
Yet faith does not merely dispose us to receive God’s gifts. When we surrender ourselves to God in faith, our relationship with Him becomes deeper. Or, in the teachings of St. John of the Cross, faith is the closest and most suitable way for the soul to be united with God. A life of faith becomes a life of heaven here on earth. The only difference is that in heaven we shall see be completely in union with God. Yet, whatever shall happen there in heaven, we anticipate that through a life of faith here on earth. Most importantly, if in heaven we shall be fixed in that state of love of God, so also with faith which helps us love Him, and to love Him we become like Him.
Today, let us ask the Lord to deepen our faith: “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!” (Mk 9:24). May we never settle for a mere familiarity with the Lord, which sees Him only according to our own perspectives rather than according to the fullness of the truth He revealed to us. If we walk by faith, not by sight (2 Cor 5:7), we shall find ourselves filled with his graces and blessings for faith does not only make us worthy receptors of his graces, but it also unites us with the source of grace Himself. That’s the miracle we are called to enjoy.
