“When Jesus heard this, he was amazed…”

What blows you away?  What makes you stand in wonder, fascination or astonishment?  The Greek word for wonder or amazement appears to have some connection to a root word that means “immobile,” as when an individual momentarily freezes when the wonder strikes him.  That being the case, what would immobilize the Son of God?  Or is Jesus as God in human form capable of being amazed?  And if so, what would it take to freeze-frame Immanuel?

Two very different stories answer these questions, and they occurred in the same period of time early in Jesus’ ministry.  One feature in both stories is that they contain amazing elements in their own right.  In Luke 7 we find Jesus in Capernaum, in the region of Galilee.  A centurion — a commander of 100 Roman soldiers, and a Roman himself — had a servant who “was sick and about to die” (v. 2).  Being a humble man (v. 7) he sent Jewish elders (v. 3) to do his bidding of help for his ailing servant.  That in itself is rather startling, that a pagan (Roman) authority had such favor among his occupied neighbors that he would ask such a thing of them.  Amazing!  Even more, when they went and asked Jesus for help, they said, “This man deserves to have you do this, because he loves our nation and has built our synagogue” (v. 5).  That’s amazing, too, very unusual to say the least.  But it gets even better.

Once the group arrived near the centurion’s house, he sent friends to say that he was not worthy to have him enter his home (v. 7).  He might have been showing deference to the Jewish Preacher not wanting to have him defile himself according to ceremonial custom.  Another amazing thing, considering his status as an official leader of a foreign occupier.  To reinforce the lack of necessity of Jesus’ personal presence, he draws on his military background: “But say the word, and my servant will be healed.  For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me.  I tell this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and that one, “come,’ and he comes.  I say to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it” (vs. 7b-8).  In other words, he recognized in Jesus the power available to one “under authority”.  The whole testimony of John’s gospel is that Jesus operated under the authority of his Father.  And with that overly simple analogy, this pagan, non-Jewish commander summed up how God works and demonstrated what Jesus called “great faith” (v. 9).  It amazed him.  In fact, he said that he had not seen such faith in all of Israel.  While that didn’t fall on many happy Hebrew ears, it did cause our Savior to pause in delightful wonderment.

Now to Mark 6, where possibly a few days or weeks later he would be amazed again, but not in the same way.  He returned to Nazareth, his hometown, about 20 miles from Capernaum.  Here the homegrown kid had returned as an itinerant preacher. But here the people were different, and so was their reaction.  These were Jews, God’s own people.  They knew their Scriptures spoke of a messiah, a deliverer.  They knew what the prophets said.  They knew the bondage they were in was a result of their national sins and disobedience, even if they didn’t like to admit it.  They knew him and his parents and siblings (v. 3).  They watched him grow up.  Now they were listening to him speak, and clearly things were different (v. 2).  They knew of his wisdom and miracles.  But for all their knowing, there was no believing: “they took offense at him” (v. 3).  They of all people should have believed and embraced him.  They should have been leading the parade of acceptance and honor throughout the land, hailing him and calling all others to follow him.  But they didn’t, and it momentarily froze him in his tracks: “he was amazed at their lack of faith” (v. 6).  Sure, they “knew” him, but they didn’t really.  Their “knowledge” blinded them from seeing what the centurion saw so well.

Naturally, this latter amazement was not the same quality as his amazement at the centurion’s faith, just the opposite, but it is stunning nevertheless.   As I pondered this contrast in faith, I wondered about two things: (1) Where does my faith appear on the continuum — on the side of the centurion or the Jews, God’s people?  After all, I’m one of his people now.  (2) Now that Jesus has returned to heaven, does anything on earth still amaze him?  Put personally, does my faith amaze him like the centurion’s did?  Does it capture his attention, make him stop for a minute and say, “Wow!  What great faith!”

While I don’t have clear answers, they’re worth pondering for me.  How about for you?