Though my wife owns about 14 different Peter Pan movies, I’ve only a cursory knowledge of the green clad man-boy who can fly. But I do remember one particular scene in one of those fourteen aberrations, where Peter Pan can’t do his typical magic because people don’t believe in him. In fact I remember some scene where people were clapping and with each clap he’d fly a little higher (at least I think it was Peter Pan and not one of my late-night burrito induced dreams).
If you believe in Peter Pan he can do amazing things. No belief, then he’s just a powerless guy wearing a funny hat. I can’t help but wonder if sometimes we view Jesus the same way.
Mark 6:5 even seems to give us permission to view Jesus a bit like Peter Pan. “And he could do no mighty work there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and healed them. Matthew 13:58 is even more pointing saying that he didn’t do any mighty work there “because of their unbelief”. We often combine these two and conclude that Jesus’ ability is somehow limited by the faith of humanity. And then we say things like, “If you really want to see God work and move in your life then you’ve got to have faith. We limit God by our lack of faith.”
Joel Osteen’s fortune cookie theology is a pretty decent slice of what many professing Christians in America believe about God. Now read this and tell me if the same thing can’t be applied to Peter Pan:
God is not moved by our doubts, by our discouragement, by our complaining. He’s moved by our faith.
You get Peter Pan to fly by your faith, and apparently Yahweh as well. I’ve also read a number of quotes from pop-Christianity about limiting God by our faith. But is this really what Matthew and Mark are saying? Do we tie God’s hands by our lack of faith? Why couldn’t Jesus do anything in Mark 6?
First, notice a difference in the way Mark and Matthew word what happened at Nazareth. Matthew says he wouldn’t because of their unbelief. Mark says he couldn’t, but doesn’t fill in why. So, why the difference?
Actually they are saying much the same thing. Mark is just doing it in idiomatic form whereas Matthew is just saying in plainly. Think of it this way. If a friend invited you to go to a party but you already had plans, what would you say? You’d probably say something like, “I’m sorry, man, I’d love to go but I can’t. I’ve already got other plans.” It’s not like you physically couldn’t go—its just that you aren’t going because you’ve given higher priority to something else.
The same thing is happening here in Mark, and Matthew spells that out clearly. Jesus isn’t simply a miracle worker or a traveling faith healer. His aim is to preach the good news of the gospel and these miracles are not an end in themselves. He is pushing back the works of darkness and so on occasion he’ll heal people just because that is what he does. But in Mark there is an inextricable link between faith and healing because Jesus, the Son of God, called people into his kingdom. To refuse his kingdom is to essentially refuse his devil-destroying acts of healing.
Jesus doesn’t do mighty miracles in Nazareth not because he’s like Peter Pan and needs belief of the people to give him healing power. He doesn’t do mighty works because He isn’t Peter Pan. He’s the Son of God. On this occasion to push back the soul-crushing effects of the Fall would be counter-productive. He’d give them a touch of a redeemed Eden that they apparently aren’t yet ready to receive. And so Jesus can’t do a mighty work there because He has a purpose which supersedes doing mighty works; namely, calling people to repent and believe the gospel.
There is some bit of truth to what Osteen and others are saying. Jesus does respond to faith. But he doesn’t do it because he’s Peter Pan and somehow he needs our faith to unbind him. No, he’s the one who is in the business of binding up the strong man and plundering His serpentine kingdom. Our faith is simply what puts us on the side of his darkness-overturning mission.
Jesus isn’t Peter Pan, and that’s great news because there are times when my faith wouldn’t be strong enough to make him fly. Thankfully the gospel is that my weak faith can lay hold of the infinitely strong Christ.
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