The people of Nazareth were, for a brief moment, on the right track. They were asking five excellent questions about Jesus. We know that on hearing him teach in the synagogue, they were utterly amazed or, in the language of our day, we might even say they were 'gobsmacked'. The great Greek philosopher Aristotle observed, centuries before this incident in a Nazareth synagogue, that the beginning of wisdom is wonder and amazement. Well, the people of Nazareth were in a high state of wonder and they were certainly amazed.

We know this because St Mark records their reaction to Jesus: 'Where did this man get these things? What's this wisdom that has been given him, that he even does miracles? Isn't this the carpenter? Isn't this Mary's son and the brother of James and Joseph, Judas and Simon? Aren't his sisters here with us?' (w. 2-3 NIV). Their questions were leading them to explore the greatest question and most important mystery of life on earth: who was Jesus of Nazareth? Now the people of Nazareth were doing so well, but their line of questioning did not lead to faith because they 'took offence at him'. Their reason (for their questions were reasonable) was not married with the gift of faith and grace available to them. This was such a shame because their minds were beginning to entertain the mystery of the incarnation — God made man — one of the most fundamental aspects of the panorama of Christian revelation.

Just as we need to cultivate a sense of Eucharistic awe and wonder, so too we need to cultivate a sense of incarnational awe and wonder. Of course, the key into this mystery is faith, but we must grasp the wisdom which informs us that in order to understand, we first believe, and not the other way round. Our minds in themselves are not capable of grasping the incarnation. As St Thomas Aquinas so wisely said: 'By his divine nature, Christ is simple. By his human nature, he is complex.' We need the Holy Spirit to help us take hold of the mystery that God entered into human time and space. How wrong was Plato when he said, 'Never can man and God meet', and how right was C.S. Lewis when he stated, 'The central miracle asserted by Christians is the incarnation. They say that God became man.'