We know where Jesus is from, and he cannot be the Christ. [For] when the Christ comes, no one will know where he is from. The Christ, or rather the Messiah as was popularly known among the people of Jesus’ time, was an enigmatic figure. The prophets had foretold of his coming, and the people in almost every generation awaited his coming with eager expectation for the Christ was a bringer of good things. The Christ remained an enigmatic figure because although many had come out and claimed to be the one, none had lived to the expectations of the people and were therefore rejected. This is the same situation that Jesus is facing. Although he situated his mission/ministry in the fulfillment of the prophecies of old (cf. Luke 4:18-19), the people are slow to accept him as the Messiah Christ for reasons that vary depending on where one is standing. In our Gospel reading today, the crowds are pointing to the fact that he is one of their own and as such cannot be the Christ. The Christ, they say, would have to be and remain a mysterious figure.
The crowds are raising an issue that is common to humanity: humanity doesn’t like the simple/easy/cheap/familiar. Humanity will be filled with awe at the complex and mysterious while remaining unmoved by the simple and familiar. And we tend to apply this to our relationship with God as well. A God who is easy to access, simple and easy to get along with loses respect. A God who assumes our nature and gets involved in our mundane affairs becomes suspect. It was not only the knowledge of where Jesus came from that made the people to reject him. It was also the fact that Jesus was just Jesus, a fellow human being with a name such as theirs; a fellow human being who was subject to cosmic laws just as they were. They rejected Jesus as the Christ because he was just like them. How could he help them scale the heights while he himself was just as ordinary?
The Christ comes to us as one of our own to make it easy for us to attain salvation. God doesn’t want us to sweat or perform nearly impossible tasks in order to attain our salvation. Jesus comes to us as one of us to show us that salvation lies in living our lives without pretense. It is not in living extraordinary lives that we attain salvation but rather in remaining simple, easy, familiar sons and daughters, mothers and fathers. For Jesus has not come to show us how to become extraordinary, complex beings but rather loving and kind children of the Father.