If Mark five is the chapter of lost causes found, chapter six is the chapter of found causes lost. Ministry in Nazareth is a bust (v5), John the Baptizer gets murdered (v27), and the disciples have hard hearts and lack understanding (v52). Jesus is coming home, but there’s no homecoming parade or welcome. Like the mourners who laughed him down (5:40), the Nazarenes are offended (v3). But as in so many stories in Mark, there is victory on the horizon----both Jesus’ horizon and ours. The gospel is good news. It’s news in the urgent and relevant sense, applicable here and now. And it’s good, that grace has triumphed over sin and death, is triumphing, and will triumph. Don’t be like the short-sighted reader of Ecclesiastes who only concludes ‘‘All is vapor.’’ How did his homecoming bless Jesus and the church? What do we learn from it?