The crowds found it difficult to comprehend Jesus. They were too many contradictions about him. He was a very real and humanly attractive person. The more religious Jews even found him a bit too human, accusing him of eating and drinking, instead of fasting.

Very human and attractive, he was also very mysterious. People thought they knew a lot about him: they knew he was from Galilee, therefore supposedly born in Galilee. We know, however, that he was born in Bethlehem. On occasion the people asserted that they knew his mother and his wider family.

No matter how much they thought they knew, the crowds were always forced to acknowledge the mystery. It seemed as if he could be the Messiah, but he was not, they thought, from Bethlehem. He was from Nazareth, a carpenter who never studied to be a Rabbi, yet his wisdom was superior to that of the Scribes and the Pharisees: "no man ever spoke like that before". His miraculous powers showed he was from God, but at times he seemed to put himself above God's law and the customs of God's people. He was indeed very much beyond their comprehension.