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In Christ, Mark
In Christ, Mark
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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy
word.
He went to Nazareth, where He had been brought up, and on
the Sabbath day He went into the synagogue, as was His custom. He stood up to
read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to Him. Unrolling it, He
found the place where it is written:
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed
me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for
the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to
proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
Then He rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the
attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on
Him. He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your
hearing.”
All spoke well of Him and were amazed at the gracious
words that came from His lips. “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?” they asked.
Jesus said to them, “Surely you will quote this proverb
to Me: ‘Physician, heal yourself!’ And you will tell Me, ‘Do here in your
hometown what we have heard that you did in Capernaum.’ Truly I tell you,” He
continued, “no prophet is accepted in His hometown.”
“I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in
Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a
severe famine throughout the land. Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but
to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon. And there were many in Israel
with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed—only
Naaman the Syrian.”
All the people in the synagogue were furious when they
heard this. They got up, drove Him out of the town, and took Him to the brow of
the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw Him off the cliff. But
He walked right through the crowd and went on his way.
Then He went down to Capernaum, a town in Galilee.
Luke 4:16-31a
This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be
to God.
Sometimes it’s easy to be accepted in life. All you need
to do is find a group of like-minded people and then intermingle, being careful
that everything you say matches up with their beliefs, attitudes, and opinions.
You’ll be assured to be a welcome member of such a group as long as you don’t
say the wrong thing but if you choose to ruffle feathers and go against the
grain, even if what you are saying is the truth, you can risk being rejected,
even by those who you may think would be your closest allies.
Now, this isn’t just some modern day sociological norm.
For as we look back at the Gospel of Luke, we find Jesus Himself experiencing
first acceptance and approval, followed by an abrupt rejection which nearly
turned fatal. Look again at these verses here:
He went to
Nazareth, where He had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day He went into the
synagogue, as was His custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the
prophet Isaiah was handed to Him. Unrolling it, He found the place where it is
written:
“The Spirit of the
Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He
has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the
blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
Then He rolled up
the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in
the synagogue were fastened on Him. He began by saying to them, “Today this
scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”
All spoke well of
Him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from His lips. “Isn’t this
Joseph’s son?” they asked.
Jesus said to
them, “Surely you will quote this proverb to Me: ‘Physician, heal yourself!’
And you will tell Me, ‘Do here in your hometown what we have heard that you did
in Capernaum.’ Truly I tell you,” He continued, “no prophet is accepted in His
hometown.”
“I assure you that
there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for
three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. Yet
Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region
of Sidon. And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the
prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed—only Naaman the Syrian.”
All the people in
the synagogue were furious when they heard this. They got up, drove Him out of the
town, and took Him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in
order to throw Him off the cliff. But He walked right through the crowd and
went on his way.
Then He went down
to Capernaum, a town in Galilee. Luke 4:16-31a
We have followed Jesus on quite a journey which started
in the south of Israel in Jerusalem and the Judean countryside and progressed
north through Samaria before He arrived in His home region of Galilee where He
could visit His hometown of Nazareth.
We know Jesus grew up in Nazareth under the watchful eyes
of His parents, Joseph and Mary. And as we read in today’s scripture passage,
the men in the synagogue where Jesus preached was well aware of whose son He
was, remarking during His teaching:
“Isn’t this
Joseph’s son?”
Speaking about the teaching Jesus was doing, we read where
He was in the synagogue on the Sabbath, the place you would customarily find
any faithful Jew who was obedient in adhering to God’s commands. Handed a
scroll of the prophet Isaiah, Jesus unrolled it and went right to the words He
wished to speak, words that foretold His coming:
“The Spirit of the
Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He
has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the
blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
Isaiah 61:1-2
The eyes of all at the Sabbath worship were fixed on
Jesus as He read the words of the prophet, words that proclaimed a coming time
of hope for the people of Israel, a time where the Lord’s favor would come upon
them as good news was proclaimed to the poor and the imprisoned, to the blind
and oppressed.
What teaching would He bring the people of His hometown
on such a forward looking prophecy?
The message was simple.
The wait was over as the prophecy was being fulfilled
right before their very eyes. Jesus said so Himself as He stated:
“Today this
scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”
What an amazing proclamation, especially in light of how
the people inside the synagogue remembered Jesus who had grown up an ordinary son
of a carpenter, went away from home, and now had returned to tell everyone that
He was the Messiah who had been predicted to come.
It had to be the ultimate feel good moment, right?
Everyone in Nazareth could say that the Christ grew up in
their midst, that they knew the promised One of God.
Indeed, it was a real moment to cherish, one that would
have generated a lifetime of acceptance, had Jesus just left things as they
were.
But He didn’t do that, did He?
You see, Jesus wasn’t interested in living in an
environment of political correctness, saying whatever He needed to say to win
over the favor of others. Rather, Jesus was going to speak the truth in order
to bring people to repentance and salvation, even if it meant telling others
what they didn’t want to hear, even those in His own hometown.
For the adoring words of the Nazareth faithful had had
barely left their lips before Jesus began to prophesy for Himself, saying:
“Surely you will
quote this proverb to Me: ‘Physician, heal yourself!’ And you will tell Me, ‘Do
here in your hometown what we have heard that you did in Capernaum.’ Truly I
tell you, no prophet is accepted in His hometown.”
Note here that Jesus knew the hearts of the Nazarene
people before they even spoke a word. He knew that it wouldn’t be enough for
Him to tell them that He was the Christ and they would believe, although it
should have been more than enough for Him to be accepted. Instead, His hometown
people would demand to see evidence that Jesus was the Messiah, the One sent
from God to aid them. They would demand that He show them signs and wonders so
that there would be concrete reason for them to believe in Him.
And so, knowing their hearts, Jesus decided to give them
something else to ponder, something else that would be central to the new
covenant He was bringing them from God the Father, a new covenant that would
turn their spiritual ways of thinking upside down. The newly proclaimed Messiah
said this to His people:
“I assure you that
there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for
three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. Yet
Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region
of Sidon.”
What was Jesus getting at here? Why did what He said lead
the Nazareth Jews into such a murderous rage?
We need to examine His statements in the context of Old
Testament scripture to find the answers.
First, He mentions widows who were in dire need in Elijah’s
time.
Now Elijah was perhaps the most beloved and respected of
all the Jewish prophets, so much so that many Jews believed he would be
resurrected to announce the Messiah’s coming. To bring him into a negative
light would have raised the ire of any devout Jew. And yet, Jesus went there,
not with words that could not be supported, but rather words that were
reinforced by the scriptures.
Go to 1 Kings, Chapter 17 and you will find the account
of where Elijah was sent by God from Israel and away from Jewish widows who
were in need, to a woman who lived in “Zarephath in the region of Sidon”, an area
that was considered Gentile. Now we know that the Gentiles were despised by the
Jews and seen as unclean. To even mention God favoring a Gentile over a Jew
would be considered blasphemous at best but that’s what Jesus did and He did so
speaking in truth, even if He knew it wasn’t what the Nazarenes wanted to hear.
These words about Elijah would have been enough to
elevate the ire of the Jews in His hometown but Jesus wasn’t finished. For He
next brought up the prophet who took proceeded Elijah, Elisha:
“And there were
many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of
them was cleansed—only Naaman the Syrian.”
Used in a similar context as the first example, Jesus
mentions here that although there were many Jews in need of healing from
leprosy, God send Elisha to heal and cleanse a Gentile leper before them, a Syrian
man by the name of Naaman (2 Kings 5).
Two separate examples of God favoring Gentiles over the
Jews, using beloved prophets, both examples easily validated by the scriptures.
But it was all too much for the Nazareth faithful to take. They possessed so
much hatred for the Gentiles that they were unwilling to even consider God
having love and favor for them, just as He had for His chosen people.
This same resentment is what would eventually get Jesus
killed as He brought His ministry of salvation to everyone, Jew and Gentile
alike. But at least for that day in Nazareth, Jesus would emerge unscathed as
the Jewish mob rejected Him and His message before driving Him out of town to a
brow of a hill with the intent of pushing Him off the cliff, a scene which the
scriptures say He just walked away from and “went on His way” to another town
in Galilee, the town of Capernaum.
Through the documented accounts of God using two of the
most esteemed messengers to minister and care for those who the Jews shunned,
Jesus was trying to let the Nazarenes know that He was sent for the same
purpose, that there would be no one eliminated by the work the Father sent Him
to do.
“For God so loved the world that he gave
his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have
eternal life.” John 3:16
And there is no set parameters on who’s in
the “whoever” category as no one will find themselves rejected by God is they
place their belief, faith, trust, and hope in Jesus, His Son - the promised
Messiah, the Lamb of God who was slain to take away the sins of the world (John
1:29), the Only One who can bring someone to God the Father (John 14:6).
Amen.
In Christ,
Mark
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