Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit. Word about him went out throughout the whole district. He taught in their synagogues, and gained a great reputation all around.
He came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. On the Sabbath, as was his regular practice, he went to the synagogue and stood up to read. They gave him the scroll of the prophet Isaiah. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it is written:
'The Spirit of the Lord is upon me
Because He has anointed me
To tell the poor the good news.
He has sent me to announce release to the prisoners
And sight to the blind,
To set the wounded victims free,
To announce the year of God's special favor'
He rolled up the scroll, gave it to the attendant, and sat down. All eyes in the synagogue were fixed on him.
'Today', he began,'this scripture is fulfilled in your own hearing.'
Everyone remarked at him; they were astonished at the words coming out of his mouth - words of sheer grace.
'Isn't this Joseph's son?' they said.
'I know what you're going to say,' Jesus said,'You're going to tell me the old riddle: 'Heal yourself, doctor!''We heard of great happenings in Capernaum; do them here in your own country!'
'Let me tell you the truth,' he went on. 'Prophets never get accepted in their own country. This is the solemn truth: there were plenty of widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when heaven was shut up for three years and six months, and there was a great famine over all the land. Elijah was sent to none of them, only to a widow in the Sidonian town of Zarephath.
And there were plenty of lepers in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet, and none of them were healed - only Namaan, the Syrian.'
When they heard this, everyone in the synagogue flew into a rage. They got up and threw him out of town. They took him to the top of the mountain on which the town was built, meaning to fling him off. But he slipped through the middle of them and went away.
Once you've been cleansed and tested by everything the devil throws at you, it is like a wave of refreshment, a power move of awe and wonder fills you up, everything makes more sense, the time is now...you begin your ministry. God's grace and power have brought you through and you have remained faithful...you are filled with the Holy Spirit...here we go...uh, oh...it's not supposed to start off like that!
So imagine your sitting in church and there is a guest speaker, you've heard lots of amazing things about him and it turns out he actually grew up in the area. You are at church every Sunday, you nod your head and laugh at all the regular jokes, you buy the right CDs, wear the right t-shirts, abstain from the right things. God's promises , when they come definitely belong to you. All the sudden this mysterious figure takes the stage and out of his mouth pour the most refreshing things you've heard in years, you are filled with joy and all the sudden you start thinking who the heck is this guy? He's been around here, so-and-so knows his parents, they're broke just like the rest of us, nothing special, they don't have any 'power' to speak like that. He talks like he knows something.
Then all the sudden the speaker says,'But you know what, these glorious things probably aren't for you folks...as a matter of fact if God is gonna do this stuff and he sticks with his pattern...it's probably gonna be for the guy down at the bar crying in his whiskey...or the Afghan rebel leader whose never known God or His Word...or the lady you all cut off to make it here and get the best parking spot this morning. Yep, these things probably aren't for any of you.
Seems to me the speaker might not get assassinated, but he sure wouldn't be invited back again. Are we ready to challenge Jesus' words of grace? Or are we ready to follow him? Are we ready to try and quote scripture and prove his message of the Kingdom coming, of it being near to the poor and suffering, of God breaking in here and becoming King here, in Spirit and Truth... are we to say in our hearts, he's just that boy from those poor folks that had him out of wedlock. Are we to, God's chosen, to exchange the glory of the living God for our imaginations or will we rejoice with the lowly and despised who are exalted to their status of image bearers, who are healed and made whole... just as the high and lofty are brought back down to their, very human, levels. Maybe we wish he would have just done it the way the devil tempted him to...a few magic tricks, big neon signs that lifted Him, along with his ego up, a power-hungry takeover of the world, a call to ignorantly and haphazardly PROVE that we are God's chosen over everyone else...maybe we don't want God's suffering servant. Maybe we just assume throw him off a cliff and get on with being high and lofty in our own minds, complaining to God when we chased His answer to our prayers out the door with our wicked hearts...
We would never do that! We're not like them...we may say...we may need to be very careful with that...
And you say, 'If we had lived in the days of our forefathers, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.' So you testify against yourselves that you are the descendants of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up, then, the measure of the sin of your forefathers!
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