Jesus had an active ministry for three years. Luke told us of the time Jesus went home to Nazareth. This daily devotional looks at how and why Jesus was rejected in His hometown.
Nuggets
- God expects us to follow His Will in the familiar, even though it might not be easy.
- At first, the people of Nazareth were amazed.
- The people of Nazareth became enraged because their amazement was only a surface emotion.
Jesus’ ministry encompassed Galilee, Samaria, and Judea. Luke told us of one visit to Nazareth.
Luke’s diagnosis was the visit did not turn out well because the people of Nazareth held themselves in higher esteem than their need for a Savior. Unfortunately for them, they did need a Savior.
Let's Put It into Context
“Then Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about him spread throughout the entire vicinity. He was teaching in their synagogues, being praised by everyone” (Lk. 4: 14-15 CSB)
At the end of Luke 3, Jesus was baptized. This would have been a high point for Jesus.
No, not because Jesus had sinned and needed forgiveness and salvation.
After Jesus came up from the water, He heard the voice of His Father. God let everyone know that he was pleased with Jesus.
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At the beginning of chapter 4, Jesus is tempted by Satan.
The accomplishment of those two events heralded the start of Jesus’ ministry. Oosterzee called this sermon in Luke 4: 16-30 Jesus’ first sermon. I don’t see how it could be given what verse 15 says. This may be Jesus’ first recorded sermon, but it wasn’t the first time He got up and preached. Luke tells us that Jesus had already found early success.
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Then He went home.
Who Was Jesus Really?
“He came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. As usual, he entered the synagogue on the Sabbath day and stood up to read. The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him, and unrolling the scroll, he found the place where it was written: The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. He then rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. And the eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fixed on him. He began by saying to them, ‘Today as you listen, this Scripture has been fulfilled’” (Lk. 4: 16-21 CSB)
God expects us to follow His Will in the familiar, even though it might not be easy.
Yeah, sometimes it is hard to follow God’s Will in the familiar. Martineau wrote, “Never is it so hard to follow and trust a higher inspiration, as amid the crowd of customary things.”
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It is especially hard if we are going to change the perception of those who know us. We don’t know a lot about Jesus’ childhood, but we do know that Jesus was treated as Mary and Joseph’s son.
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That means the townspeople would have known Jesus as Joseph’s son. But Jesus knew Who He was.
Jesus did what was His custom in His ministry: He went to the synagogue to preach. He was making it evident that He came to the Jews first. “He replied, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Mt. 15: 24 CSB).
Even with all of His concerns about the religion of the day, Jesus wasn’t tearing down the synagogues. He came to fulfill the law and change it into a relationship with God.
Jesus started with what was. That meant He usually went to the synagogue (Lk. 4: 16). That is why Jesus was at the synagogue on this Sabbath. It was His habit.
Synagogues weren’t only in Jerusalem. They were all over Judea and in the other countries in which a Jews lived. Though not the temple, they were places of worship and instruction.
The synagogue was the highest ground in the area. Geikie instructs us that it was the duty of the Jews to attend the three daily services (really two because the afternoon and evening services were combined). Munger added that this day was the Day of Atonement or Yom Kippur, when the priest made the annual sacrifice to ask God to forgive the sins of the nation (Lev. 16: 16-28).
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The purpose of that many services was so that the Jews could hear the law. Stapfer told us that the reading of the law was bookended by prayer. Members of the assembly recited the Shema and the 18 blessings. (Only minors were excluded.)
The law was read by seven members of the assembly. They each read three verses.
It was the goal to read the law through each year, and the entire Torah being read in three years.
Commentary followed the reading. Yep, that is where we get the concept of sermons.
A closing lesson, read by the person who recited the opening prayer, finished it up before the benediction. It, too, was three verses long.
It was three verses — except when Jesus did the closing lesson in Nazareth. His lesson was two verses long because He added commentary to it.
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The passage Jesus read was from Isaiah 61: 1-2. These words are seen as the anointing of the Messiah.
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Isaiah did nail the description of Jesus’ ministry. Jesus was filled with the Holy Spirit. “Then Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit …” (Lk. 4: 14 CSB)
Isaiah also got the purpose of Jesus’ ministry right. His main focus was preaching the good news to anyone who would listen. That released the captives, healed the sick, and set free the oppressed. It recognized the neglected.
Jesus’ message was about an individual forgiveness. While it embraced mankind’s physical ailments, the focus was on our spiritual condition.
I loved what Munger said. He wrote that Jesus’ message shows us the Heart of God and His purpose for us. This is especially telling if we equate their condition with extreme distress and misery.
Aren’t those powerful words? Munger said that Jesus cut to the significance of the message. He cut through the religion and ceremony to deliverance and redemption.
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Isaiah talked about Jesus’ mission was “to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor (Lk. 4: 19 CSB). It was the day of salvation, when the fullness of time was accomplished.
Jesus knew exactly Who He was and what His mission was. He was wasn’t apologetic to anyone. He stayed firm in His convictions.
Then Jesus says those amazing words. “This prophecy has been fulfilled.”
That is all that was recorded of Jesus’ sermon. But is that all we need to know?
The People of Nazareth Were Amazed
“They were all speaking well of him and were amazed by the gracious words that came from his mouth; yet they said, ‘Isn’t this Joseph’s son?’ Then he said to them, “No doubt you will quote this proverb to me: ‘Doctor, heal yourself. What we’ve heard that took place in Capernaum, do here in your hometown also.’” He also said, “Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in his hometown. But I say to you, there were certainly many widows in Israel in Elijah’s days, when the sky was shut up for three years and six months while a great famine came over all the land. Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them except a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. And in the prophet Elisha’s time, there were many in Israel who had leprosy, and yet not one of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian” (Lk. 4: 22-27 CSB)
At first, the people of Nazareth were amazed.
Whatever Jesus said, it produced a strong reaction in His listeners. Luke said they started out thinking they were “… gracious words …” (Lk. 4: 22 CSB). Sure, there was some shock and amazement there.
But they couldn’t see Jesus as anyone but the carpenter’s son. Haweis said they had a problem with that.
Fairbairn disagreed. He wrote, “The great creative spirits of Israel had never been the sons of a school. The Rabbi was qualified rather than disqualified for his office by a handicraft.”
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Gould told what the Elijah and Naaman references meant. He wrote, “Elijah was persecuted, and received only by one poor widow. Naaman was unworthy to be healed till he humbled himself to dip in despised Jordan.”
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What Jesus was saying was that only the humble would be fed and healed. Apparently, that was not the people of Nazareth wanted to hear.
Haweis contended that it was the people who were wanting Jesus to out in a sign and miracle show for them as He had done elsewhere. I just don’t read the verse that way. “Then he said to them …” (Lk. 4: 23 CSB) means Jesus said it.
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Most likely, Jesus was reading their hearts and minds. We know He could do that (Mt. 9: 2-4).
We do demand proof sometimes, don’t we? We can’t get past our mindset to acknowledge what God is really doing in our lives.
Worse yet, many of the people in Jesus’ day were following Him just for the miracles. That wasn’t His focus.
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Jesus’ focus was their spiritual condition, not their physical condition. Nothing has changed since His resurrection.
Haweis argued the sign Jesus gave them signs — but only if they accepted His teaching.
That is what faith is all about. Faith is the conviction that the doctrines revealed in God’s Word are true, even if we do not understand all aspects of them, a belief which impacts our lives.
We believe without seeing. We believe without understanding.
Then we get the sign.
No belief = no sign. The people that day didn’t understand. People still don’t.
The People of Nazareth Became Enraged
“When they heard this, everyone in the synagogue was enraged. They got up, drove him out of town, and brought him to the edge of the hill that their town was built on, intending to hurl him over the cliff (Lk. 4: 28-29 CSB)
The people of Nazareth became enraged because their amazement was only a surface emotion.
Hmmm. Jesus got the crowd riled up telling them prophets were accepted in their hometowns.
But they can’t blame it on Jesus. The bottom line was they were rejecting Him. He wouldn’t accept their surface acceptance. They rejected anything deeper.
When we look at Jesus’ mission from the worldview, surface perspective, the people of Nazareth probably thought He wasn’t talking about them. They probably didn’t consider themselves poor, broken-hearted, or captives.
Spurgeon thought that the problem could have been the crows was thinking Jesus was claiming something that was too outlandishly high. Another possibility was that the townspeople did not think God should provide His rewards as He saw fit. They didn’t think grace should be free.
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So, how did the townspeople react? They wanted to kill their Friend and possibly their Relative.
It makes us pause and wonder if they had ever been on a murderous bent before that day. I really doubt any other service had ended in that manner.
Making the Connections
How many of us have run into a non-believer who wants us to soft-pedal the Gospel rather than challenge them with doctrine? Or is that how we feel we have to approach those we are witnessing to so they won’t reject us out of hand?
We should follow Jesus’ example. Habitual worship leads to holiness and godliness.
How Do We Apply This?
We need to follow Jesus’ example. Even though He had problems with religion of the day, He faithfully went to the synagogue. He didn’t let someone else’s relationship status impact His.
- Jesus didn’t let the flawed Christians stop Him from going to church.
- Jesus valued the Scriptures. He lived by them.
- We need to live by the Scriptures, also.
Luke would have diagnosed the people of Nazareth as ill because they were relying on their religion to be enough for God. They became incensed when Jesus told them it wouldn’t.
Their prescription was a genuine relationship with the Savior.
Father God. There are so many times we can be like the people of Nazareth. We can be surface people, looking to the worldview instead of the Godview. Lord, we need a relationship with You just as badly as the people of Nazareth did. Draw us to You, Lord. Amen.
What do you think?
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