An Unexpected Messiah: Honor Him
Luke 4:16-30
Jesus is 30 years old, on His own, baptized and back from being tempted. Now He prepares to commence His Messianic mission in earnest. Before He begins choosing disciples, He takes a get-acquainted tour of the Galilean synagogue circuit. Eventually, His itinerary takes Him to Nazareth, His hometown (Luke 4:14). The synagogue there is familiar to Him. We might very loosely call it His home “church.”
It is in line with protocol for them to ask Him (or to allow Him) to read Scripture to the congregation. They hand Him a scroll. Maybe they choose the passage; maybe He does. Either way, He reads what He wants them to hear from Isaiah 61. So far, this is all very normal. They know this passage is a Messianic prophecy. Then He drops the mother of all breaking news on them.
He basically says, regarding the Messiah, “It’s me! Here I am!” Though He’s more dignified and cryptic than that, they still begin to ruminate on His statement. The congregation knows Him (Luke 4:22) and, interestingly, they seem open to what He’s saying. (Who wouldn’t want the Messiah to come, and, on top of that, to be from their hometown?) At last, Nazareth will be put on the map!
Jesus continues, and the atmosphere sours. Soon, the folks of First Synagogue of Nazareth are in an irrational and nearly hysterical frenzy, actually bent on killing their hometown’s and nation’s nascent hope (Luke 4:28-29). Jesus might very well have intoned, “Was it something I said?” It was.
Jesus surmises that these Nazarenes want a special hometown blessing from Him, but He wants to enlarge their minds to accommodate the true scope of God’s purposes. Their minds, however, are blown and not stretched. He tells them that He knows He’s not really welcome there as a truth-teller (Luke 4:24). To that, they might have feigned protest, but He had sized them up perfectly.
We could imagine Him saying, “You certainly know some of what I’m here for, but you don’t get who I’m here for: I’m thinking of a picture bigger than Nazareth – bigger than Galilee – and bigger than Israel. I’m here for all comers!”
So what horrible thing does He actually say? He cites examples of two choice prophets of God who set unpopular precedents during the days of the kings. He reminds them that Elijah was sent to help a Gentile widow (while many a Jewish widow suffered), and that God used Elisha to heal a Gentile leper (while many a Jewish leper languished).
The Messiah is for the whole world, not just Israel. That wasn’t in their script.
– The ETB writer for the spring quarter is a South Carolinian who formerly served Southern Baptists in a closed country. We are honoring his request not to publish identifying information.