Sunday Praise & Worship 10:00
Christian Education - 10:00 - Casual Dress - Loving Childcare
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Sermon Notes for Luke: 4:14-30 Key Verse: Luke 4:18 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, for he has anointed me to bring Good News to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released, that the blind will see, that the oppressed will be set free…”
Read Luke chapter 4, and you’ll find yourself wondering how Jesus’ touching return to his hometown synagogue turned so ugly so quickly. One minute he is reading from an ancient scroll of prophetic hope, and the next, the crowd of neighbors has turned into a mob, intent on throwing Jesus off a cliff.
Read closely, and you’ll find that everything turns on verse 22, which begins “everyone spoke well of him” and then turns into an insult. They were amazed. But that word can mean a lot of different things. The final sentence, which begins “How can this be?” gives you an indication of the kind of amazement that swept through the crowd in the wake of Jesus’ announcement that the prophecy from Isaiah had been fulfilled.
They could not believe. They thought they knew him as a carpenter’s son, and what they thought they knew defined what they were able to see. We can judge them, certainly, from our vantage point in history. But the story takes a turn that might show us a different kind of Jesus that we thought we knew.
Instead of ignoring their insult and playing nice, Jesus goads them.
The two stories to which Jesus refers had an obvious incendiary quality for the people gathered in the Nazareth synagogue that fateful Sabbath. Having read Isaiah (61:1-2 and 58:6), Jesus next invokes two other prophets, Elijah (1 Kings 17:7-24) and Elisha (2 Kings 5). The stories have a common theme: God chooses the unlikely over Israel to dispense a blessing: a foreign widow from the region of Sidon (Matthew 15:21-28 records that Jesus healed a foreign woman from this region) and the commander of the army of Aram.
The stories themselves (take some time to read through them) are filled with surprises. After helping Elijah, the widow’s son nearly dies. Elisha’s servant takes some of the reward money from Naaman that Elisha has rejected and is cursed with Naaman’s leprosy. Captured servants play a crucial role in the story of Naaman’s healing, responding to their fate by caring for their slave owner. And Elijah comes to the widow of Zarephath begging for food because he is dying of starvation. She is the one who heals Elijah, just as the slaves of Naaman bring about his healing.
Why these stories should have touched off a mob scene doesn’t surprise when you think about it. The people gathered in Nazareth thought of themselves as healed and chosen—part of the in crowd and so not in need of the release from captivity Jesus was offering through the words of Isaiah. Because they were unwilling to sacrifice their own preconceptions (and perhaps even jealousies) about this hometown hero, they wanted to sacrifice and kill the Son of God.
Yet he walked through the mob and went on his way (see also John 8:59). The people of Nazareth did not sacrifice Jesus, but they did sacrifice the healing offered by this wounded one for all who are wounded.
Questions for Reflection
1. Lent
is a season of sacrifice, as we reflect on the sacrifice of Jesus for the sake
of the world. It is springtime, when we sacrifice hopelessness for the hope of
new life and new growth after the dead of winter. What do you need to sacrifice
this season in order to allow God to heal your brokenness?
2. Who
are the people you would be angriest about if Jesus chose to heal them over you
or your friends? Think about Jesus’ command to us to love our enemies. Why won’t
God put up with our hatred? What do we have to let go in order to be content
when God chooses in a way that surprises and shocks us? 3. The people in the synagogue drove Jesus out of town. What kinds of things are others at Skyline saying to you that provokes a similar response (you’d like to drive them out of town!)?
For next week: please read Matthew 5:17-24 (key verses are 23-24). The theme is : Sacrificing Together. The teaching statement is: Jesus calls us to sacrifice our ticket to heaven to bring healing to others.
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