32. Jesus is rejected at Nazareth
– Luke 4:16-30
Luke 4:16 “He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom.”
At this time in history, Jews were exiled and no longer permitted to worship in the temples. Therefore, the Jewish people created temporary places of worship called, synagogues. The Greek word for synagogue means, “Assembly”. Synagogues were made anywhere that ten or more Jewish families lived. While synagogues could be physical buildings, sometimes they were merely a location where people gathered. The Jewish people would come together on the Sabbath to listen to sermons on passages in scripture. Churches are modern-day synagogues. As the verse suggests, Jesus went to church every single week. The Son of God believed church was important. How much more should we respect and attend church regularly?
Luke 4:17-19 “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 preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of the sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
Isaiah 61:1-2 “The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn…”
The leaders of the synagogues would invite visiting rabbis to speak on the Sabbath. In this case, Jesus was asked to speak at this synagogue. Jesus did not choose what he was going to speak about that day. He was handed a scroll which contained a segment from Isaiah. God uses happenstances to show his authority. It wasn’t coincidental that Jesus was handed these verses. Jesus was reading to fulfill the prophecy. Even in Isaiah, the verses as written in a manner that only Jesus could read. It was Jesus that the Lord brought to the earth to spread the good news. It was Jesus who brought freedom to our earth. He broke our chains from death and shed light on darkness. Jesus’ presence on the earth is a sign of God’s favor for us. Take note, Jesus stops in the middle of the verse. The next verse says, “The day of vengeance of our God.” It refers to the day when Jesus will return to the earth again. God’s wrath is yet to come. So far, Jesus has only fulfilled the first segment of the passage.
Luke 4:25-28 “I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half year and there was severe famine throughout the land. Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but 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.”
During the time of Elijah and Elisha, the people were notorious for their wickedness. In these verses, Jesus was comparing the people in Nazareth to the people during Elijah’s and Elisha’s time. Jesus called out the people on their disbelief. Jesus was not afraid to tell the truth no matter how hard it may have been. Jesus spoke for people to improve their character. He wanted the people to realize their shortcomings.
Luke 4:29-30 “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 down the cliff. But he walked right through the crowd and went on his way.”
All throughout Jesus’ life, people wanted to kill him. When he was a child, Herod wanted to kill him. When he began his ministry, the people of Nazareth wanted to kill him. In the end, he was murdered. It was in God’s plan for Jesus to be crucified. But, at this moment in scripture it was not in God’s will for Jesus to die. He still had much more to do. The people of the town wanted to throw him off of the cliff; but, Jesus had more power and walked right through the crowd. Just as Jesus parted the sea, he parted the angry crowd. Jesus has power over everything.
