Don't "Get Over" Jesus

Text: “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” (January 23:21)

This season of Epiphany is about Jesus being manifested to the world. Epiphany, itself— the wise men bearing gifts and following the start in order to worship Jesus— is only the beginning of that activity. So, last week, you heard about Jesus’ first miracle— or, as John called it, a ‘sign’— that started to revealed who Jesus was. The week before, if we hadn’t had Concordia Sunday, you would have heard the account of Jesus’ baptism. That was the beginning of Jesus’ earthly ministry because, there, the voice from heaven and the dove revealed Him to be the Son of God who had come into the world.

Today’s Gospel reading goes the opposite direction. Epiphany began with a group of foreigners who travelled a great distance in order to honor Jesus as a King. Today’s Gospel reading describes Jesus coming back to the people of Nazareth, where He had grown up, and being rejected. He revealed Himself to be the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy of “the year of the Lord’s favor,” but they would not accept Him.

That rejection may not seem like a ready danger for you and I— Jesus wasn’t from Unionville, after all, or even Michigan. But it is still a temptation. And a very subtle temptation for you and I. Let me illustrate what I mean with an example from one of Garrison Keillor’s stories

Keillor recalled his childhood Thanksgiving dinners, as the family gathered around the table and remembered the blessings of the past year. Uncle John usually gave the prayer, which caused everyone to squirm. As Keillor said, “Everybody in the family knew that Uncle John couldn’t pray without talking about the cross and crying. Sure enough, Uncle John prayed, talked about the cross, and cried. Meanwhile, the rest of us shifted nervously from one foot to the other and longed for the prayer to end.” Then Keillor adds this powerful observation: “All of us knew that Jesus died on the cross for us, but Uncle John had never gotten over it.” (“Standing in the Light of the Cross” by Bill Bouknight, Good News Mar./Apr. 2002, p. 21.)

Isn’t that, essentially, the same sentiment Jesus experienced from the people of Nazareth? They obviously didn’t know about the cross yet, but what is Jesus saying that they are rejecting? He reads Isaiah 61:1-2 “1 The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; 2 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor...” and His sermon on that text consists of: “Today’s the day! The year of the Lord’s favor is begun! I’m here! The Spirit of the Lord is upon me.” That is what they reject. That is what they cannot accept.

I suppose we can understand the people who rejected Jeremiah, for example. He came declaring that the city was going to fall and that the temple would be destroyed. Who wants to hear that? We can understand the reluctance of the many others who bristled at the prophets who called them to repentance. But this really is like Elijah who had to flee Israel and ended up keeping a Sidonian widow alive during a time of famine; it’s like Elisha who healed a Syrian man of leprosy but not the many lepers in Israel.

It’s not exactly parallel, but isn’t it fair to say that the people of Nazareth that day were in the same category as much of Garrison Keillor’s family: They know the words of Isaiah; they knew all that the Messiah was supposed to come and to do; but they seem to have gotten over it?

Part of why this episode from Jesus’ life is so important is that it shows how serious that attitude really is. It seems so harmless— “Poor Uncle John… he never did get over what Jesus had done for him...”— but notice where it leads here. Notice how quickly they went from just kind of “being over it” to being ready to throw Jesus off of a cliff.

That’s the deadly attitude of our hearts that this passage reveals. Let me describe it this way: This is one of the early challenges to our faith that you and I face. Many of you were taught all about Jesus here in our school. For years you and your classmates heard the stories day after day, year after year. You learned all about Jesus, about how He fulfilled all the prophecies, about all that He was and did. And, sadly, as you grew up, many of your classmates got over it. They’ve cast Jesus out of their hearts and lives. That message of freedom doesn’t seem as important, as valuable, compared to everything they deal with in this life.

But the temptation didn’t stop there. There is a constant danger of “getting over” Jesus. It happens the moment you or I stand back and look at ourselves and say, “Of course I’m forgiven. Look at all the time I give. Look at all the offices I’ve held. I give my share.” In that moment there’s no outward sign that your faith is dying. You haven’t been deceived into a great, shameful act. You haven’t denied the faith outwardly in any visible way. But you’ve cast Jesus down the cliff of your heart. You know that Jesus died on the cross for you. But you’ve gotten over it.

That’s why this passage about a group of people long ago in a far different land is still a call for you to repent. I suppose that one way of thinking about the goal of my sermon today is that you’ll either be ready to throw Jesus off the brow of a hill— or, at least, out of your life— or that, God willing, you will rejoice that the prophesied “year of the Lord’s favor” has been fulfilled in their hearing.

Just recently someone made a really good point that relates to what we’re talking about. It’s one thing, he said, to be in school, for example, and to hear that you’re forgiven— and I’m paraphrasing a bit now— to hear that you’re forgiven when you pull little Suzy’s pigtails or when you screw around in class or when you try to lie to the teacher about why your homework isn’t done.... But then you grow up and your sins aren’t so cute anymore. They’re not harmless. They effect more and more people far more deeply. And you start to wonder if those can really be forgiven, too.

And the reason why the grace of God is really and truly amazing— and the reason why it only gets more amazing day by day and year after year— is that the answer is always yes. Your sins— your real, grown-up sins that have not only hurt you and those around you, but in some cases we’ve passed on to our children and grandchildren— your sins are forgiven, too.

Because Christ escaped from the mob on that particular day in Nazareth, but He escaped so that He could be led to the top of another hill where He would not die as quick and easily as the people of Nazareth intended. “Vengeance is mine; I will repay,” God says. On Golgotha, Jesus would experience the day of vengeance of our God. The full vengeance for every sin— not just the cute ones from your school days, all of them— that should, by all rights, have been poured out on you was poured out on Him instead.

He would be nailed to a cross— the ultimate act of rejection by humanity— in order to show you God’s favor. As His tomb was opened three days later, it signalled the fact that He had broken open the gates of death hell for you. As He sent His disciples forth to witness to all that they had seen and heard, it was with a proclamation of liberty. You are now free to worship Him without fear, holy and righteous in His sight, all the days of your lives.

Where you brought only death and hell upon yourself, in Christ you now have been given far more than whatever you might have hoped to earn from God with your time and your money— to you is now given a crown of gold instead of ashes. You have been clothed with the perfect robe of Christ’s righteousness that covers all your sin.

The year of the Lord’s favor has come. The Spirit of the Lord has come upon the son of Joseph, Jesus of Nazareth. And He has done accomplished everything the prophets declared.

Epiphany began with a group of foreigners who travelled a great distance in order to honor Jesus as a King. Today’s Gospel reading describes Jesus coming back to the people of Nazareth, where He had grown up, and being rejected. He revealed Himself to be the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy of “the year of the Lord’s favor.”

Still today I can say to you, at His command, on His behalf, “This Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”