The Son in His City

Luke 4:14-20

Jesus returns from the fasting and temptation in the wilderness not exhausted as we might expect but rather, Luke says, “in the power of the Spirit.”

Although initially his ministry is acclaimed, this period of acceptance is brief and will come to an end in the synagogue in his hometown of Nazareth. In fact, this will be our only chance to hear his synagogue preaching.

On the Sabbath Jesus enters the synagogue. At the closing of the service comes what is referred to as the haphtarah (HAF-TORAH), a portion of the Prophets that is read before dismissal.

Any young man from the community could do the reading and make a comment on the passage if he wished.

The attendant hands Jesus the scroll of Isaiah. He unrolls it and begins to read. As Isaiah’s words had defined the ministry of John the Baptist (Lk 3:4–6), now they will perfectly describe what Jesus has come to do.

They are the very first words he speaks upon beginning his ministry. They are perfect words, therefore, simply because he speaks them, but they are not simply spoken.

They are costly words. In the end they will cost him everything. If only he would have the good sense to identify with the rich and the powerful instead of the poor, if only he would act in accordance with their values, if only he would dance to their tune. . . . But Jesus does not, would not, dance (Lk 7:32).

pronounces on them God’s blessing. “Blessed are you who are poor,” he says, because this world is not the only world that exists (Lk 6:20).

In a religious world that has concluded that the poor are poor because they are sinners and cursed by God as a result, Jesus comes and pronounces on them God’s blessing. “Blessed are you who are poor,” he says, because this world is not the only world that exists (Lk 6:20).

A kingdom is coming where rich and poor will change places, where those who weep will laugh and where the laughing ones will burst into tears. That world is here; it is coming. It is Luke’s favorite world to describe.

Although Jesus does have a few wealthy friends, Joseph of Arimathea being the most noteworthy, by and large he gravitates toward the poor. They are drawn, gravitationally, to him. They follow him in droves not necessarily because they grasp fully what his life means or what the [Luke, p. 70] gospel is, but because they recognize in him a compassionate heart that will feed them if he can, even when he is forced to borrow bread and fish from a hungry little boy to do it.

Even those who, because of their lack of education, are unaware of another one of Isaiah’s prophecies—that he would be a man of sorrows acquainted with our deepest grief—even these recognize in him someone whose tears are their tears as well. He not only weeps for them; he weeps with them, becoming acquainted with the darkest depths, with their poverty and pain.

Jesus enters into their suffering

He does not explain away the pain, nor does he say that he has come with the answer or that he will fix everything. Instead he bows his head and allows the tears to flow. It is not about providing answers or fixing a problem; it is about entering fully and redemptively into their suffering, because Jesus knows that God uses suffering to save the world.

Jesus comes to give himself

He has not come to fix death and sorrow but to ultimately bring about their demise. He has not come to give answers; he has come to give himself. His presence, his tears are the solution, the answer, the truth. And in the midst of that moment when we don’t get what we want, we get what we need.

Jesus closes his reading with a reference to the Jubilee, the year of the Lord’s favor. This was a gift offered the Israelites in Leviticus 25. Every fifty years all debts would be canceled. Everyone who was a slave would be set free, to be followed by a yearlong celebration. Sadly, there is no indication that the Israelites ever celebrated Jubilee or accepted this extravagant gift the Lord had offered. Now, in the ministry of Jesus, an extravagant gift would once more be refused.

Jesus simply passes right through them and goes on his way

Amid the early adulation, in Luke 4:25, Jesus reminds his hearers that the Gentiles had frequently been the beneficiaries of God’s favor. The widow of Zarephath in Sidon had been miraculously fed while the Israelites hungered (1 Kings 17:8–24). Naaman the Syrian, the commander of the army of Aram, had been healed while the sores of the Israelites festered (2 Kings 5:1–14). The faint praise of the synagogue crowd evaporates in an instant. The enraged Nazarenes drive Jesus out of town, intending to throw him over a cliff. Yet, says Luke, he simply passes right through them and goes on his way. Having been cast out of his hometown, we never see Jesus returning to Nazareth. LITERALLY BRUSHES THE DUST FROM HIS FEET