Stroll through Scripture for January 19, 2025

Based on Luke 4:14-30

If Jesus showed up today, how would people react?  Maybe we assume that he would be well treated, or that people would even drop down and worship him.  But when we look at the passage from Luke 4, we see that was not how people treated Jesus when he walked the earth.  Instead, they tried to throw him off a cliff.  

This Sunday’s passage is significant because it offers a couple of contrasts.  The first contrast is between humanity and Jesus, as mentioned above.  People don’t want to hear what Jesus has to say, especially when Jesus is saying things they don’t like.  

The second contrast is in location.  When Jesus is teaching throughout the land, we hear that everyone was praising him, but when he teaches in Nazareth, his hometown, the reception is cold.  The people knew Jesus from his childhood.  They had expectations for him that he was not living into.  He spoke words that were not preferential to his hometown.  I can imagine people saying “remember where you came from” as he preached.  Jesus acknowledges this when he says, “Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet’s hometown.”   

Something else significant is Jesus pulling the scroll of Isaiah.  This follows Isaiah being used to describe John the Baptist’s role in Luke 3.  The passage becomes Jesus’ mission statement and guide for his earthly ministry.  It has been said that Jesus’ ministry turns the world upside down from the common experience of life.  What Isaiah is describing isn’t upside down, but rather God flipping the world and its systems back to the way God intended.  It is the world that is upside down.  Jesus is saying that he is right siding the way of the world through his ministry.  That’s what makes it radical.  Combining this with Jesus’ emphasis on outsiders being a part of the kingdom, and you can see why people were so mad.  

Questions for reflection:

• The world still doesn’t like what Jesus has to say.  How are we called to follow him anyway?  
• How do we see the passage from Isaiah being fulfilled still today?
• What would be the things that people would try to throw Jesus off a cliff for today?