Luke 4:16-30 tells the story of Jesus’ experience at the synagogue of Nazareth. It is amazing to note how quickly the crowds’ opinion of Jesus changed! In verse 22 “all spoke well of him and marveled at the gracious words that were coming from his mouth.” By verses 29-30, they are “filled with wrath,” drive him to the edge of town, and plan to throw him over a cliff! Now that’s a change of opinion! Why were they so angry after church?
At the beginning of the sermon, Jesus quoted a passage from Isaiah and declared that this particular prophecy was being fulfilled through him in the present day. The passage spoke about preaching to the poor, proclaiming liberty to captives, giving sight to the blind, and setting free those who were oppressed. That all sounded wonderful and nice! Like these folks, we all tend to say a little “Amen” when the preacher speaks in general terms about “other” people and how God works great things in their lives.
Then Jesus moves into the personal application part of his sermon, and that is where the tide turns. Jesus tells those gathered in church that just as Israel of old had rejected the prophets, they would reject their hometown prophet. As a result, just as Israel of old missed out on the work of God because of this rejection, they would miss out on God’s work because of their rejection. They didn’t like this! It’s one thing to speak of God’s general work, it’s another thing to point out sin in my own personal life! They were so infuriated with being told the truth, they wanted to kill Jesus! Like these church-going folks in Nazareth, sometimes church-going folks today leave church angry! Let us make sure that if we are angry after church, it is because we hate sin not because we hate the preacher for pointing out sin in our hearts!
I don't think that I ever caught this before this winter: The temptation in the desert was 40 days long! The notes in the ESV for the accounts in Mark and Luke point out that the wording is "being tempted", a present participle, a continuing action. Forty days of that!
ReplyDeleteAnother thought that I've had is that we only have this story about Jesus' victorious resisting of Satan's temptations because He told it to the disciples. He knew that we would need the example of how to resist, the motivation to be strong students of God's Word, and the very serious realization that our enemy is REAL and very perceptive about which temptations will have the best chance for each of us.