LW Baptist

By Rolland Coburn

Pastor

Luke 4:14-30 records Jesus telling his mission to his hometown, clearly showing he was God’s anointed savior at age 30.

Following Jesus’ baptism, the baptizer said, “He who sent me to baptize identified the Messiah as he on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain, and I have seen and testify that Jesus is the Son of God” (John 1:33-34). Jesus returned to Galilee in the spirit’s power, and news about him spread. He was teaching in their synagogues, and everyone praised him.

Jesus had come home to share the message of salvation. In Nazareth, where he grew up, he went to synagogue on the Sabbath, stood up to read from the Isaiah scroll: “The spirit of the Lord is upon me because he anointed me to proclaim the Gospel to poor people. He sent me to proclaim liberation to captives and sight to blind people, to set free the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” All eyes were fastened on him. “Today, this Scripture is fulfilled,” he said, referring to himself as God’s promised one.

Jesus explained his countrymen’s need for faith. He retold the stories of prophets Elijah and Elisha, whose word brought people salvation, but fell on unbelieving ears in Israel.

Jesus said to them, “No doubt you will quote me this saying: ‘Physician, heal yourself.’ What we have heard happened in Capernaum, do also here in your hometown.” He knew they wanted signs. “Truly I tell you,” he continued, “no prophet is accepted in his hometown. I assure you that many widows were in Israel in Elijah’s time, during the three-and-a-half-year famine. Yet Elijah was sent to none but to a widow in Zarephath in Sidon. And many in Israel had leprosy in Elisha the prophet’s time, yet none was cleansed—only Naaman the Syrian.”

Everyone in synagogue was enraged at Jesus’ call for their faith and forced him out to the cliff to throw him to his death. Isaiah 53 said the messiah would face rejection and hostility.

Besides ultimate victory for God’s anointed, he manifests his glory in the long-suffering, as he has always done. Luke describes Jesus just passing through their midst and going his way. He does not wish any to perish, but all to come to repentance. Blessed are all who put their trust in him.

LW Baptist Church meets Sundays at 9:30 a.m. in the Amphitheater.