Assuredly, I say to you, no prophet is accepted in his own country

 

Then Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee, and news of Him went out through all the surrounding region.   And He taught in their synagogues, being glorified by all.  So He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up.  And as His custom was, He went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up to read.  And He was handed the book of the prophet Isaiah.  And when He had opened the book, He found the place where it was written:

"The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me,

Because He has anointed Me

To preach the gospel to the poor;

He has sent Me to heal the broken-hearted,

To proclaim liberty to the captives

And recovery of sight to the blind,

To set at liberty those who are oppressed;

To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD."

Then He closed the book, and gave it back to the attendant and sat down.  And the eyes of all who were in the synagogue were fixed on Him.  And He began to say to them, "Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing."  

 

So all bore witness to Him, and marveled at the gracious words which proceeded out of His mouth.  And they said, "Is this not Joseph's son?"  He said to them, "You will surely say this proverb to Me, 'Physician, heal yourself!  Whatever we have heard done in Capernaum, do also here in Your country.'"  Then He said, "Assuredly, I say to you, no prophet is accepted in his own country.  But I tell you truly, many widows were in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, and there was a great famine throughout all the land; but to none of them was Elijah sent except to Zarephath, in the region of Sidon, to a woman who was a widow.  And many lepers were in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian."  So all those in the synagogue, when they heard these things, were filled with wrath, and rose up and thrust Him out of the city; and they led Him to the brow of the hill on which their city was built, that they might throw Him down over the cliff.  Then passing through the midst of them, He went His way.

 

- Luke 4:14-30 

 

Yesterday we read that, Jesus, after His baptism by John in the Jordan, being filled with the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, being tempted for forty days by the devil.  And in those days He ate nothing, and afterward, when they had ended, He was hungry.  And the devil said to Him, "If You are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread."  But Jesus answered him, saying, "It is written, 'Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.' Then the devil, taking Him up on a high mountain, showed Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time.  And the devil said to Him, "All this authority I will give You, and their glory; for this has been delivered to me, and I give it to whomever I wish.  Therefore, if You will worship before me, all will be Yours."  And Jesus answered and said to him, "Get behind Me, Satan!  For it is written, 'You shall worship the LORD your God, and Him only you shall serve.'" Then he brought Him to Jerusalem, set Him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to Him, "If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down from here.  For it is written:  'He shall give His angels charge over you, to keep you,'and, 'In their hands they shall bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone.'" And Jesus answered and said to him, "It has been said, 'You shall not tempt the LORD your God.'"  Now when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from Him until an opportune time. 

 

Then Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee, and news of Him went out through all the surrounding region.   And He taught in their synagogues, being glorified by all.  Jesus' first acts in this beginning of His public ministry (after His baptism by John, and His forty day fasting and temptation period -- see above) is to go to Galilee to preach and teach in their synagogues.  Let's note that just as He was led into the wilderness for fasting and temptation by the Holy Spirit, here He returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee, in this beginning of His ministry.    

 

So He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up.  And as His custom was, He went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up to read.  And He was handed the book of the prophet Isaiah.  And when He had opened the book, He found the place where it was written:  "The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed; to proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD."  My study Bible comments that, as Christ is the eternal Son of God, He did not "become" the world's anointed Savior, but has always been our Savior from before the foundation of the world.  It was Christ who spoke through Isaiah, saying, "The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me" (Isaiah 6:11).  My study Bible asks us to note that He does not say, "The Spirit 'has come' upon Me."  When the Spirit of the LORD descended upon Jesus at His baptism (Luke 3:22), this was a sign which revealed an eternal, not temporal, truth to the people.  The acceptable year is the time of the Incarnation, when the Kingdom of heaven has come to earth (see 2 Corinthians 6:2).

So all bore witness to Him, and marveled at the gracious words which proceeded out of His mouth.  And they said, "Is this not Joseph's son?"  He said to them, "You will surely say this proverb to Me, 'Physician, heal yourself!  Whatever we have heard done in Capernaum, do also here in Your country.'"  Then He said, "Assuredly, I say to you, no prophet is accepted in his own country.  But I tell you truly, many widows were in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, and there was a great famine throughout all the land; but to none of them was Elijah sent except to Zarephath, in the region of Sidon, to a woman who was a widow.  And many lepers were in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian."  So all those in the synagogue, when they heard these things, were filled with wrath, and rose up and thrust Him out of the city; and they led Him to the brow of the hill on which their city was built, that they might throw Him down over the cliff.  Then passing through the midst of them, He went His way.  My study Bible cites this double response of marveling and rejection, which it says occurs frequently in people who encounter Christ (see Luke 11:14-16; John 9:16).  Christ's being rejected in His own country fulfills the rejection of the Old Testament prophets such as Elijah and Elisha; it's also a foreshadowing of Christ's rejection by the whole of the nation at His trial before Pilate (John 19:14-15).  Jesus accepts death according to God the Father's will, not at the will of the people.  Here, Christ's hour of His Passion has not yet come (see John 8:20).  Jesus' statement, that no prophet is accepted in his own country, is found in all four Gospels (Matthew 13:57, Mark 6:4, John 4:44).

How can we help but be struck by the people's response to Jesus, where one moment they marveled at the gracious words which proceeded out of His mouth, and seemingly in the next they are filled with wrath to the point where they take Him to the edge of the cliff on which His hometown is built, with the aim of throwing Him off?  These are zealous, fiery responses; we might call them highly passionate.  But let's examine where they come from.  In the first place, the "gracious words" which proceed from Him are something they can't quite reconcile with the status of Jesus and His family as He's known to them.  "Isn't this Joseph's son?" they say.  Those of us from closed communities, small towns, or familiar neighborhoods might not be so surprised by this response.  But perhaps what we're meant to understand is once again the power of the Holy Spirit working through the divinity of Jesus and His ministry.  We can take it for granted that until this time of public ministry, initiated by Christ's baptism, there hadn't been a time where Jesus was meant to be publicly preaching or declaring Himself.  But here in His hometown, there is a clear declaration made by Jesus, when He says, "Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing."  He is the "anointed one" to "preach the gospel to the poor."  He's the deliverer, and the one who has been sent in this "acceptable year of the Lord."  All of these things mean that He is declaring, in His hometown of Nazareth, that He is the Messiah; He is the fulfillment of Isaiah's prophecy.  But the people are waiting to be stunned and started and offered dazzling proofs and miraculous signs.  After all, He's the son of Joseph, isn't He?  Where did He get these gracious words?  So Jesus rebukes them, in a sense, with His recounting of the Scriptures:  that God does not visit everyone simply by virtue of their ancestry or associations with the history of Israel -- and the implication is, not even if they're the people of Christ's hometown.  Elijah was sent to Sidon, Gentile territory, to Zarephath the widow rather than a widow of Israel.  (As an aside, Jesus will refer to Zarephath also when responding to His mother at the wedding in Cana, by quoting Zarephath's words directly from the Greek Septuagint Scripture in which she questioned Elijah after the death of her son; see 1 Kings 17:18; John 2:4.)  With all the lepers who needed healing in Israel, only Naaman the Syrian was cleansed by Elisha.  Jesus is telling them, in effect, that it's not their proximity to Him that would render them witnesses to His divine power and the miraculous signs they may have heard about, done by Him in Capernaum, but rather their faith.  But they don't respond with faith or trust; they can hardly believe that this is the same Jesus they knew once upon a time, the Jesus they know as Joseph's son.  So, Jesus tells them, "Assuredly, I say to you, no prophet is accepted in his own country."  But there will be others, foreigners, who accept Him.  Of that He has confidence.  For this truth, they seek to kill Him in His hometown, and they are enraged, filled with wrath.  But Jesus goes on His way, out to preach, and toward His hour, which has not yet come.  How can Jesus' response to the people in His hometown help us when we are in difficult circumstances?  When we tell the truth to those whom we know, and they disrespect or become enraged at us?  Jesus gives us the clue, for His Father teaches Him where to go and what He must do, and has plans for Him.  For all of us, let it be a model when we, too, are rejected.   In our faith, God has a plan for us to pursue, an identity that is bigger than anything else we know, and others who will accept that identity.  Let us take guidance from His example.