In this passage Jesus is preaching His first recorded
message in the Gospel of Luke in His hometown of Nazareth in the synagogue on
the first Sabbath that He was there. He begins His message by reading from the
scroll of Isaiah, one of the favorite prophets of the Jewish rabbis. In our
English Bible, Jesus was reading from Isaiah 61:1-2. Many of the people present
knew that Scripture by heart. They expected Him to complete the sentence, "and
the day of vengeance of our God." Instead, He closed the book and
returned it to the custodian. Then He sat down and began to teach them.
Every eye was fixed on Him. The whole countryside was
amazed by His miracles, the kind of miracles and the kind of ministry foretold
by Isaiah, that had just been read. The nation at large, while delighted with
His miracles, was really looking for Him to pour out the vengeance of God on
the Romans. What would He say about that? Nothing! The day for that kind of
thing had not yet come; it has still not come.
Just the same, His words exploded like a bomb when He ended
the silence and began speaking. First, He (the village carpenter) announced
that He was the Christ, the Anointed One, the One of whom Isaiah had written
these words: “Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing” (4:21).
The people in the synagogue could find no fault. His grace and power were
evident to everyone (4:22). But a reaction was already building. The village
carpenter, is this the very Christ? Impossible! They waited. Surely some
monumental miracle would now endorse this claim. But no miracle came.
Jesus was speaking again: “You will surely say this
proverb to Me, 'Physician, heal yourself! Whatever we have heard done in
Capernaum, do also here in Your country.' " (4:23). Now Jesus had a
proverb of His own to quote: "No prophet is accepted in his own
country" (4:24). At first, they admired the way He taught, but it
didn't take long for their admiration to turn into antagonism. Why? Because
Jesus began to remind them of God's goodness to the Gentiles!
The Prophet Elijah bypassed all the Jewish widows and
helped a Gentile widow in Sidon (1 Kings 17:8-16), and his successor Elisha
healed a Gentile leper from Syria (2 Kings 5:1-15). Our Lord's message of grace
was a blow to the proud Jewish exclusivism of the congregation, and they would
not repent. Imagine this hometown Boy saying that Jews had to be saved by grace
just like the pagan Gentiles!
The problem was that His listeners would not believe in
Him. They saw Him only as the son of Mary and Joseph, the Boy they had watched
grow up in their own city. Furthermore, they wanted Him to perform in Nazareth
the same miracles He had done in Capernaum, but He refused. That's the meaning
of the phrase, "Physician, heal thyself." “We want to see a
miracle”!
The congregation was so angry, they took action to kill
Jesus! St. Augustine said, "They love truth when it enlightens them, but
hate truth when it accuses them." That applies well to many congregations
today, people who want "gracious words" (Luke 4:22), but who
don't want to face the truth (see John 1:17). Today, people want the excitement
of miracles and made to feel better about themselves both physically and
emotionally when they come to church, but they don’t want the truth that they
are sinners and need to repent and turn from their sin!
We don’t need to see a miracle to believe in Jesus, but we
will become a miracle ourselves when we by faith repent of our sin and trust
Him to be our Savior!
God bless!
