Miraculous Moments: Day #12 Rejected in Nazareth

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Lent 2025: Day #12

"'But what about you?' he [Jesus] asked. 'Who do you say I am?'" 
~Matthew 16:15

Bible Verse

Luke 4:14-30

"Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about him spread through the whole countryside. He was teaching in their synagogues, and everyone praised him. 

He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:

'The Spirit of the Lord is on me, 

because he has anointed me

to proclaim good news to the poor. 

He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners

and recovery of sight for the blind, 

to set the oppressed free, 

to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.'

Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. He began by saying to them, 'Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.'

All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his lips. 'Isn't he Joseph's son?' they asked. 

Jesus said to them, 'Surely you will quote this proverb to me: 'Physician, heal yourself!' And you will tell me, 'Do here in your hometown what we have heard that you did in Capernaum.'

'Truly I tell you,' he continued, 'no prophet is accepted in his hometown. I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah's time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zaraphath in the region of Sidon. And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed--only Naaman the Syrian.'

All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. They got up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him off the cliff. But he walked right through the crowd and went on his way."

A hometown welcome. Or so one would think. This isn't the first time Jesus will encounter a fickle following, and it will not be the last. 

News had spread. This is Jesus--Joseph's Jesus--our Jesus. We beam with pride at him being brought up in our midst. 

But by the end, fury and the crowd is ready to end his life.

Not so fast. A fickle crowd full of fury will succeed in ending Jesus' earthly life, but this is not that moment. We must follow God's timeline. So, while the scene makes no sense; we know this is another one of those miraculous moments. 

A raging crowd bent on violence and destruction, and Jesus walks right through without harm and went on his way--the way of the Heavenly Father. 

Almighty God, we love reading of Jesus being in the synagogue; we love knowing that he read the Holy Word aloud. We love seeing Jesus' day to day. Lord, thank you for walking the earth and coming to follow the Almighty Plan that is fulfilled in Your sacrifice. In Jesus' Name. Amen. 

"Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever." 

~Hebrews 13:8