Luke 4:16-30
16He 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, 17and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:
18“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,
19to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”20Then 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. 21He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”
22All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his lips. “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?” they asked.
23Jesus 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.’ ”
24“Truly I tell you,” he continued, “no prophet is accepted in his hometown. 25I 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. 26Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon. 27And 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.”
28All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. 29They 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. 30But he walked right through the crowd and went on his way.
What If Jesus Was Our Guest Preacher?
We’ve been enjoying this new phenomenon here at St. Peter recently. You’ve been seeing faces other than mine stand in front and lead worship. We extended a call to Pastor Schultz in the fall to preach for us once a month. Over Christmas we were privileged to have 2 other pastors from 2 other countries preach God’s Word. Not to give it all away, but there’s more to come in the future too.
Guest preachers are great – not just because it allows me to sit with my family once a month, but because they allow us all to hear different perspectives, to capitalize on different experiences, to shake us out of routines that can feel locked in or stuck in a rut.
What if I told you that Jesus was going to be our guest preacher today? Would you be excited to hear him? I would! I can’t think of a better person to preach. What do you think that’d be like? What do you think he’d say? What would you be like – walking in the door, sitting in those seats – if you knew that Jesus was going to be your guest preacher today? Would you be able to sit still? Would you be on the edge of your seat? Would you be able to wipe the silly smirk off your face? I don’t know if I could.
As hard as it may be for us to imagine, that was the exact scenario we read about in our Gospel for today. Jesus was going on his guest preaching tour of Galilee, and on one particular Saturday, he found himself at the same synagogue he went to as a little boy. Only now, instead of eating cheerios out of a Ziploc baggie with his mom and dad, Jesus was standing up and reading Scripture, sitting down to explain and apply it to the same people who watched him grow up.
I don’t know that Jesus was nervous, but his presence and his preaching caused a stir and he was prepared for it. He was handed the scroll of the prophet Isaiah. He read a couple verses, and preached a compelling sermon. Then Luke tells us:
The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him.[1]
All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his lips.[2]
So far, so good, right? This is exactly what every pastor wants – his people’s attention and a favourable disposition. It’s brutal when folks are falling asleep or scowling at you with their arms crossed. Jesus had his hometown’s attention and approval.
At least that’s what it seemed like at first, until they opened their mouths and spoiled the whole thing with 4 words:
“Isn’t this Joseph’s son?”[3]
Maybe you could consider this a compliment (e.g. “Look how far he’s come!”), if it weren’t for the insight into their very souls that Jesus shares next:
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.’”[4]
Jesus had just declared himself to be the fulfilment of a 700-year-old prophecy of good news and freedom and recovery, and the sentiment he got back from the people he proclaimed that to was essentially, “Prove it.” The reason their eyes were fastened on him was because they were looking at him with the same anticipation a child has looking at a circus clown making balloon animals. They wanted a spectacle. All they could see was Joseph’s son. And it was beneath them.
It's too late for today, but if I told you that Jesus was going to be the guest preacher next week, would you come to church with a little more pep in your step than you did today? Don’t get me wrong, I would not only understand your excitement; I’d share it. But I think we should all ask ourselves this question – if Jesus was going to be our guest preacher next week, what would we expect him to say or do that’s any different than what we’re saying and doing today?
Jesus isn’t your guest preacher today, and I didn’t grow up in this congregation, but are we faced with the same temptation – not just today, but every week that we gather for worship? The temptation to evaluate how worship went based on the success – or lack thereof – of the preacher or the pianist or the PowerPoint operator? Are you disappointed if we sing a song you don’t like? Do you feel let down if you can anticipate what the pastor is going to say next? Does it happen to you, like it does to me, that when your personal devotion plan is based on a Scripture passage you’ve heard a hundred times before, your eyes kind of glaze over and you’ve already moved on with your day before you’ve finished devoting time with your God?
Has your become salvation passe? Is the gospel tired? Is Jesus being the fulfilment of God’s prophecies of good news and freedom and recovery old hat? Well then, first of all, consider yourself blessed beyond measure that you’ve heard it enough times for it to be old hat, because there are still masses of people searching for what you take for granted; there are throngs of people longing to learn things you’ve forgotten in your faith. More than that, listen to the gospel again, because I’m convinced that if Jesus were our guest preacher, he wouldn’t say or do much more than he did in Nazareth:
“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.”[5]
We are the poor, blind prisoners. We put our poverty of soul on full display when we evaluate the success of a worship service, personal devotion, the ministry of our congregation on anything other than whether God’s Word was faithfully proclaimed and the good news of salvation received top billing.
We can see our spiritual blindness when we fasten our eyes on Jesus for anything, everything other than the one thing he came to give us, i.e. when we look to him to perform the same miracles in our lives that we’ve heard he’s done for others. Why didn’t he heal my dad? Why didn’t he spare my granddaughter? Why can’t he wave his magic wand and fix my problem?
We show ourselves to be prisoners of our own sinful selfish entitlement when his gospel isn’t enough for us. When we think the glorious repetition of the good news of his love for us is beneath us.
And see, that’s the amazing thing about this passage, isn’t it? None of this was beneath Jesus! We heard it in the first verse:
He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom.[6]
Why would the all-knowing Son of God from all eternity stoop so low as to put himself under the spiritual leadership of sinful humans, whose knowledge is puny in comparison to his? Why would the Word of God in human flesh make it his custom, to do it repeatedly, to put himself through the pain of listening to people who barely understand the surface of his Scripture tell him how it is?
Because God’s Word is greater than the mouth that proclaims it. The good news we get to hear every week can overcome any stumble I have in announcing it. And if Jesus never tired of hearing it, then how could we?
“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.”[7]
God sent Jesus to proclaim good news to you – to speak to the soul in you that desires good things and give you the best news of all, i.e. that he’s your Saviour from yourself, that he’s delivered you from your discontentment and reminded you of the magnitude of God’s love for you. God loved you so much that he sent his Son to love his Word the way that you should; he never thought it was beneath him; he made it his custom to hear it every week, even though he knew it all before.
God loves you so much that he sent his Son into a world where he’d not only be rejected by his own friends and neighbours, but he sent Jesus into a world where they’d try – and eventually succeed – to kill him. He sent his Son to fail in the most painful way imaginable, so that he could succeed in paying the price for your sin and forgive you forever – to free you from sin and guilt and shame and your own sinful nature.
God loves you so much that he still sends his Son to open your eyes through the truth of his Word to know his love and cherish it the way he does you – to open your eyes to the precious privilege we have to listen to this good news, week in and week out, no matter who is standing up front, to read our Bibles at home and listen to our devotional podcasts on our way to work, knowing that it all directs our attention above, where we can fasten our eyes on Jesus and see the grace and favour and love of our God for us forever every day.
We don’t need to see miracles to know God’s power. We don’t need impressive preaching or concert-quality music to know God’s glory. We don’t even need to see Jesus with our own eyes to know God’s love. We have his Word. It hasn’t changed since you first heard it. It hasn’t changed since Jesus proclaimed it in Nazareth or Isaiah prophesied it 700 years before that. But that doesn’t make it boring or beneath us. It makes it beautiful and a blessing we get to revisit every week by his grace through Jesus Christ our Lord. May we never grow tired or take it for granted, but always be grateful for the gracious good news that Jesus was anointed to proclaim 2,000 years ago and continues to bring to us today and every day we hear his Word. Amen.
[1] Luke 4:20
[2] Luke 4:22
[3] Ibid
[4] Luke 4:23
[5] Luke 4:18,19
[6] Luke 4:16
[7] Luke 4:18,19