It was certainly no accident that Jesus was handed the book of the prophet Isaiah when he stood up to read in his hometown synagogue that day. (Luke 4:16)
It was supernatural.
Can you imagine hearing the voice of the Promised One reading these words?
“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 brokenhearted,
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.””
(Luke 4:18-21)
Those long awaited words were fulfilled in their hearing and in ours as well.
Good news to the poor!
Healing for the broken-hearted!
Liberty for the captives and the oppressed!
Sight for the blind!
And, “To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.” (Luke 4:19)
It’s easy to breeze past that part but don’t miss this—
Jesus was referencing the year of Jubilee when He says “To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.”
This was a time when slaves were set free, debts were cancelled, and things set to a new start!
THIS was what was being fulfilled in their hearing.
Freedom! Debt paid! New life! New start!
But those listening remembered this was Joseph’s son—their hometown boy (Luke 4:22).
Jesus knew what they were thinking. They had heard of the miracles He had performed in Capernaum (Luke 4:23) and they expected special favors, since this was His country, His hometown.
And then Jesus enraged them, when, instead of saying, “Line up here and tell me what miracle you want,” He starts talking of a time of widespread unfaithfulness to God (Luke 4:25-27), when a famine came on the land, and only the Gentiles received healing.
Jesus mentions Namaan the Syrian, who they considered an undeserving heathen. But Namaan had humbly obeyed the Lord and found healing. (2 Kings 5)
This so enraged those thinking they deserved special favors from Jesus, that they thrust Him out of the city and sought to throw Him over a cliff (Luke 4:28-29).
The affection for Jesus turned to murderous rage when He didn’t do what they expected Him to do.
And it’s easy for us to think, “how awful of those people”.
But the truth is, many of us want our debt cancelled and our free ticket to Heaven… but we don’t want to be confronted with our own disobedience.
We want God to save us and then just continue to answer prayer after prayer- doing things we want when we want them done.
And we may not attempt to throw Jesus off a cliff, like those in His hometown synagogue that day; but when He starts talking about our sin, or not doing things as we want, when we want, we often, in effect, throw Him out of our lives.
We take things in our own hands. We go our own way. We try to find happiness by ruling our little kingdoms and forsaking His.
It didn’t work then. It doesn’t work now.
Yes, we may feel like Jesus has let us down when He doesn’t do things as we want, when we want them and asks us to obey Him even then.
If we look at what happens with only the backdrop of this life in view, it might look like God has let us down. But, when we take the LONG VIEW, the eternity view, we know He has not and never could.
We can trust a God who would die for us enough to follow Him even when we don’t understand what He is doing. He is God. We are not.
#HEISFAITHFUL
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Kim Jaggers Ministry 