sermonette: Lessons From Jesus at Nazareth

James C. Stoertz
Given 02-May-26; Sermon #1873s; 15 minutes

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Why do people get mad? Why do people sometimes fly into a rage? Well, I'm no psychologist, but I have seen it quite often. My dad was like that. Maybe you've seen it too. There are a number of occurrences of this behavior in the Bible, and I recently studied a particular case and asked myself this question, why were the Jews at Nazareth so enraged at Jesus Christ? He gave his mission statement to Nazareth first, but they lacked faith and refused to hear. But let's go into the details. We're going to look at Luke 4, that's the best telling of this, and I'm going to read 14 to 28 approximately, but we will break it up. This is the record of Jesus reading and teaching in his hometown of Nazareth on the Day of Atonement. Maybe they were angry. So we will start with Luke 14 to 16. 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. So to get some background here, I think it's useful, even though you may know some of this history, to look at the history of the people here. First, there have been over 400 years during which the Pharisees have codified the Judaic law into what is known as the. The Halaka is the Torah, which is Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, concerned with laws, rituals, ethical behavior, and social obligations. The Haftarah, which almost sounds like Torah, half of the Torah, but actually it's spelled differently, and that's the rest of the Old Testament. And then the Jewish interpretation of the law derived from the Torah and the Haftarah through extensive oral debate by rabbis. Heavily codified. This stuff actually is not so bad except for the codified part. It's like what we do up here at the lectern. We cover a scripture, we interpret. However, our interpretation is not the gospel, but you are to prove it yourself. The Jewish community faced a lot of pressure from authorities like the Syrians, the Babylonians, the Greeks, the Romans. This pressure led to Balkanization for the Jewish people. The tendency to isolate. Once again, there is nothing wrong with that. We are set to separate ourselves from the world. Keep in mind though that they were no longer clinging to the law handed down by God, but that handed down by the rabbis through the Halaka. Toward the end, we got this way in worldwide, listening to a different drummer than the Bible. By this time, the Jewish liturgy of how services are run has become well established, and the Halaka has been embellished so much by the Pharisees that it's airtight and formulaic. There is nothing wrong with that either, by the way. We have a well organized structure to our services. But not the messages taught. Part of the Jewish liturgy is called the Pasha. Now I'm going to dump a bunch of terms on you, but the par I'm going to use several times. It's a tightly coupled two-part reading done each week. This is mentioned in Acts 13:15. The first reading is from the Torah. In 28 AD, which is about the time that Jesus' reading in Nazareth, was likely completed every year. This is similar to what we do, personally, if we read the Bible daily in order to complete it every year. The second reading is from the Haftarah. And this reader expounds on the relationship between the two readings. Jesus Christ has not created his own churches. He is simply attending Sabbath services as we do. Jesus is talking to the Jews in the Jewish synagogue, using the Jewish formulaic liturgy strictly according to the laws of the halacha. Luke records Jesus's reading of the Haftarah, and we can be pretty sure about this because his reading is not from the Torah, it's from Isaiah. Not one of the 1st 5 books. Jesus may have read the Torah before this reading recorded by Luke, but if he did not, somebody did. What might they have read from the Torah? Very likely this was the Parashad Bahar. And the reason I say so, it's a section which covers Leviticus 25 about the Jubilee. According to the Halaka, the jubilee is about liberty to the captives, and if you look closely at Jesus' reading, he's reading in Isaiah 61, it's also about liberty to the captives. Even today, this pairing in the Jewish synagogue is done. So, let's pick it up in 18 through, I'll read through 22 past his reading. So starting in 18, 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 preach deliverance to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to preach 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. So they recognized it. And they said, is this not well that word and is not in the original, but it is a conjunction and it might be better said, but, but they said, is this not Joseph's son? Uh, there are a number of things here and I want to point out just 4, but there is probably 1000. Uh, Richard referred to this reading from Jesus Christ in 2023 as Christ's mission statement. Yeah, and, and Jesus stops in the middle of Isaiah 61:2. That was also referenced by Mark Schindler in in 2022. And this, this Hafter should have gone all the way through verse 10, not stopping in verse 2. There are 2 prophesized visits by Jesus the Christ. He is pointing out the fulfillment of one of them. By breaking off in the middle of verse 2, the second visit is the day of vengeance of our God, and this is the second half of verse 2 which he has left out. He's he's dividing the purpose of his presence in Nazareth, which is bringing the message of salvation and redemption as the Lamb of God from the coming judgment in the day of Jacob's troubles. This alone is amazing good news to anyone who is listening. OK, the second point, Jesus is quoting Isaiah, who is in turn quoting him, so he may as well just have said it rather than reading it, but he makes it understandable and undeniable by saying today the scripture is fulfilled in your hearing. They still missed it. And a third point, what the congregation heard reflects communal thought that the Jewish people are downtrodden, seeking someone to liberate them. When they marvel at his gracious words, that word gracious is our familiaris. That which affords joy, pleasure, and delight. The congregation was pretty happy up to this point and thinking about the Torah message of the Jubilee from Leviticus 25. And then the 4th point, and here is here is the big turning. In the same breath, the congregation threw up a defensive screen and refused to hear. Is this not Joseph's son, they say. This was a strong rebuttal and even a self-incrimination if they do not realize. Their skepticism is recorded in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. John also quotes Nathaniel as saying, Can anything good come out of Nazareth? And you know, that's really almost what they were saying. Jesus recognizes this problem immediately. Let's read on in verse 23. We'll read 23 and 24. 23 and he said to them, you will surely say this proverb to me, Physician, heal yourself. Whatever we've 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. A physician, heal yourself. Uh, it's actually a wonderful little Saying it's a proverb which means take your own medicine. Or more in line with the situation, use your own prescriptions on your own family. What they might have said is, do miracles for us instead of talking, pal. A wicked and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and Jesus Christ knows where there is no faith, no miracles will be done. So Jesus then goes on to give two examples, and these so these are from the historical narrative, and they are both from the Haftarah, but not this Haftarah. One is from I Kings and the other from 2 Kings. So let's read Jesus' version in Luke 4:25. Starting in 25 through 27, but I tell you truly, many widows were in Israel in the days of Elijah when the heaven was shut up 3 years and six months and there was a great famine throughout all the land. But to none of them was Elijah sent except to Zarafa in the region of Sidon, to a woman who was a widow. And then the second narrative. And many lepers were in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet, and none of them was cleansed except Namon the Syrian. You would think that these topics would be on the same subject, and they sort of are of miracles. But these two events that Jesus links together are linked nowhere else in the Bible. But here, and they do not go into this parashah called the parashad Bahar from Isaiah 61. So let's look at these two stories. The narrative of Elijah and the widow of Zarafa is found in I Kings 17:8-16, and I'll just summarize for you. I will not ask you to turn there. King Ahab led the people of the northern tribes of Israel to worship Baal. So Elijah asked God for a 3.5 year drought. The drought impacted the entire region. It's a little over-ask, I think. For Elijah, well, they are worshiping Baal, what's an over-ask? Uh, for Elijah to survive, he ends up supporting, supported by God through miracles done for this widow of Sidon, a Gentile nation. In Jewish teaching, This story is used to show God's provision. And not Israel's sin. It's a defined interpretation. Jesus is pointing out that God's miracles are based on faith and that no miracles were done in Israel, implying that there is no faith in Nazareth and they will not see any miracles. Then the second story. This is from II Kings 5:1-19, once again I'll summarize about Elishah and Naman, the commander of the Syrian army. You'll notice that's obviously a Gentile nation. This is 14 years later, and once again Israel was doing baal worship. The short version is that no healing, no healings were done for lepers in all of Israel, but Namon, a Gentile, is healed. In the Halacha tradition, excuse me, the story of Nehemon is read with the theme of leprosy, not Israel's sin. So turn with me to Romans 9:30-33. We'll take a little side trip. We'll take a little trip. Romans 9. I'm going to read 30 to 33. These two narratives that Jesus links are both cases where someone outside of Israel who knows nothing of the law becomes faithful through righteousness apart from the law. Jesus' two examples make the men of the synagogue mad as a firecracker. So we will read Romans 9:30 to 33. What shall we say then? The Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness of faith. But Israel pursuing the law of righteousness has not attained to the law of righteousness. Why? Because they did not seek it by faith. You would think this story is about exactly this reading. But as it were by the works of the law, for they stumbled at that stumbling stone, as it is written, Behold, I lay in Zion, a stumbling stone and rock of a fence. We'll stop right there. Jesus Christ has become a stumbling stone, as is prophesized in Isaiah 8. They hustled him to a local hilltop to throw him off, but he slipped out of their grasp. Many things in this event show self-righteousness. The people of Nazareth feel they deserve a show from their local hometown rabbi. They deserve the providence shown to the widow of Zarafat. They deserve the healing shown to Neeman, and they deserve these things because they are God's chosen people doing His law. Institutional pride is studied in the best business schools and military academies of the world. One downfall of institutional pride occurs when an organization is too sure that their products and services are the best, so proud that they cannot see their flaws. Jesus Christ gave the congregation at Nazareth a correction, and by the way, this is an example of a congregational sin, as you can see in Numbers 15. When we accept correction, it leads to humility. When we reject correction, we see what happens in this narrative. The mob reaction went from questioning to offense to fury to attempted murder. But to this day, the Jewish liturgy in the synagogue still reads Isaiah 61 with the understanding only of the Jubilee in Leviticus 25. Jesus Christ revealed to Nazareth the truth about their ancestors, the Israelites, for whom no miracles were performed because their faith in works alone, but they missed it. We are God's workmanship, created for good works, but by grace, we have been saved through faith. It's the gift of God, not of works.