Jan 30

Written by:
1/30/2010 1:16 PM 

    "...throw Him down over the cliff." These last six words of Luke 4:29 (NKJV) give us a glimpse of how Jesus was welcomed into the ministry. This is Jesus the Christ we are talking about, right? The Son of God who was sitting at the right hand of the Father when His Father searched amongst creation to see who He could send to deliver mankind from sin. According to the Law, only the blood of a perfect sacrifice could provide atonement for sins. Jesus left His comfy throne to live life as a sinless man and provide the perfect sacrifice. The blood of bulls and doves just wouldn't "cut it" anymore (pun intended). After Jesus survived the forty days of temptation in the wilderness, He "returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee." (Luke 4:14) Ah, the comfort of His home province. Everyone surely wants to minister in the comfort of the place they were raised and are comfortable at. To be even more precise, His hometown of Nazareth was where His first sermon would be (Luke 4:16). Yes, to be sure, there's got to be no better place to start your ministry than your hometown, right? Let's take a quick look at what He said that day:

    "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." ~ Luke 4:18-19

    Well, no problem there so far. Jesus is reading from the book of Isaiah, the 61st chapter. Obviously, the people who come to the synagogue believe in the prophet Isaiah and the anointed words he spoke at the leading of the Holy Spirit. Where it starts to turn ugly is when Jesus states in verse 21, "Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing." I'm not going to rehash the whole story. Please take some time to research it in Luke 4:16-30. But, to bring it back around where we started, the crowd got so angry at His words that they were actually going to throw Him over a cliff! Two important points I want to make here:

    (1) Jesus knew exactly what His ministry was to be. All of these things listed in verses 18 and 19 above is what He did: preached the gospel (good news), healed the brokenhearted, proclaimed liberty, recovery of sight, and set at liberty the oppressed. What is even more interesting is that He also knew what His ministry was NOT. Compare the Scripture in Isaiah 61:1-2 and you will note the next line that was not part of His ministry at this time: "And the day of vengeance of our God." There will be a day when God will have His vengeance on disobedience, but Jesus' first coming was not for this purpose. 

    (2) If Jesus Himself hits these "brick walls" at the start of His ministry, why do we as believers sometimes get to the point where we think everything will just always fall into perfect place without any hesitation and without any resistance? Jesus even tells us to expect it in John 15:

    "If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you." ~ verses 18 and 19

    As the church, let's be the seed that was planted in the good ground and produced fruit. Perseverance through hard times is reasonable and expected as children of God who are given a calling and a purpose.