Luke 4:14-30 "Homecoming"

Do you remember the first time you went back home as an adult? Maybe you went away to college, or were coming back from bootcamp, or took a job somewhere else or something. Whatever the reason, the first time you came back home was probably interesting, right? Do you remember what you expecting? You were probably a little excited. Maybe a little nervous. And then you get there, and even though you think of it as home, it’s kind of strange. Nothing seems quite the right size—everything got small. It smells weird. So much about your life has changed but everyone at home expects you to fall back into the familiar grooves. You feel different but everyone treats you the same. Was it ever like that for you? Seems like people are threatened by your new adventures and just want to argue about everything. I mean, you weren’t expecting a homecoming parade but you probably didn’t think they’d drag you to the edge of town and try to kill you, either. I hate when that happens.

Today we’re in Luke chapter four, it’s a sort of homecoming for Jesus. They don’t exactly crown Him king of the Homecoming dance. Verse 14:

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. Luke 4:14-15

After the baptism where Jesus was filled with the Holy Spirit as a man and anointed as the Messiah, the Christ, He was immediately led into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. He resisted and then got to work. He traveled from town to town in Galilee picking up disciples and touring as a rockstar rabbi going from synagogue to synagogue. 

Since there was only one Temple, the one in Jerusalem, which was too far to go every week for worship for most people, so all the little towns built their own local synagogues. A place for the people to gather on the Sabbath to hear Scripture, sing the Psalms, and listen to teaching about God’s Word. It’s pretty much the same thing the early Christians would continue to do as the church. They met in synagogues for the first hundred and fifty years or so.

So, Jesus was going from place to place, hitting all the synagogues. He’d show up in a new town, meet some people, do some miracles, tell some parables—and people loved it. He’d be invited to someone’s house on Friday night—Friday at sunset was the beginning of the Sabbath, and they would have a big meal. Usually, whoever was going to teach at the synagogue the next day would give a sneak preview of what they were going to talk about. This was the pattern of the ministry of Jesus until He got to Jerusalem for Passover—then He did the same thing but in the Temple courts.

The news spread. Everyone was talking about this new rabbi who spoke with such authority, healed people, cast out demons. He had been at this for a while before He went back home to visit. Verse 16:

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. Luke 4:16-17

About a year ago, they had seen Jesus leave as an ordinary man—this is His first time coming back home as the Christ. The other Gospels tell this story, too. They say some of His disciples were with Him. Nazareth was a small town. Everyone knew everyone. Most people were related in some way. They all did business together. They worshiped at the synagogue with the same people every week. Jesus would have shown up a few days before this and would have caught up with everyone. They would have had a big sabbath feast the night before. Mary probably made His favorite meal. Mark tells us Jesus healed a few people. They couldn’t wait to see what was going to happen in worship tomorrow.  Saturday morning would have been packed. His mother and His brothers and sisters would have all been there, along with cousins and childhood friends. I wonder if the synagogue seemed smaller than He remembered. 

They would have two readings on Sabbath. One from the Pentateuch and one from the prophets. Someone would stand up and volunteer to read—Jesus waited for the second reading. He stands up and the attendant hands Him the scroll of Isaiah. He wouldn’t have chosen which scroll to read from, they had probably been working their way through Isaiah for a while. 

Books hadn’t been invented yet, everything was written on thick papyrus scrolls—kind of like Christmas wrapping paper, handwritten on both sides. 

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.” Luke 4:18-19

It says “He found the place” that He wanted to read. They watch while He scans His eyes over the writing on the scroll. It wouldn’t have had verse numbers like we’re used to—He probably read more than Luke records because some of this quote is from Isaiah 61 and some of it is from Isaiah 58. It’s no coincidence that Jesus happens to be there on a day that they’re reading from Isaiah. Jesus is the Word of God made flesh, the Word Himself had read the Word to them. Anyone who was hoping for a miracle probably just missed two.

He would have also been translating from Hebrew to Aramaic on the fly—most common Jews spoke Hebrew about as well as most white Texans speak high school Spanish. The Isaiah scroll would have been written in Hebrew, Jesus would have spoken it out loud in Aramaic, and Luke is recording it in Greek. And I don’t mean to blow your mind, but you just heard me read it in English!

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me because He has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.” These are the first recorded words of Jesus’ public ministry, and they are a reference to the Trinity. The Holy Spirit descended on Him in His baptism, the Father proclaimed Him to be the Christ. This is the beginning.

Jesus Christ will proclaim good news to the poor. The Gospel is this: Those who are poor in Spirit will receive the kingdom of heaven. If you are spiritually bankrupt, if you have no way of paying your debt—the wages of all your sin and doubt that have left you wretched, blind, and oppressed. Waiting for death. Prisoners. Guilty. No way to earn your freedom. No way out. No way to pay for your crimes. If you know this is who you are—if you know you are poor—Jesus has some good news for you. Freedom for prisoners, recovery of sight for the blind, set the oppressed free.

He came to save a wretch like me. I once was lost and now I’m found, was blind but now I see. In His ministry, He will actually give sight to the blind. He’ll also open the eyes of the spiritually blind. Those who had been locked in a lightless dungeon will be set free and will see the light of day for the first time in their life. 

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. This is just Rabbi Jesus, back home for the weekend, doing the reading in worship. He’s reading from Isaiah, talking about the Year of Jubilee.

The Year of the Lord’s Favor, or the Year of Jubilee, was something that was supposed to happen every fifty years. They were supposed to cancel all debt, set slaves free, take a whole year and celebrate like every day was the Sabbath. God thought it would be a really great thing for His people—but they never did it. Not once. They were too greedy. In their selfishness, they refused the kindness of God—kind of like we do.

But they would have been familiar with this passage. They would have known it was a passage about the Messiah. The Christ. The One who was going to get the boot of the Romans off their neck. Everyone loved this passage. They dreamed about that day. Verse 20:

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. Luke 4:20

Luke writes this like a screenplay. We can see the action in our minds. Light is coming through the windows, dust dancing in the sunbeams. So quiet you can hear the scroll being rolled back up. People are barely breathing waiting for Jesus to say something. He had stood up for the reading, now he’ll sit down—up in front—to teach on what He just read. Their Bible time on the Sabbath was a lot like what we’re doing here this morning going through the Gospel of Luke. Verse 21:

He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” Luke 4:21

He began by saying this—He would have said a lot more that Luke doesn’t tell us. “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” They knew this was a passage about the Messiah. At first…

All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his lips. Luke 4:22

But then they were like, “Wait a minute! This is a passage about the Messiah. What are you saying, preacher boy!” They look around nervously at Mary, His brothers, and sisters.

“Isn’t this Joseph’s son?” they asked. Luke 4:22

“He fixed my chicken coop last year. I watched Him cry at His dad’s funeral. I think He’s starting to believe His own press.” The murmuring started to get louder.

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. Luke 4:23-24

These words will be echoed by the mockers when Jesus is hanging on the cross. This whole story of Jesus coming to His hometown is a snapshot of God coming into His Creation to save His people—it’s a foreshadowing of His rejection.

They’re disappointed that Jesus hasn’t done the kind of miracles for them they heard He did other places. “Where’s our magic tricks?” “Dance for us monkey!” “If you are who You say you are…” They sound just like the devil when he tempted Jesus to make bread from stones or jump off the Temple. 

Jesus fast-forwards in His mind to the end of His ministry. His people are going to reject Him, just like His hometown did. The salvation He’s bringing to them today, they’re supposed to share it with the rest of the world. But they’re not going to share it. They’re not even going to receive it themselves. They’re going to be like unfaithful Israel at the time of Elijah and Elisha. 

Jesus has some hard words for them:

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 Zarephath 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.” Luke 4:25-27

Remember when Israel was so unfaithful that God sent His prophets to the Gentiles? Remember when Elijah said there was no one in Israel who believed in the LORD anymore? This is what Jesus is saying, “Listen to me very carefully: I am the Messiah and you are rejecting me. I’m not going to do any miracles for you. You get nothing from me.” Verse 28:

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. Luke 4:28-30

All the people. Do you remember who was all there? It’s a small town. These are the people He grew up with. It says all the people were so filled with rage that they grabbed Him and physically dragged Him out to a cliff on the edge of town to murder Him by throwing Him off. His mother was there. His brothers and sisters were there. No one spoke up to defend Him. This is a foreshadowing of how all of Jesus’ friends and followers will deny Him when He’s taken to be crucified—it’s a foreshadowing of the cross.

They got to see a third miracle, though. They didn’t recognize this one either. It wasn’t time for Him to die, so Jesus walked through the angry mob and went on His way. He wouldn’t return to Nazareth again. 

They still point this cliff out to tourists in the Holy Land.

You might think I’m being too hard on Mary, His sisters, and His brothers Jude and James.

But they rejected Him for a while. They showed up a couple times and tried to have an intervention with Jesus, get Him to stop saying all that crazy stuff about being the Messiah, the Son of God before He gets Himself killed.

In Matthew there’s a time when Jesus is teaching in a house, probably at a Friday night Sabbath meal, and His family shows up at the door demanding to see Him.

Matthew 12:46-50 says,

“While Jesus was still talking to the crowd, his mother and brothers stood outside, wanting to speak to him. Someone told him, “Your mother and brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to you.” He replied to him, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” Pointing to his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”

Maybe it’s my imagination but I think I can hear the hurt of rejection in His words.

They all came back after the resurrection, though. His brother James may have been the last. In his book, he talks about welcoming someone back if they ever wander from the faith—and he seems to particularly remember Jesus talking about Elijah on that day in Nazareth when he didn’t stick up for His brother. 

James 5:17-20

“Elijah was a human being, even as we are. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops. My brothers and sisters, if one of you should wander from the truth and someone should bring that person back, remember this: Whoever turns a sinner from the error of their way will save them from death and cover over a multitude of sins.”

The passage Jesus read, mostly Isaiah 61:1-2, can be thought of as His mission statement. This is what He came to do. He was anointed as The Christ, The Messiah, to proclaim good news (the Gospel) to the poor (the poor in spirit, the ones who know they are spiritually bankrupt). To comfort the brokenhearted. To offer freedom to all the slaves and prisoners of the devil. To bring light into the darkness. Sight to the blind. Forgiveness to sinners. To proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. The last days. A new testament.

He said, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” Luke 4:21

It’s still being fulfilled. Even now. Today. This is still the year of the Lord’s favor. These are still the last days. It won’t always be. The very next line of Isaiah 61 says “and the day of vengeance of our God.” Jesus stopped before reading that line—but the day of vengeance is coming too.

I’m not trying to scare anyone. It’s just that we can’t understand salvation if we don’t know what we’re being saved from. God leads us to repentance because of His kindness and mercy. “Whoever turns a sinner from the error of their way will save them from death and cover over a multitude of sins.”

The people in Nazareth were so familiar with Jesus they couldn’t see Him as their Lord and Savior. Familiarity breeds contempt. I think we’re in danger of doing the same thing. We’ve heard the amazing promises of the Gospel so many times we aren’t amazed anymore. We’re so used to being forgiven of our failures and sins that we—well, we don’t really care. We continue to do all the things God has told us not to do, taking for granted that God will forgive us. And we keep our faith to ourselves, giving no thought to all the people around us who desperately need to hear the good news Jesus came to proclaim. He proclaims all these things through us now. You and me. It’s our job to tell people the Gospel. Proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. 

So, here it is, let me proclaim the Gospel to all of us, try to hear it like it means something to you: All you who are poor in spirit will receive the kingdom of heaven. All you who know you are spiritually bankrupt, know you have no way of paying your debt—all of you whose sin and doubt has left you wretched, and blind. Receive the sight of faith. If you know you’re going to die someday. Everyone who knows they are guilty before the face of the Lord. All who were prisoners of the world, their flesh, and the devil. With no way to earn your freedom. No way out. No way to pay for your crimes. If you know this is who you were—Jesus has some good news for you. You are free now! You are forgiven! This is the hour of the Lord’s favor for you. Walk in the light of His grace and freedom. AMEN