April 30th 2012

The people of Nazareth are excited, there is this rabbi in town who does miracles and claims to be the Messiah.  So they ask him to do a miracle like he’s done in Capernaum, and that’s when the story turns.

Read Luke 4:13-30 especially 4:24-27 and journal some of your thoughts

It’s when Jesus is accepted in his hometown that he drops this line about not being accepted in his hometown. Jesus then references two stories, one about Elijah who while there was a drought in Israel went to Zarephath (pagan country) and brought a widows son back from the dead. The second story is about Elisha who doesn’t heal people in Israel but heals Naaman a Syrian. It’s after he says this that the crowd gets angry and tries to kill him. We’ll talk about that tomorrow, but the question for today is what did Jesus say by referencing these verses, that made everyone so angry?

The first reference comes from 1 Kings 17, which begins with Israel experiencing a drought for 3 and a half years because of their faithlessness. During this time God tells Elijah to go to Zarephath which is pagan country and go to this widow who will feed you. As the story unfolds, she is the one who shows faith in God (seriously read 1 Kings 17). The second reference comes from 2 Kings 5 where Elisha heals Naaman (a Syrian – GASP) from his leprosy while he curses his disobedient servant (an Israelite) with the very disease the Syrian had.

If you were part of this Nazarene crowd, who believed so passionately that the Messiah would come from Nazareth, how would you respond to Jesus quoting these two stories about God’s servants healing foreigners while showing the weakness of the Israelites?

Meditate on this for today, what is Jesus telling these people?

April 29th 2012

It was right after Jesus finished speaking that the people began to yell “How dare he say such things!” and were about to stone them and Jesus slipped past them saying “No prophet is accepted in his hometown”. Well, not exactly.

Now read Luke 4:13-30 especially verse 22

So how did the people respond? So often we skip this next part and go straight to the ending, the people get angry and try to kill him. When we skip this next part we miss the point of his entire message.  It says that they spoke well of him and were amazed at his words, and of course they were! Here is a people who believed that the Messiah would come from their home town, and here is this rabbi with authority and he’s Joseph’s son. Joseph is one of ours! We knew it!

Can you feel the level of excitement building among the crowd? So many of them may have been ridiculed by other Jews for their belief and yet here is this rabbi from Nazareth, performing miracles. After all, they heard about the miracles Jesus performed in Capernaum (verse 23).

Then things turn, when the crowd asks Jesus to do a miracle.

April 28th 2012

What happens next?

Read Luke 4:13-30, especially verse 21.

Traditionally after the readings the person reading would give a short talk (Derasha) about what this means. In our world this would be like a short testimony time. This would be followed by a series of question and answers. In verse 20, it mentions that Jesus sat down; in their culture they would stand for the reading of God’s word and sit for the reader’s words. Then it says that everyone’s eyes were fixed on Jesus, it’s almost like they were on the edge of their seat waiting to hear what he had to say next. Then Jesus begins to talk in what is considered to be one of the shortest talks (Derashas) in history when he says “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”

Now imagine you are a Nazarene, knowing this is a special rabbi with authority (S’mikah), who has been performing miracles. Again, remember that the Nazarenes believed the Messiah would come from Nazareth. What would you be thinking here as Jesus utters these words of testimony? 

April 27th 2012

Jesus begins to speak in the synagogue, let’s take a look at what this means.

Read Luke 4:13-30

Before we look at what Jesus said, it’s important to understand why he said it. In the synagogue anyone could read Scripture, from a young teenager to the oldest in the town. In order to read there your name had to be put on a list of reading and they would read some from the Torah (Torah reading) and some from the rest of the Old Testament (Haftarah reading). What is interesting is they had a schedule for the readings, and they were designed to go through the Torah once a year and the rest of the Old Testament every 3 years. This schedule was set up over 200 years before Jesus. This means the passage Jesus reads isn’t one he chose but one he knew for a long time he was going to read. So as we go through the rest of this story, meditate on how God planned everything.

So what did it say? Jesus reads out of Isaiah 61, this is talking about a time when God was going to put everything back together. God is going to free the captives and bring justice on their enslavers. There will be no more shame and they will inherit a double portion of land (Take some time and read all of Isaiah 61). Sort of sounds like the coming of the Messiah, right?

Knowing what you know about the people of Nazareth, what do you think their reaction would be to this rabbi, reading this reading?

April 26th 2012

This week we are going to try something a little different, we are going to take everything we’ve been learning and put it into practice. We are going to look at the same passage of Scripture all week breaking it down bit by bit to really understand what’s going on.

Read Luke 4:13-30

Today we are going to begin by asking where this story takes place and why that’s important to everything that follows. When some of us read this story we immediately recognize it as Jesus going to his home town, speaking, and being rejected. Usually this story is summed up by the phrase in verse 24 “no prophet is accepted in his hometown.” But there is a major problem with that, mainly that it’s wrong (at least at first).

So what do we know about Nazareth? We know that Nazareth was founded by people returning from the Babylonian exile, but these people had at least one belief that was very different from everyone else. The Nazarene’s believed the Messiah would come from Nazareth. Because they believed this the Nazarene’s were viewed as a cult and they were looked down on to others in their society (See Luke 1:46). 

Where did the Nazarene’s get this idea? If you look at Isaiah 11:1 we see this reference to one coming from the branch of Jesse, as we keep reading in Isaiah 11 we discover that it sounds a whole lot like the Messiah. Now the word used here for “branch” is “netzer” which is also the root of the word Nazareth. So obviously the Messiah will come from Nazareth. What’s interesting is that Matthew makes this connection as well in Matthew 2:23 when he refers to the prophecy that says “He shall be called a Nazarene”.  Problem is there is no such prophecy.

So as you think about this verse this week, meditate on how the people listening to Jesus excepted the Messiah to come from their town.

April 25th 2012

Why are you born sick?

Read John 9:1-7 and journal your thoughts

Yesterday we talked about how today we would consider the people of Jesus time to be very superstitious, and we totally understand why. Today we have the luxury of science to explain why certain things happen to certain people (and there are still some mysteries for us to discover). As a way to explain these mysteries they put some of their logical pieces together into what we would call superstitions. One of these superstitions deal with the question of why someone would be born with a sickness or a defect, like we see in John 9:2.

The disciples, seeing how Jesus has changed many of their traditional views of how the world works decide to ask their rabbi about it. Traditionally they believed if something bad happened to someone it was because of some sin they had committed, but what about someone who was (to quote Lady Gaga) born that way? Obviously it must be their parent’s sin that caused this person to be blind right, or could it be that God knew of some future sin and punished him now?

Jesus takes the whole debate and turns it upside down, by saying it’s no one’s fault but this has happened to that God’s power would be revealed, then Jesus heals the man. This raises the question for us, when we see people going through trying situations what do we do? Sometimes it’s easy for us to say something like “Well, God has a plan” and then leaven them. Or do we become like Jesus and do everything we can to help them through their situation?

Today may you see moments to heal others and may you step into those moments

April 24th 2012

What are some of the images in the Scriptures?

Read John 6:35 and journal your thoughts

It seems like most of us when we read this piece of Scripture have a sort of vague understanding of what it means. We say that Jesus is like bread or food and that like food Jesus keeps us alive spiritually. And sure, that’s partially right, but is there something deeper to it.

In their culture, bread wasn’t just food, but a symbol for the deepest sustenance of life. During the time of Jesus the Roman’s occupied Israel, and like a good occupier they limited or rationed the amount of bread Israel could have. Food was scarce, and people were hungry. There must have been times when the idea of being fed must have felt like it was the deepest sustenance of life.

It’s in this environment when Jesus says that he is the bread of life. Jesus is saying that we were made for more than just survival, but there is something inside of us that longs for and was created for more. We were created for this deep, passionate relationship with God. That is what Jesus and his teachings are to us, they show us how to have that deep, passionate relationship with the Father.

In our world, there are so many things trying to be the deepest sustenance of life to us. If we’re honest most of it is stuff that once we have it we begin to look for something else. The problem is these things are not what our souls are really craving. In reality we crave because we are hungry for the bread of life.

Today may you deepen your relationship with the Father if only for an extra minute a day, and may you discover the deepest sustenance of life.