The Gospel of Luke, chapter 4
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In 1947, an Arab boy was looking for his lost goats among the highlands rising above the Dead Sea. The shepherd was tossing rocks into caves to see if the animals were inside, when he heard the sound of breaking pottery. The pottery were actually jars holding dozens of manuscripts as old as 250 BC. What became known as the Dead Sea Scrolls were a collection of texts sacred to a small religious community at nearby Qumran. Other than Esther and Nehemiah, every book from the Hebrew Bible was represented, making a library of the oldest extant Biblical manuscripts by a 1000 year margin. The Isaiah scroll is both the largest in the collection and the most intact after being preserved for two millennia in the desert caves.
While the ascetics assembled their library in the Judean wilderness, another copy of Isaiah was making waves at the northern end of the country, in a synagogue at Nazareth. Most likely, the prescribed reading for the day from the Torah (“law” or “instruction,” the first five books of the Hebrew Bible) came first, and then a reading from the Nevi’im (“prophets,” including what we call the “historical books” as well as the major and minor prophets) would have been paired with it. Here is where our story gets interesting, because Jesus takes this passage—where Isaiah invokes the power of God’s Spirit upon his liberating prophecies—and claims it for himself. The assembled faithful laud themselves for having such an inspired rabbi from their own town, but Jesus refuses to do any deeds of power for them, because of their own self-congratulatory pride. This provocative statement drives them to turn on Jesus and try to throw him off the precipice near town! Clearly, Jesus touched a nerve, as he refuses to give in to ambition and jealousy. After this narrow escape with death (again), Jesus returns to his own synagogue at Capernaum. In that village, near a major crossroads for travel and commerce, Jesus evidently has found a people more open to receiving from God than dictating the status quo, for he casts out demons and heals many. But after a season of ministry in the synagogue and community of Capernaum, Jesus isolates himself, and begins an itinerant ministry of teaching, healing, and discipling.
This isn’t the first time Jesus has gone off alone to seek the will of his Father: remember him at twelve years old, abandoning Mary and Joseph to spend days in the Temple learning? Even this chapter begins by Jesus fasting in the wilderness for 40 days, facing not just the very human trials of thirst, exhaustion, and loneliness, but also supernatural temptation by the devil. Demonic boasting about who controls all kingdoms is a non-starter by Israel’s faith in God, even after years of occupation by the Caesar that claims to rule the entire world. By contrast, Jesus’ “Inaugural Address” in Nazareth shows that he has come to give release (aphesis in Greek): set free captives, liberate the oppressed, forgive sins. In the service of humanity and creation, Jesus comes; not to consolidate power or enshrine human regimes. And as we will see throughout Luke and especially in Acts, there is no power—not the spiritual forces of evil and wickedness, not the ruling elite in Jerusalem, not the imperial might of Rome—that can hinder the advance of the Kingdom of God.
Like the people of Nazareth, have you ever found yourself jealous of others’ blessings?
How do you see Jesus’ Kingdom of freedom and favor advancing?
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