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Morning Devotion for the Season of Lent
March 24, 2025
Reading: Luke 4:23-30
In the synagogue at Nazareth, Jesus said to them, "Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, 'Doctor, cure yourself!' And you will say, 'Do here also in your hometown the things that we have heard you did at Capernaum.'" And he said, "Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet's hometown. But the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, and there was a severe famine over all the land; yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian." When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff. But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.
Meditation - Peter Vanderveen
We have all inherited the bad habit of presuming that whatever Jesus said, he must have said it in a way that was kind and compassionate. After all, (we’ve come to assume) he loved everybody, equally – and this is how we like to imagine him. A current ad campaign simply states that “He gets us.” How nice. And how convenient for us. He understands. He reaches out to all of us with empathy. He would like to be your best friend.
Well… this was clearly not the case according to what was actually written of him. Jesus was more than adept at being caustic and even offensive. In this text from Luke he took the opportunity, while in his hometown, to repeatedly poke the bear. The crowds that had gathered around him wanted a demonstration of power – perhaps something that would elevate him in their eyes from the kid who grew up in their midst to the teacher and potential Messiah that others saw in him. But Jesus didn’t choose to politely explain why he didn’t feel so inclined. Nor did he shift the focus by emphasizing that, more than all else, he was just thrilled to be back home. Instead, he rather liberally threw at them a series of insults: in short, he hadn’t come to do anything for them. It’s not hard to see why they reacted with rage. Jesus had provoked it.
So they did what angry crowds do. They dragged Jesus out of town with the intent to do him deadly harm. Crowds can have this kind of energy and momentum. They can easily surge in a particular direction, like a tsunami of hate. Their sheer numbers make them unstoppable.
So why didn’t they succeed in ridding themselves of this one irritating person? Nothing stopped them. No one effectively stood in their way. There was no call to a greater conscience. Jesus simply walked away, right through the middle of the crowd. And nothing else is said. The strangeness of this – its utter unreality – should give us pause. It may be the most important aspect of this story.
For what it indicates is that all the powers that we can muster, everything that we can swirl together into frenzy and force, amounts to nothing to God. It doesn’t need to be opposed or thwarted or confronted because it’s vacuous. Jesus didn’t fight his way back from the ledge. He didn’t argue and dissuade the crowd. It’s as if, suddenly, the crowd didn’t exist at all. All the rage and the physical violence and the intensity of the moment – all the dust raised and the potential for horror – just disappeared as if without the least hint of a remaining trace. God is able to exercise a freedom that seems impossible to us. All our madness is “sound and fury signifying nothing.”
It’s something to remember when we get caught up in the struggles for power that so entangle us.
Prayer
Heavenly Father:
Hold not our sins up against us,
but hold us up against our sins,
so that the thought of Thee when it wakens in our soul,
should not remind us of what we have committed,
but of what Thou hast forgiven,
not of how we went astray,
but of how Thou didst save us.
Amen.
Kierkegaard
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