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Morning Devotion for Eastertide
May 5, 2025
Reading: Luke 4:16-30
And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up; and he went to the synagogue, as his custom was, on the sabbath day. And he stood up to read; and there was given to him the book of the prophet Isaiah. He opened the book and found the place where it was written,
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovering of sight to the blind,
to set at liberty those who are oppressed,
to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.”
And he closed the book, and gave it back to the attendant, and sat down; and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. And he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” And all spoke well of him, and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth; and they said, “Is not this Joseph’s son?” And he said to them, “Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, ‘Physician, heal yourself; what we have heard you did at Capernaum, do here also in your own country.’” And he said, “Truly, I say to you, no prophet is acceptable in his own country. But in truth, I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, when there came a great famine over all the land; and Elijah was sent to none of them but only to Zarephath, in the land of Sidon, to a woman who was a widow. And there were many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha; and none of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian.” When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with wrath. And they rose up and put him out of the city, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their city was built, that they might throw him down headlong. But passing through the midst of them he went away.
Meditation by Jeremy O’Neill
On first reading, this passage can see confusing, especially if we think about it in our own times. There are multiple dynamics at play here: geographical differences, Jesus’s evolving relationship with traditional Jewish practices, and the crowd’s expectations of him. The passage begins mentioning that it is the sabbath, a detail which will be important later. Jesus reads from scripture and chooses this specific passage from Isaiah, promising liberation to oppressed people and the improvement of harsh conditions faced by people in this world.
Jesus notes to the crowd how he is different from the previous prophets. He will thus not be one who answers to the wills of the powers and principalities of the world, but who answers to the mysterious work of God. He is proclaiming Good News, but the crowds always find something wrong with it. This is a pattern that continues throughout the Gospels. Jesus arrives in a places, proclaims Good News or heals someone, is admired briefly, and the crowds quickly get upset and turn against him. It is worth pointing out that he is asked to heal in this passage on the sabbath, while healing on the sabbath is something that will end up getting him in trouble later on.
So what is left for us? The crowd is all in favor of the improvement of conditions, but only so far as it does not inconvenience them or disrupt the narratives that they know to be true. They are also unwilling to contribute to that liberation themselves; they expect Jesus to come in and fix everything for them.
Jesus proclaims Good News, and then leaves us room to act in his name for the greater good of all people. We must be willing to do this even when it makes us uncomfortable, disrupts our own personal narratives of what we believe to be true, and inconveniences us. For Jesus is answering to a higher power in this story, and it seems like that is what is missing from the crowd’s perspective. They are too caught up in their own plans to recognize how Jesus may be fulfilling God’s dream of a better world for all.
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