A Rough Response

Our walking with Jesus in the season of Epiphany will take us back to the synagogue at Nazareth this Sunday (Luke 4:21-30). Just after Jesus has revealed to them his cosmic fulfillment of Isaiah’s hope-filled words and issued a personal message of comfort and deliverance, his fellow Nazarenes respond quite oddly - they try to kill him.  More on that Sunday. 

In my initial observations of this gospel lesson I’m struck that the people of Nazareth knew Jesus, but they didn’t know him. They both marveled at his persuasive speech and despised him for his familiarity. “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?” They begged him to show the miracles that he had done in Capernaum but bristled at his allusion to the faithlessness of Israel during Elijah and Elisha’s times. He was trying to show them “a still more excellent way,” as St. Paul would later say, but they had no space for the love of God (1 Cor 13:1). 

Come ready to receive from our Lord God. I look forward to worshiping the living God with you. 

Jay+

As we behold the face of God in the face of Christ, we are transformed into his image. This is what it means to be fully human—to become like Jesus, the truly human one, and to grow more and more in the freedom of the children of God.