familiarity and contempt

And all spoke well of him and marveled at the gracious words that were coming from his mouth. And they said, “Is not this Joseph's son?”

Luke 4:22

This is the response of the people who knew Jesus from His infancy. Here in His home synagogue, among the friends and family with whom Jesus had worshiped every Sabbath from boyhood, Jesus proclaimed His mission, framing His claim directly from Isaiah 61:1-2. There is no mistaking what Jesus was claiming. He announced to His hometown that He had come to fulfill the call of the Messiah.

Their initial response seems encouraging: they marveled at His gracious words. But then they struggled for context. How could the Messiah be the man they knew simply as the son of Joseph, the simple carpenter? They knew His preaching was good and all, but really... the Messiah coming from such blue-collar contractor roots? Could the Messiah be that plain and simple to them?

Jesus knew what was bubbling under their question. He let the tension out in Luke 4:23-27 as He described ways in which the Old Testament showed prophets being rejected in their “hometowns”:

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 in your hometown as well.” And he said, “Truly, I say to you, no prophet is acceptable in his hometown. But in truth, I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heavens were shut up three years and six months, and a great famine came 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.”

The point from the prophetic illustrations was to show that God’s miraculous work still continued despite the rejection by Israel. When prophets were rejected in Israel, God gave them miraculous ministry among the Gentiles. Jesus claimed that the Nazareth synagogue would do the same thing, but His ministry would extend beyond their fickle feelings about Him.

By the time we get to Luke 4:28-30, the worship service that welcomed Jesus suddenly became a riotous mob trying to kill Him for blasphemy. This is not the way we expect a church service to conclude! But Jesus calmly walked away, right through the midst of the lynch mob that was powerless to stop God’s plan for saving the world. He went on to the next town... to another synagogue... where His teaching and miracles continued the Messianic mission He had just announced.