Football players who
kicked field goals always approached the football straight on, that is until Pete
Gogolak came along with his angular soccer-type kick. Gogolak's 41-yard field
goal during Cornell's 1961 season was the first by a soccer kicker, and it
changed the kicking game forever. The scriptures had been read and sermons had
been delivered in the synagogue in Nazareth for many years—all pretty much the
same way until Jesus spoke there for the first time.
Jesus returned to
his hometown as a celebrity. Although Jesus had grown up there, people from the
entire district of Galilee where talking about him. Some were saying that he
had performed mighty works in Capernaum—even Luke confirms that (Luke 4:14-15).
Luke, however, chose
not to begin his coverage of Jesus’ ministry talking about those things but
rather about what happened in Jesus’ hometown of Nazareth. Luke does this
because of what that experience reveals about our response to the gospel.
Jesus was asked to read from the prophets, so
he stood up and read from the Isaiah scroll in what is for us Isaiah 61:1-2. “The
Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to
the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of
sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the
Lord's favor” (Luke 4:18-19).
Jesus then sat down
and delivered a sermon. He said he had come to fulfill these verses. That he
had come to save the poor, the prisoners, the blind and the oppressed. The
people of Nazareth who knew him were unmoved by his words. They didn’t feel
they were poor or blind. What Jesus did was a real game changer for the people
of that village.
Jesus told the
people two stories—one about a widow and the other about a leper. Once, God
chose to meet the needs of Elijah through a Gentile widow. She was destitute
and only had a handful of flour left. Elijah asked her to use that flour to
make him a piece of bread first. The woman did, and remarkably she never ran
out of flour or oil as long as Elijah stayed with her. She was very poor, but
fortunately she realized it. The people of Nazareth didn’t realize how poor
they were, therefore they couldn’t trust Jesus. The second story was about a
leper named Naaman who was from Syria. He came to Elisha and dipped in the
Jordan River at Elisha’s command. He was healed because he believed the
prophet’s words and he realized he was a leper and could do nothing to change
his situation.
Jesus’ message was a
game changer because these people who had a few minutes earlier spoken well of Jesu,
now hated him. Jesus saw the real heart of the problem, and he nailed it. Both
stories were insulting to the people of Nazareth. They did not see themselves
as needy. To the contrary they saw themselves as good and respectable. So great
was the insult that they tried to kill Jesus.
Jesus forever
changed the game for all of us. We can’t pretend we are good when the truth is
we are destitute, poor and blind. We can ask the savior to liberate us from sin,
or we can become hostile toward Jesus, but there is no other choice available.
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