This is Life

May 27, 2020

Good evening,

" Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about him spread through the whole countryside. He was teaching in their synagogues, and everyone praised him. He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,

    because he has anointed me

    to proclaim good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners

    and recovery of sight for the blind,

to set the oppressed free,

to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.”          Luke 4:13-19

Jesus has just been in the wilderness for forty days. He is exhausted from the ordeal. He is now back into ministry, and telling everyone ( "all" from verse 13 ) of the new work that God was doing through him. After those forty days, he had to reacquaint himself with his disciples. His message must have have been well-received by the people in the local places of worship, because the text says that he was getting praise, and too much praise is a problem for a prophet, but too little praise has it own problems.

He gets the invitation from his hometown synagogue. This is great news, and maybe his parents and his siblings will show up to hear him read Scripture, and deliver the sermon. It will be a great homecoming and celebration for the whole community. Jesus opens the scroll for the text from Isaiah, and he begins to read what has been given him. Everyone is exited, and hopeful.

What a great text . The kingdom has arrived. The Empire will be overthrown, and the poor of Nazareth will be gifted with the Spirit of God . YESSSSSSSS !!! No more waiting fo us to be blessed by God. Then…   Jesus tells two stories of healing and hope, about people outside of the Jewish faith, and Jesus offers that their experience is better. The crowds turn 180 degrees, and they are no only mad, but they want to thrown him off the cliff outside of Nazareth. What happened ? Did Jesus know that this would be the reaction of telling them about the widow of Zarapheth, and Naaman the Syrian.

This is just one event out of hundreds events that are recorded by the Gospel writer . Not every story has a moral or a meaning. This is part of our Lord's life. We have thousands of things that we remember from our own lives. For example, I worked at a golf course through high school and university. I took one set of streets when I went  in the morning, and I took another set of streets home, night or day. I did not plan to do, nor did I question why; it was just part of life. It is what I did.

Enjoy the stories of our Jesus, the man from the small town of Nazareth, that we find in the Gospels. They are for your study and observation.

Prayer for today

Poole, Lancaster, Istanbul, Thailand, Floradale, Elmira, Niagara-on-the-Lake …

Hawthorne Drive, Trent University, Benham Avenue , Main Street, Simcoe Street …

Ecclesiastes, Luke, Psalms, Genesis, Ephesians…

Heart Attack, Drugs, Birth, Death, Miracle

This is part of my life,

Not all of it, just some events, places and memories.

God is always there,

It is only I that have been absent sometimes, not all the time, just sometimes. Amen

Fred

Tread on bold new paths !

Fireflies flash the direction

Hope springs eternal           Monica Pieper Landoni 2020

Fred Redekop

Pastor

Poole Mennonite Church