“The Epiphany response to Christmas—part 2: “On the edge of a cliff.”
You might remember from last week that Jesus had preached in the synagogues throughout Galilee and all the people had praised him. News about him spread throughout the whole countryside. Then he arrived at the synagogue at Nazareth, and we imagined being right there to hear him ourselves. It was all so exciting as Jesus stepped up to read from Isaiah 61:
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me
because He has anointed me to proclaim the Gospel to the poor,
He has sent me to preach deliverance to the captives
and that the blind will receive their sight
to free those who are oppressed
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.
Everyone leans forward, sitting on the edge of their seats, with their eyes fixed on Jesus. As he begins his sermon: “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing”, it dawns on you that Jesus is proclaiming himself as this long-promised Messiah. Everyone’s so excited—freedom for the oppressed! But they understood the freedom Jesus spoke of as freedom from Roman rule that overshadowed the nation. They pictured Israel again being independent, and great, and free.
All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his lips—but now in Nazareth, the response is different. This is Jesus’ home town. They know him—this is the son of Joseph! They’re amazed—these are words from the son of a tradie from their town. How can Jesus be saying stuff like this? How can he possibly think that he’s the Messiah?
This is a tough crowd. Jesus’ response to their refusal to believe was to make himself the point of a proverb: “Physician, heal yourself. Do here in your hometown what we have heard you did at Capernaum.”
They lacked faith. They wanted him to perform miracles before they would trust and believe He was the Messiah. They wouldn’t take Jesus at his word unless there’s proof. They won’t believe him until they see him do something. That can be a common reaction today, as well. And so we arrive at part 2—the second “response to Christmas—the response of rejecting Jesus.
Jesus points out their rejection of him quite clearly: Truly I say to you that no prophet is accepted in his own town.” He illustrates this by pointing to Elijah and Elisha. At critical times they and the message from God they brought were not welcomed in Israel, so God sent them to those beyond Israel instead. When a chronic drought and consequent famine affected the whole land, there were many widows in Israel, but God sent Elijah to bless a widow of Zarephath in Sidon, beyond Israel’s borders. Even though she had nothing to give God, God miraculously provided food for her. And in the time of Elisha none of the lepers in Israel were cleansed, but only Naaman from Syria. Jesus makes a connection between God’s favour shown through his messengers in these Old Testament events, and God’s favour shown in Jesus in the synagogue. In both cases it is God’s own chosen people who reject his word…and so God shows his favour elsewhere.
Wow—it’s really about to hit the fan. Does Jesus seriously think God would help and bless these Gentile outsiders!? God favour Sidon, not Israel?! God heal in Syria, not Nazareth?! Is Jesus saying that Nazareth doesn’t have any special claim to blessing and God would turn from them to other nations? Whoever proof read Jesus’ sermon should have told him this would have upset the Nazareth crowd.
These episodes of God sending his saving and compassionate help beyond religious borders to Naaman the Syrian and the widow of Zarepath was the first glimpse that his love and compassion would ultimately be found in Christ for all people, the one before them right there in the Synagogue. Jesus is the fulfilment of Isaiah 61 for humanity’s deepest and most desperate needs: freedom from bondage to sin, death and Satan.
When the people thought Jesus meant he would bring them political freedom they loved his ‘gracious words’. When they realised that he was rebuking them for their rejection and that God would show favour to Gentile ‘sinners’, they exploded with hostile rejection. In one of the biggest backflips ever, those previously delighted with his words of grace are now fuming with outrage. Jesus was not the kind of Messiah these people wanted, and he certainly didn’t tell them what they wanted to hear.
Those who were on the edge of their seats moments before then rose up in anger, cast Jesus out of the city like a common criminal, and led him away to edge of the hill on which their town was built, so that they could throw him down…to silence him permanently. This outrage points ahead to what would happen in Holy Week—crowds lining the streets would welcome Jesus in joy with shouts of “Hosanna!” but just days later scream “Crucify him!”
This rejection of Jesus is also a rejection of the Spirit in whose power Jesus has come. And—if they only realised—rejection of the Father in Heaven who sends the Holy Spirit through Jesus. If they were truly God’s faithful people they would accept what Jesus was saying.
So, having been driven out of town, Jesus is on the edge of a cliff, quite literally.
We too might feel as if the church is on the edge of a cliff, so to speak, today. That we have a rapidly diminishing place in the eyes of society—if society thinks we still have a relevant place at all. Today’s generation is staying away in droves with core pastoral care acts like funerals and weddings now taken over by secular organisations. So many other things jostle for the Sunday morning timeslot, and parents give their children the option whether they want to be involved with the church or not. People are far less likely to commit to any congregation, shopping around until they eventually find the place that matches their expectations and tastes. It might feel as though we are on the edge of the cliff, precariously placed—that as an institution, we are perilously close to extinction.
“We have to do something!” people often say. It comes from a good concern—the same concern as God, who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth (1 Tim 2:4).
But today’s text shows us the depth of the problem. There is nothing we can do in our own power to fix the problem. It’s not like we are a business that can create a product that an conjure up consumer appeal. It is a spiritual problem—the problem of the stubborn proud heart set against Jesus, what Luther described as the bondage of the will. Since the Garden of Eden we are all captive to sin. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 2:14: “The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit. “
For this spiritual problem, the church needs a spiritual solution. So to the third Epiphany response to Christmas: as God’s church, there are things that we should do. We keep on reaching out and caring for people in love; the same love Paul describes in 1 Corinthians 13 today—not being self-seeking, but seeking the concerns of others, not holding their wrongs against them, being patient and kind with them, always hoping, always persevering in this, for Christ reaches out to serve through our own outstretched arms.
But most importantly, we love by rejoicing in the truth, the truth of God’s word, eyes glued to Jesus, holding fast to everything he says. We make disciples of all nations by baptising and teaching them everything Jesus has commanded us (Matthew 28:18-20). As we teach, we are to have the confidence that as Jesus spoke in the Synagogue he is still speaking today, giving the Spirit to understand what he says, opening the eyes of the blind and setting the captives free.
Today’s text shows that God’s word will be rejected by many. Yet through the word God does create faith, opening the ears and hearts of mere mortals to receive the things of God too. The widow of Zarephath and Naaman the Syrian are two examples.
One of Satan’s biggest temptations for the church is to not use God’s word for fear of upsetting people, or worrying that people will never understand or accept it. For, concealing God’s word hinders the very way God promises to be present and active in creating faith and life out of spiritual unbelief and death. It is true that what we say could well be rejected. But on the other hand, this is the very means God promises to be at work, working faith. His word will never be received if it is never used. Keep praying for God to show you how you can share God’s word with those you know and love and want to be saved.
In today’s Gospel reading, the church was on the cliff edge before it was even formed. Had the Nazareth Synagogue crowd been successful in hurling Jesus over the edge, God would have failed and we would not be here today. This attempt to do away with Jesus comes after Satan himself tried to thwart God’s plan of salvation by tempting Jesus to follow him.
But Jesus effortlessly walks through the crowd, and goes on his way. Mere humans cannot overcome God. The church will survive. For Jesus is the author of faith and the perfector of faith. He goes to work despite our best and our worst efforts, and God has done that ever since he sent Jesus into the world to love even those who rejected him and sought to kill him. And even when Jesus was killed on a Cross on a hill, he rose again, so that not even death itself would separate us from the living, loving God.
May our response to Christmas always be thanks and praise for what God has done and continues to do through Christ and his Spirit. The crucified, risen Christ is still with his church. 2000 years after Jesus preached in the Synagogue at Nazareth, he continues to preach, bringing his saving and freeing love to you, here, at St Paul’s, to create, nurture and strengthen faith. Today, the Scripture Jesus first read at Nazareth is again fulfilled in your hearing, as he proclaims the year of the Lord’s favour to you, by not counting your wrongs against you but wiping away all of your sins. Amen.
