April 24, 2025

GOD’S WORD FOR TODAY:

“The Spirit of the Lord GOD is on Me, because the LORD has anointed Me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent Me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and freedom to the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor….” (Isaiah 61.1-2a)

TODAY’S REFLECTION ON GOD’S WORD TO US:

For those who had never read the Old Testament, the passage of God’s Word was probably thought only to exist in the New Testament, Luke, chapter 4. It was there Jesus had returned to the town where He had been raised as a boy until He turned the age of 30. Before that He had lived in Bethlehem until the age of two and in Egypt until He was five or six. Why is this important to know? Most child psychologists and developmental specialists will tell you that these are the formative years. What Jesus learned from Mary and Joseph was in a context far different than that of Nazareth. In Bethlehem, even though Joseph was a successful carpenter, the city itself was a center of shepherding. Being known as the “City of David,” the flocks in that region supplied many of the lambs slain in Jerusalem for worship and sin offerings. I have no doubt that Jesus was exposed to the environment of shepherding and the playfulness of lambs. What of His time in Egypt? In Egypt, Jesus, Mary and Joseph lived in a thriving Jewish community near Cairo. Joseph may have well found employment in the Jewish temple in Heliopolis because of his carpentry and stonemason skills. Jesus would have experienced the Judaism of a community of exiles which existed at least since the days preceding Jeremiah the prophet. Without question, this Judaism would have been influenced in part by an Egyptian culture. It was the only place outside of Jerusalem, where Jews could make sacrifices. Following that time of sojourn caused by the threat on His life by Herod who feared “the One born King of the Jews” as announced by the Magi, Jesus and His family returned to Nazareth where Joseph lived and worked as a carpenter and stonemason. Maintaining the traditions of the Law, Joseph was found to be a man of faith and integrity. Life in Nazareth was different from anything Jesus had experienced thus far. In those years following their arrival in Nazareth, Jesus would have learned the Torah from His earthly father and a rabbi in the local synagogue. Though maintaining the Jewish traditions, those who lived in Nazareth and Galilee would have had a differing perspective on those traditions. Regardless, Jesus was a student of the Word and of the faith. We see this when, at the age of twelve, Mary and Joseph took Jesus to the Temple in Jerusalem for His Bar-mitzvah. It was there that Jesus would be found teaching the teachers of the Law “in My Father’s house.“

And now, at the age of 30, the age when a man was deemed as fit to become a rabbi, Jesus began His different course. I love the 23rd Psalm. I wrote a book, as yet unpublished, about how the 23rd Psalm was a battle psalm. Within the fabric of that psalm, David exposed his true understanding of being King of Israel. In a fashion, it was the same battle plan which Jesus followed in His pursuit of our salvation. It began in the pastures of Bethlehem where the royal flocks of sacrificial lambs were shepherded. It would conclude with His ascension to dwell in His Father’s house which He Himself did not build (just as David was lifted up in the place where his son Solomon built the Temple.) It is in Nazareth, following Jesus’ baptism by His cousin John the Baptizer, that the purpose and intentionality of His ministry and spiritual battle was told. It came from the reading given to Jesus in that Nazareth synagogue when He returned “home.” The reading was from Isaiah. We read it as Isaiah 61.1-2, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me to preach good news to the poor….” The powerful consistency of Jesus’ purpose is what makes it vital even now as the Church has entered into the 21st Century and quite possibly draws near to “the close of the Age.” The promise of God is to restore us in righteousness and call us together as His people, the sheep of His pasture. It is a message of coming home to be with the Father as the prodigal children we are upon our own devise. Even the older brother became a prodigal when the Father accepted the wayward and repentant son back home. He left the house of his own volition. There is that hint that Jesus was speaking to the rulers of the Temple and the Jewish religion of the day as being that older son. He had everything. He had chosen to stay faithful, regardless of his personal motivations, to his father. He chose until he didn’t. Yet, Jesus never truly finishes that story. There are others which were told for a singular focus and not a comprehensive application of “all truth.” That was the nature of parables. They were very much in the moment. Yet, inquiring minds still want to know. They still pursue the fullness of truth and, as Paul Harvey would say, “…the rest of the story.“

The rest of the story that day in Nazareth was a rejection of Jesus because He would not do for them when He had done elsewhere. Of course, elsewhere the people repented of their sins, they believed that Jesus was the Messiah and the Promised One, they humbled themselves before Jesus and prayed to God for deliverance. They feasted on the manna which came from a bountiful supply. And all of that in a very short time from His baptism until before He came home to Nazareth. Those in Nazareth, save for a few, did not. Instead, because Jesus would not capitulate to their wishes, they lead Him out to the edge of town where there was a cliff. There they expressed their desire to push Him over the edge to His death. Perhaps they would have hurled stones down upon Him to ensure His death as surely as they hurled curses at Him in life as the evidence that they were dead. Jesus walked to the edge and gazed down it. He had seen it before as a boy. He probably joined other boys throwing stones down and listening to them clack one against the other. They may have even jostled with each other threatening to throw one of themselves of the edge. They may have even done so with Jesus because He was different. That’s how bullying goes, doesn’t it? Feeling the pressure of their intent behind Him, Jesus simply turned to walk away. He would have seen the look of horror on His mother’s eyes and those of His half-brothers and sisters lost in the crowd. Even the words of praise which began as they marveled upon His return “Isn’t this the carpenter’s son, the son of Joseph and Mary” became jeers instead of cheers as they used the same words to mock Jesus and his heritage among them. Maybe some of them were not the adult “boys” who had taunted Jesus in the past. He saw them all and they saw Him, too. He was the same as he always was just as they were the same as they had always been. Jesus walked right through the crowd. No one touched Him. No one. He walked from Nazareth to Capernaum as He and Joseph had many times. They didn’t go there to fish. They went there to work in the shop Joseph had established in expanding his business and plying his trade. It was on these walks that Joseph gave Jesus the benefit of his knowledge of God who shaped and molded and created and formed purpose out of what seemed purposeless. Wood and stone became houses, homes, tools, furniture and a way of life. Joseph shepherded and mentored Jesus in the way He should go with the same faith that Joseph was called to trust when the angel announced to him that Mary was already with child not of his doing. The day came during one of those journeys that Joseph died and Jesus was left to care for His mother and siblings with the same trade as his earthly father. Jesus sought to free the living from the lifeless like Joseph. Now, as He walked away from Nazareth one last time, what He was set to do was to set people free from their lifelessness in sin and call them into the righteousness of God.

TODAY’S PRAYER IN RESPONSE TO GOD’S WORD:

Father, in these days we are finding the need to believe even more than ever before. We all have known trouble, some in greater ways than others, but You are offering us the assurance that we will not be consumed by it forever. Regardless of the “time” we are in and the “time” we have been given, we ask for Your Holy Spirit which Jesus asked You to share with us, to lead and guide and direct us in the paths we should go. Teach us what we still need to learn. Empower us to put that learning into action. Bless our actions not as a works righteousness which we know is folly but righteous works which declare Your glory and further witness the truth that can set all who believe free from death. So may we live by the name of Jesus our Christ. AMEN.