TODAY’S READINGS

Today’s Gospel (Lk 4:24-30) has Jesus stirring up the crowd in His home town of Nazareth so much so that they are ready to do this to Him:

They rose up, drove him out of the town,
and led him to the brow of the hill
on which their town had been built,
to hurl him down headlong.
But he passed through the midst of them and went away. (vv. 29-30)

“Luke could have selected other incidents to present as the initial event in Jesus’ public ministry (see 4;15, 23) but chose to use Jesus’ visit to Nazareth with its unhappy ending. Luke probably intended it as an illustration of Jesus being ‘a sign that will be contradicted’ and the cause of ‘the fall and rise of many in Israel,’ as Simeon prophesied after his birth (2:34). Luke probably also presents the incident as a foreshadowing of what lies ahead: Jesus will be embraced by some but rejected by others, culminating in his death. Yet death will have no more hold over him than the mob in Nazareth: he will, as it were, pass through the midst of the earth, rising from his tomb.” (Bringing the Gospel of Luke to Life, 123)

The last verse has long fascinated me. What did this look like? I have often imagined it like Moses parting the Red Sea. Jesus stares down the crowd and starts walking and they separate like the waters. Was it Jesus’ demeanor? Did He exude a power that repelled them? Was the crowd’s bark worse than its bite? Did friends and neighbors have second thoughts? Remember, this was Jesus residence for over twenty years. He knew these people as well as anyone, but clearly they didn’t know Him. I’m reminded of yesterday’s Gospel:

Jesus would not trust himself to them because he knew them all,
and did not need anyone to testify about human nature.
He himself understood it well. (Jn 2:24-25)

There are many scenes in Jesus’ life I wish I could have been present for, but this ranks near the top.

Mount Precipice near Nazareth, the site commemorating the Gospel story of
the attempt to throw Jesus off a cliff.

God bless.