Christ is for "Them" Too!

[This was shared during worship with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, this morning.]

Luke 4:21-30
At my first parish, a rural congregation set amid corn and soybean fields, we had just approved a building program that would increase our sanctuary seating capacity from 320 to 500, and give us more classrooms, a nice kitchen, and more fellowship space.

We were growing and we wanted to be able to welcome more people like some of those who had been coming to the church in the previous few years. These were people who had never been to church or hadn’t been in a church for a long time, but who, through the ministry of our congregation, were coming to faith in Christ, were being baptized, and were becoming active members.

After the vote approving the new building project, a fellow approached me. “Pastor,” he said. “I’m worried. We used to have a nice cheap church. But with these other people showing up, we may have to give more to keep things going.”

I frankly had no idea what I possibly could have said to that man. For him, the church was a closed club for “us,” not for “them,” whoever “them” was.

Jesus encounters an attitude like that man’s from the people of His own hometown of Nazareth in today’s Gospel lesson. It’s the last part of an incident we looked at last Sunday.

Jesus has gone to His hometown with a few disciples and, as was His habit, worships at the synagogue there. During worship, Jesus reads a few passages from the Old Testament book of Isaiah, written hundreds of years before His birth, words which foretold the coming of the Messiah Who would “bring good news to the poor,…proclaim release to the captives…let the oppressed go free…[and] proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” Jesus then sits down and with all eyes fixed on Him, says, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

The people who grew up and worshiped with Jesus through the years are excited. “All spoke well of Him,” Luke writes in today’s Gospel lesson.

But Jesus understands that their excitement isn’t from joy that in Christ, God was reaching out to all people, calling all people to repent for their sins, calling all people to believe in Christ, and offering the free gift of new and everlasting life to all people who believe in Him.

Jesus understands that the people of of His hometown are excited because, as Judeans and Nazarenes, they figure they have an inside track. Their imaginations run wild as they see Jesus doing wonderful things for their town. Jesus, they think, is one of “us,” not one of “them.”

If Jesus had been a religious huckster, He would have simply let the folks of Nazareth believe what they wanted to believe about Him. He would ride the wave of popularity for as long as He could, wringing all the power, prestige, and cash out of it that He could.

Instead, as was always true of Jesus, He takes the more difficult path.

“Doubtless,” Jesus tells the hometown crowd, “you will quote to me this proverb, ‘Doctor, cure yourself!’ And you will say, ‘Do here also in your home town the things that we have heard you did at Capernaum.’”

The old saying Jesus quotes means, basically, “Take care of your own.” And Capernaum, a town on the northwest shore of the Sea of Galilee, about twenty miles from Nazareth, is a place where, Luke says, Jesus had already performed many miracles. Capernaum is set in a region full of foreigners.

Jesus sees the true sentiments of the people of Nazareth. “All this Messiah business is great,” they think, “especially if you give us what we want, when we want it. Quit fooling around with them, Jesus; take care of us.”

Then, having summarized the sentiments of His townspeople, Jesus goes on to show them why they’re wrong to think as they do.

He recalls that in the days of Israel’s greatest prophet, Elijah, there were many widows in the homeland of God’s people, then experiencing a famine. But God only sent Elijah to a foreign widow, providing her and her son with food.

Jesus then recalls that in the time of Elijah’s successor, another prophet names Elisha, there were many lepers among God’s people. But God used Elisha to bring healing to only one leper, a foreigner from Syria.

At this, the people of Nazareth become enraged. Jesus is telling them that neither He nor God the Father are their private possessions. God loves and reaches out to all people.

For us, this is an important lesson to learn too. In Holy Baptism, God claims us as His own. We belong to Christ, not the other way around. Our call is to share the good news of Jesus Christ with “them” so that they can be one of “us,” not members of an exclusive club, but citizens of the kingdom of God where all who repent, repudiating their sin, and believe in Jesus Christ, live with God forever.

Christ, in fact, has commanded you and me to love those people who may not be one of “us.” And He has commissioned us to make disciples of “them.”

Someone has said that the Church is the only organization in the world that exists primarily for the benefit of non-members.

Because Christ has already saved us for all eternity, grateful that we are part of His kingdom, you and I can be empowered to invite others to repent and believe in Jesus and so, become part of His kingdom too. We can even be glad when people we’ve always disliked or people who have mistreated us turn to Christ and live.

The late Corrie ten Boom was a Christian from the Netherlands. Corrie and her family were sent to a prison camp in a place called Ravensbruck because they helped Jews escape their country, occupied by the Nazis, then pursuing their murderous campaign that would result in the killing of over 6-million European Jews. Corrie was the only member of her family to survive World War Two. In the ensuing years, she became an evangelist, calling people to repent for sin and trust in Jesus Christ for God’s forgiveness and new life.

One night, Corrie preached at a church in Munich, Germany. In the congregation was a man she recognized as a guard from the camp in which she had been imprisoned. He had often mocked Corrie, her sister, and other prisoners. The service ended. Listen to what happened next in Corrie ten Boom’s own words:

“He came up to me as the church was emptying, beaming and bowing. ‘How grateful I am for your message, Fraulein.’ He said. ‘To think that, as you say, [Christ] has washed my sins away!’ His hand was thrust out to shake mine. And I, who had preached so often [about]…the need to forgive, kept my hand at my side.

“Even as the angry, vengeful thoughts boiled through me, I saw the sin of them. Jesus Christ had died for this man; was I going to ask for more? Lord Jesus, I prayed, forgive me and help me to forgive him. I tried to smile, I struggled to raise my hand. I could not. I felt nothing, not the slightest spark of warmth or charity. And so again I breathed a silent prayer. Jesus, I prayed, I cannot forgive him. Give me Your forgiveness.

“As I took his hand the most incredible thing happened. From my shoulder along my arm and through my hand a current seemed to pass from me to him, while into my heart sprang a love for this stranger that almost overwhelmed me. And so I discovered that it is not on our forgiveness any more than on our goodness that the world's healing hinges, but on [the goodness and healing of Jesus Christ]. When [Jesus] tells us to love our enemies, He gives, along with the command, the love itself.”

Jesus Christ has come into our world not just for us, but also for them. It has always been the will of God that all people have the opportunity for reconciliation with Him and to be part of His kingdom.

About one-thousand years before the birth of Jesus, King David sponsored a celebration as the Ark of the Covenant carrying the two tablets on which God had once inscribed the Ten Commandments, was carried to a tent in Jerusalem. David was so glad that he joined in the celebrating through a dance of pure joy. The Bible tells us that his wife saw this great man so humble himself before God and, she thought, acting in a way below his status as a king, that from that moment on, she despised David. But God inspired King David to write a special celebration song for that day. It included these words:

“Sing to the Lord, all the earth. Tell of His salvation from day to day.

Declare His glory among the nations, His marvelous works among all the peoples.”

It's always been the call and the privilege of God's people to share the salvation that comes from God with all people!

But not all believers care about doing that. A pastor once told me the story of a parishioner who was upset. Someone—a visitor—had sat in the parishioner’s usual pew. “This church doesn’t belong to him,” the parishioner said indignantly. “You’re right,” the pastor had replied. “And it doesn’t belong to you or me either. It belongs to Christ.”

Because the Church does belong to Christ—because we belong to Christ, it is our call and it is our privilege to invite others-

• the spiritually-disconnected,
• the people with annoying habits,
• the people we’ve never liked,
• the people who lead messy lives,
• the people who have hurt us
• everyone—

to come to Christ, to see their sin and their need of a Savior, to seek forgiveness at the foot of Jesus’ cross alongside of us, and to receive new life from the One Who died and rose for all and gives life to all who dare to repent and believe.

Make it your aim in life to reach out to them, because they need Jesus Christ every bit as much as us. Amen

How Christ Understands Freedom v. How Americans Understand Freedom

This comes from scholar and pastor Roy Harrisville's commentary on this coming Sunday's Gospel reading, Luke 4:14-21, in which Jesus, after being tempted in the wilderness, reads Isaiah 58:6 and 61:1-2. Harrisville is right on, I think:

Americans are used to the idea of freedom as license to do as one wishes. Jesus, however, understands freedom differently. It is a release from captivity to death, the will of others, and the will of the self. Jesus will preach the freedom of slavery to God's will and service to the neighbor (Luke 22:24-27). Such a definition of freedom can only be grasped from the way Jesus will fulfill the words of Isaiah's prophecy.

There All Along

[This message was prepared for sharing with worship celebrations at Friendship Lutheran Church on January 20 and 21, 2007. It was shared yesterday. But a snowfall caused worship to be canceled this morning.]

Luke 4:14-21
A young resident doctor of psychiatry was convinced that if he rationally explained things to delusional patients at the mental hospital where he worked, the patients would be cured. One patient in particular, a guy named Ken, seemed especially promising. Ken, like others, was delusional. But he could conduct almost normal conversation.

“Hello, Ken,” the resident said one day. “How are you?” “Oh, hello, doctor. I’m dead.” “Now, Ken,” said the resident, seeing a chance to put his theories into practice. “You’re not dead. Here you are talking with me and I’m alive. You must be alive, too.” But Ken would have none of it. No matter how many logical proofs the doctor presented, Ken insisted that he was, in fact, dead.

Finally, the doctor hit upon a plan. He asked Ken, “Would you agree that dead men don’t bleed? That only people who are alive bleed?” Ken thought about that and said, “Yes. Dead people don’t bleed.” At that, the resident triumphantly pulled out a straight pin and jabbed one of Ken’s index fingers. Ken looked at the blood on his finger. “There, you see?” the doctor asked. “I sure do,” Ken said excitedly. “Dead people do bleed!”

Sometimes people, even people who aren’t delusional, find it difficult to see facts. Often, we have to see something many times before we even notice it.

This Epiphany season is a time when we remember the many signs that demonstrate that in Jesus Christ, we meet more than just a human being. He’s also God and the long-promised Savior-King.

God has gone out of His way to show us repeatedly Who Jesus and our need of Him. Two weeks ago, we looked at Jesus’ baptism and at how God the Father had set Jesus apart from all the others baptized by His cousin, John, that day. Last week, we remembered how Jesus turned water into wine at a wedding.

But the sign in today’s Bible lesson is very different from those miraculous, otherworldly events. It comes in the form of a visit home, the reading of a Bible lesson in worship, and a simple, yet forceful statement of fact about Jesus' ministry.

After being baptized and then propelled by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted, Jesus apparently had done some teaching and healing. Already all of Galilee, the region of Judea in which He lived, was abuzz with word about Him. When word reached Nazareth that Jesus was on His way, the hometown folks were understandably excited. Luke tells us:

When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor." And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. Then he began to say to them, "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

The words that Jesus read in worship that day were from the Old Testament prophet Isaiah. You can read them today, in chapters 58 and 61 of that book. Jesus is telling His fellow Jews at Nazareth--and all of us--that He is the anointed king (that’s what the word Messiah means, basically, Anointed One) sent by the Spirit to usher in the reign of God.

And to prove it, Jesus asks the Nazarenes--and us--to consider the signs He does:

• He proclaims good news to poor people;
• He sets captives free;
• He lets the blind see; and
• He springs the oppressed from whatever is imprisoning them.

In what must have been a moment of high, yet silent, drama, Jesus sat down and then told His townspeople--and us--"Today, right at this moment, in your hearing, this has all taken place.”

Next week’s lesson will explore the reactions of the Nazarenes to Jesus’ claim. But today, I want to talk about what we see in the signs Jesus talks about. This is important because, Jesus later made the stunning claim that in His Name, His Church will do the works that He does and, He said, even greater works. And in the list of signs Jesus provides, there are...
no miracles of loaves and fishes,
no thunderstrikes from heaven,
just the tough love of God meeting real people in their everyday lives.

These are signs of His love and of His kingdom that God wants to perform through you and me.

When we do them, the world will see Christ in us, others will come to follow Christ, and you and I will find our faith deepened.

So, what can we do?

First of all, we can set the captives free. The word that Jesus uses for free here, aphesis, is the same word He uses for forgiveness. It literally means release.

We Christ-followers are meant to show others that Christ can release them from their bondage to sin, to fear.

We often can do that in simple acts of kindness and consideration. “Carl Coleman was driving to work one morning when he bumped fenders with another motorist. Both cars stopped, and the woman driving the other car got out to survey the damage. She was distraught. It was her fault, she admitted, and hers was a new car, less than two days from the showroom. She dreaded facing her husband. Coleman was sympathetic, but he had to pursue the exchange of license and registration data. She reached into her glove compartment to retrieve the documents which were in an envelope. On the first paper to tumble out, written in her husband's distinctive hand, were these words: 'In case of accident, remember, Honey, it's you I love, not the car.'” Imagine the sense of release that woman felt. Imagine the freedom we all could give one another if we extended kindness and forbearance to those we love.

In coming weeks, our Outreach chairperson, Carol, is going to announce not only kindness outreaches in which you can be involved with others in the congregation, but also small outreaches that you or your family and friends can do yourselves.

Kindness rendered in the Name of Jesus Christ frees people of their fears of God, of their misapprehensions that God doesn’t care for them, of their beliefs that they’re not good enough for God.

Kindness sets people free to turn to Jesus for new life. You and I can give that kindness away! The Bible teaches that it’s the kindness of God is meant to cause people to repent--that is, to turn from their sin--and follow Christ. We’re to be instruments of Christ’s kindness!

We can also make the poor a priority. The poor were certainly a priority for Jesus and they are for God. When Jesus was born, He wasn’t entrusted to wealthy people. He was born into poverty. His mother saw this as being especially fitting. Remember how, in the words she spoke to her relative, Elizabeth, Mary said, “He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.”

Jesus’ people, grateful for the free gifts of forgiveness and everlasting life, are called to lives of service in Jesus’ Name. Service of poor is part of that.

Next Sunday night, we will hold a potluck here at Friendship. It starts at 5:00. I hope that every member will be here. The purpose is to meet the Higgins family, for whom and with whom Friendship and others in our area will be building a home in New Richmond. For the Higginses, the building of a new home for them, constructed in Jesus’ Name, will be very good news, a sign of the goodness and the love of the God we know through Jesus Christ. Even if, like me, you suffer from two left hands, you can be a part of this Habitat for Humanity build. You can share good news with the poor!

We can declare the year of the Lord’s favor. What does that mean? The Old Testament book of Leviticus said that every fifty years in Israel, all debts were to be forgiven, all land restored to its original owners or their heirs, all slaves were to be set free. It was called the Jubilee year.

Jesus is saying that He’s come to forgive all debts and all sins. The phrase, “the Lord’s favor” means exactly what I tell you folks all the time, “God is for us.”

I find that this is a message of which the world never tires. This past week, as some of you may know, I met with a professional man in our community on church business. I’ve known this guy for years and as we were wrapping up, I put my arm on his shoulder and told him, “You know, the welcome mat is always out for you at Friendship.” He smiled and said, “I like your style.”

Well, I don’t know if I have any style. But I do know that what I wanted to convey to that man and to all people is God’s favor, that God is for them, and that God wants to deepen His relationship with them through the fellowship of a caring church family. Whatever your style, you can convey the same message to the people in your life.

When Jesus went to worship with the people of His hometown, He told them that they could know He was their Messiah because...

• He set people free through His love,
• He made the poor His priority, and
• He showed them that God was for them.

In His Name, you and I can do the same things today, showing people who might feel distant from God and isolated from others that their loving God was there all along.

[THANKS TO: Bruce Armstrong of Ordinary Everyday Christian for linking to this post. And thank you, Bruce, for the kind words.]

Third Pass at This Weekend's Bible Lesson: Luke 4:14-21

[To see the first pass--along with an explanation of what these "passes" are all about--go here. The second pass is here.]

Verse-by-Verse Comments [continued]
18“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, 19to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
(1) Here, Jesus quotes from two passages in Isaiah, 61:1 and 58:6. Interestingly, in recounting this incident, Luke uses the Greek Septuagint version of the Old Testament and not the Hebrew. (For more on the Septuagint, see here.)

(2) The reference to the anointing of the Spirit harks back to Jesus' baptism, Luke 3:22.

(3) Luke particularly focuses on Jesus being good news for the poor. Mary's words to her relative, Elizabeth, called the Magnificat, contain this theme:

“My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name. His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty. He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever.” (Luke 1:46-55)

In fact, according The New Interpreter's Bible (NIB), Jesus is cited mentioning the poor more in Luke than any of the other Gospels. Check out: 6:20; 7:22; 14:13, 21; 16:20, 22; 18:22; 21:3.

(4) NIB points out that this is the only place in Luke's Gospel where the term captives is used. But the word connected to it here shows that Luke has more in mind than the release of those imprisoned by authorities. The word? Aphesis, meaning release, the same term used throughout Luke's two books--Luke and Acts--for forgiveness. As NIB also says:

Forgiveness of sin...may be seen as a form of release from bondage to iniquity (Acts 8:22-23)."

Lutheran composer John Ylvisaker talks about this notion of forgiveness as release in his wonderful song, Sweet Release. (If you don't know about John Ylvisaker, find out now.)

(5) Of course, Jesus will literally give sight to the blind, a sign of the coming of God's kingdom, according to Isaiah (Isaiah 35:5; 42:6-7). But more than that, He makes it possible for us to see our sin and our need of a Savior.

(6) The year of the Lord's favor is an apparent reference to the Old Testament Jubilee, as described in Leviticus 25. It too, involved a kind of release, a year during which debts were to be forgiven. Jesus seems to see the year of the Lord's favor as being associated with Him.

(7) In sum, Jesus defines His ministry at its outset, a ministry that ushers in the Kingdom of God, though He doesn't use that phrase here, all the signs of which point to Him as Messiah and to His reign. Jesus' kingdom sets out to redeem the whole person and the whole world.

20And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him.
(1) This must have been a moment of high drama. There had been so much buzz about Jesus. Now that He had read from the scroll of the prophet Isaiah, they had to wonder what He would say. As indicated earlier, the custom was that the reading would be done from a standing position and the teaching from a seated position.

21Then he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”
(1) God's kingdom is now, was Jesus' simple, incredible message. It takes a moment for that message to sink in for Jesus' hearers. When it does...Well, that's a story for next week.

Second Pass at This Weekend's Bible Lesson: Luke 4:14-21

[To see the first "pass" and to understand what this is all about, go here.]

Verse-by-Verse Comments:
14Then Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee, and a report about him spread through all the surrounding country.
(1) Jesus' hometown, Nazareth, is in the region of Galilee, the area near the Sea of Galilee. In fact, this verse kicks off a large section of Luke's Gospel, running to Luke 9:50. In this section, we read about Jesus' ministry, all except for a few incidents recounted occurring in Galilee. Luke 9:51 begins a huge section of narrative, moving toward Jesus' passion and resurrection in Jerusalem, a section in which we're told at the outset, Jesus had His "face set" toward the holy city.

(2) In Luke's telling of both Jesus' life, death, and resurrection (the Gospel of Luke) and in his later telling of the history of the early Church (the book of Acts), it's always the Spirit Who empowers ministry. Jesus, fresh from baptism and subsequent temptation, comes to His hometown "filled with the power of the Spirit." (In Luke, check out 3:16; 22; 4:1; 36; 5:17; 6:19; 8:46; 9:1.

(3) Already apparently, Jesus has some degree of fame and everybody has heard about His exploits.

15He began to teach in their synagogues and was praised by everyone.
(1) Jesus' teaching evokes applause from the folks at other synagogues in Galilee.

(2) According to The New Interpreter's Bible, three other times in Galilee, people praised God for Jesus' disclosure of Himself as Messiah: 5:25. 26; 7:16. So, this fits in.

16When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read,
(1) It was common for visitors to worship to be asked to help with the readings and the prayers. This is probably how Jesus came to read from the scroll of the prophet Isaiah.

(2) Several sources say that the typical worship liturgy of the time isn't known exactly, but would probably be composed of the following elements:

• The Shema
• Recitation of the Ten Commandments (Decalogue)
• The Eighteen Benedictions
• The Reading of Scripture
• The Psalms
• The Exposition (sermon or message)
• The Blessing

(3) One of the themes of Luke's two books, Luke and Acts, is that Jesus does not supplant Old Testament tradition, He fulfills it. Here, Luke underscores this theme by pointing out that Jesus went to the synagogue customarily.

(4) Typically in worship, a person would read standing, but teaching was done from a seated position. This latter tradition is maintained in Roman Catholic circles when the Pope and the bishops deliver their teachings from a seat. (This is called ex cathedra.)

17and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:
(1) An attendant would have given Jesus the scroll. But evidently, it was up to Jesus to decide what passages He would read from Isaiah.

According to NIB, by Jesus' time, "a fixed triennial cycle of readings from the Torah [the first five books of our Old Testament]..." was used in worship. But it isn't known if there were fixed readings from the prophetic books or not. Many scholars believe that which prophetic books were read was totally at the discretion of the reader.

(2) Assuming Jesus selected the passages read, He did so with great care. As NIB points out, the scene at Nazareth "functions as a keynote to the entire ministry of Jesus, setting forth the perspective from which it is to be understood."

I hope to finish these verse-by-verse comments tomorrow.

First Pass at This Weekend's Bible Lesson: Luke 4:14-21

[Most weeks, I present as many updates on my reflections and study of the Biblical texts on which our weekend worship celebrations will be built as I can. The purpose is to help the people of the congregation I serve as pastor, Friendship Lutheran Church of Amelia, Ohio, get ready for worship. Hopefully, it's helpful to others as well, since our Bible lesson is usually one from the weekly lectionary, variations of which are used in most of the churches of the world.]

The Bible Lesson: Luke 4:14-21
14Then Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee, and a report about him spread through all the surrounding country. 15He began to teach in their synagogues and was praised by everyone. 16When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, 17and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written: 18“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, 19to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” 20And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. 21Then he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

General Comments
1. We continue, on this Third Weekend after Epiphany, to look at signs given that Jesus, Whose birth we celebrate from December 25 to January 5 each year, is more than a human being of lowly birth, but also the promised Messiah King (the Christ) and God in human flesh. This, if course, is the theme of the Epiphany season. (See here, here, here, and here.)

2. We're in what's known as Cycle C of the three-year plan of Bible lessons called the lectionary, explained here. Throughout this year, most of the Gospel lessons will be drawn from Luke. (Cycle A revolves around Matthew and Cycle B, around Mark. John doesn't get his own year. But because Mark is so short, a lot of John's Gospel shows up in the Mark year. John's Gospel also makes appearances elsewhere in the lectionary cycle, as we saw last weekend and on Christmas Eve.) This weekend's lesson is from Luke, of course.

3. When we think of Biblical signs, we're apt to imagine miraculous events. In fact, over the past two weekends, we've remembered signs that were miraculous: the declaration of Jesus' deity by a voice from heaven at His Baptism two weeks ago and Jesus' turning water into wine during a wedding at Cana last week. But what's the sign here?

One sign for certain is Jesus' overt declaration of Himself as the prophecy from Isaiah of a Messiah, an anointed king from God who would set things right.

Another, also evident in that section of Isaiah's book that deals with the "suffering servant," is that of a king who would die for his people, though rejected by them.

In Nazareth, very literally and specifically, we see what John talks about in the prologue to his Gospel:

He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. (John 1:10-11)

Of course, John is speaking globally: the whole world, Jew and Gentile, spurned, rejected, and killed Jesus. But you might say that the spurning of Jesus by the people of Nazareth is an early warning sign of what the whole known world soon would do. As we proceed through the Epiphany season, for all its faith-stirring signals that Jesus is God and Savior, we also pick up increasingly the scents of Good Friday and Jesus' death.

But all isn't hopeless for us. As John goes on to write in that prologue:

But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God. (John 1:12-13)

4. One of the key principles for understanding any given passage of Scripture, as I've written many times before, is to pay heed to the context in which the passage appears. Context lends accessibility to content.

Notice where the incident in this weekend's Bible lesson falls. Immediately preceding it, Jesus was baptized (and affirmed by God's voice), only to be driven into the wilderness where He is tempted by the devil. Immediately following, Jesus travels to Capernaum where He will cast demons out of a man---only after the demons proclaim Jesus "the Holy One of God," something the people of Nazareth would have been loathe to call Jesus. Then, we're told that people marveled at His power and were abuzz about Him.

What does this context tell us about our lesson for this weekend? Several things, I think:

• It establishes that when Jesus moves to call people away from sin and to repentance and new life with God through faith in Him, He will encounter opposition, from the devil and from the world.
• It establishes that opposition to Jesus, though veiled in religious piety, is really about repudiating God's authority, living not in the freedom that Christ gives us to become our true, God-designed selves, but in the license of self-worship. Later in this Gospel, Jesus will encounter a man filled with demons and He will send them into a nearby herd of pigs. The pigs will run pell mell over a cliff. The people of the region ask Jesus to go away. They will rather live in the slop of evil and the devil than be cleansed of their sins. They stand in contrast to the boy in Jesus' story, the prodigal son, also told in this Gospel, who, lying in the slop with the pigs, sickened by his sin, turns away from evil, and turns in repentance to his father. (Remember that Jesus and His fellow Jews considered the pig to be a filthy animal and wouldn't eat any of its meat.)
• It establishes that Jesus doesn't force faith onto any of us. We must look at the signs, including Jesus' death and resurrection, and decide for ourselves whether to let Christ be our Lord. This too is a recurring theme of Luke's Gospel.

More tomorrow, I hope.