The Life of Christ in the Synoptic Gospels
THE VISIT TO NAZARETH
The Life of Christ in the Synoptic Gospels
THE VISIT TO NAZARETH
Lesson Plan:
1. Jesus Preaches the Gospel in His Childhood Home (vs 16, 17)
2. His Message to Them (vs 16-22)
3. How This Gospel Is Fulfilled Today
4. How His Message Was Received At Nazareth (vs 22-27)
5. Jesus Rejected (vs 28-30)
Lesson Setting:
Time: Probably early in 29 A.D., a few weeks after the last lesson.
The Three Accounts: The story given in Luke is probably the report of the same event as that
described in Matthew 13:54-58 and Mark 6:1-6.
Place: Nazareth, the home of Jesus during His childhood and youth.
Research Thoughts: The three accounts – Were there two rejections or only one? Why did Jesus wait so long before presenting His Gospel to His Nazareth friends? The Gospel in Isaiah. Why Jesus stopped His quotation where He did. A study of Jesus’ method of preaching. How these prophecies were fulfilled in Jesus. The liberty of the Gospel. The effect of the Gospel upon the poor.
Introduction: The Three Records – This account of Jesus’ visit to His Nazareth home stands in Luke seemingly at the beginning of the Galilean Ministry in April, 28 A.D., while a similar visit and rejection are recorded by Matthew (13:54-58) and Mark (6:1-6) several months later, early in 29 A.D. Thus in most of the Harmonies of the Life of Christ, there are two visits instead of one. But the strong probability is that all three Gospels are recording the same event. Not the slightest statement in one is inconsistent with the others. Luke 4:23 implies that Jesus had been performing miracles at Capernaum before He went to Nazareth. The date of all three accounts would be soon after our last lesson, as given in Matthew and Mark; and the account in Luke would be a sort of text to His story of the Galilean ministry, relating the episode at the beginning of the account of the Galilean ministry as a striking and appropriate example of the method of His synagogue preaching. We have taken this view, thus the reason for placing this lesson from the early part of Luke at this point in our study.
Scripture Reading: Luke 4:16, 17
1. Jesus Preaches the Gospel in His Childhood Home
There, a few weeks following the miracles of our last lesson during which there is no record of His deeds, He made a tour of Galilee with His disciples “and he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up” (v 16). It was only two years since He had left Nazareth and almost everybody, young and old, must have known this bright, sincere, trustworthy young carpenter who had lived for 28 years among them, and done such good work for them, perhaps working as a carpenter in some of their homes. His character must have attracted them. His family and relations were still in Nazareth. Why Jesus went to Nazareth: (a) His heart must have yearned for His kindred and the friends of His youth; for it is recorded that “neither did his brethren believe in him” (Jn. 7:5). The true Christian, like his Master, cares most anxiously for the salvation of his friends and kindred at home. (b) Till He was well known it was hardly to be expected that His old acquaintances could realize that He was really a great prophet, and the Messiah, but now “the whole land is aflame with the report of his wonderful works and teaching.” There was hope that all this might influence them to listen to Him.
Illustration: The story is told of a younger member of Congress who argued from his knowledge of human nature, that ‘the study of times, seasons and opportunities of putting forward anything is almost as requisite as study about the thing itself. If I cared for any reform very much, and if it had to be advocated in Congress, I would not, with my present knowledge of the world, as a young member, bring that subject prominently forward, especially if it were one distasteful to the public, but would seek to gain force and reputation in other ways, and hide my time as regards the reform I had most at heart.’
Scripture Reading: Luke 4:16-22
2. His Message to Them
“Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee. Thy people also shall be all righteous; they shall inherit the land forever” (Is. 60:1, 21).
v 16 ... “And, as his custom was.” Jesus was a regular attendant at Sabbath services, even though there were some things taught there of which He did not approve.
v 16 ... “He went into the synagogue,” their regular place of worship “on the sabbath day.” Imagine His emotions when entering again the simple little synagogue, no doubt full of boyish memories, perhaps setting down in the seat He once occupied. Imagine the curiosity (not altogether friendly) of those in attendance. Can you imagine the rustle of awakened attention when He rose in His place to indicate that He desired to take the part of reader of the lesson from the Prophets? Note: Jesus came accompanied by His disciples, not as a private visitor, but as one with a mission to fulfill, and He took the first opportunity of delivering His message.
v 16 ... “And stood up for to read.” The usual attitude in reading; either as requested by the president, or his own accord as a now well-known teacher.
v 17 ... “And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias,” Greek form of Isaiah. No more congenial book than Isaiah could have been placed in his hand; in the form of a roll.
v 17 ... “He found the place.” By choice, or in due course. ‘The choice’ would be characteristic; ‘the order of the day’ would be providential, as giving Jesus just the text He would delight to speak from.
v 17 ... “Where it was written” in Isaiah 61:1, 2, a free translation of the Greek Septuagint Version in common use at the time; or it may be, as the Expositor’s Greek Testament suggests, an Aramaic translation, that is a modified Hebrew, the language of the common people of Palestine.
v 18 ... “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me.” The message is from God, not merely a man’s ideal or dream. Therefore, God is behind it with power to accomplish what He promises.
v 18 ... “Because he hath anointed me.” Set Me apart for this work, as priests and kings were set apart to their office by anointing. It indicates also the endowment of the person anointed with the gifts and abilities fitted for His work (Heb. 1:9).
v 18 ... “To preach the gospel (R.V. ‘good tidings’), to the poor,” afflicted with every kind of poverty, i.e., worldly goods, health, opportunity; and still more to the spiritually poor, i.e., virtue, hope, true life, comfort, and character. Jesus brings supplies for every need; living water for every thirst; heavenly food for every hunger; help for every trouble, riches of grace, of comfort, of peace for all poverty.
v 18 ... “To heal the brokenhearted,” depressed, discouraged, despairing, hopeless, because the spirit itself is weakened and lifeless. Those overwhelmed by calamity, by the consciousness of sin, from which they see no way of escape.
v 18 ... “To preach” (R.V. ‘proclaim’), to herald, to proclaim aloud to all; a different word from ‘preach’ in the first part of the verse.
v 18 ... “Deliverance to the captives.” Literally, those conquered by the spear-point, prisoners of war. Compare, “To bring out captives from the prison, and those who sit in darkness from the house of restraint” (Is. 42:7). The allusion is to Israel, both as captive exiles and prisoners of Satan in spiritual bondage. Captives of war, of oppression, of circumstances, caught in the toils of evil men, unable to escape because of poverty or sickness. The captives of sin and Satan, the slaves of intemperance, passion, vice, habit, worldliness, and fashion. He that committeth sin is the bon-slave of sin (Jn. 8:34).
v 18 ... “Recovering of sight to the blind.” There are three kinds of blindness: Blindness of the body; Mental blindness, i.e., ignorance, low ideals, narrow outlook, failure to know what is wise and best for this life; and Moral blindness, i.e., ignorance of God, righteousness, heaven, the possibilities of the soul, and of highest hopes and joys of true life.
v 18 ... “To set at liberty them that are bruised.” This thought comes from another part of Isaiah (58:6), but belongs to the prophet’s words, and is a part of the longer passage which Jesus no doubt read, of which the words recorded by Luke are the real text of Jesus’ discourse. Bruised refers to those who are shattered in fortune, and broken in spirit. The Gospel is the good tidings of liberty, the glorious liberty of the children of God. It is the Gospel only that can give full liberty. No one is really free who does not live according to its principles, filed with its spirit and life. The slavery of sin is illustrated by Shakespeare’s Richard III and Macbeth. The sinner is not free because he is compelled to bear the consequences of sin again his will. Lady Macbeth still washes her hands in vain, for “all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand.” “Dream not of freedom while under the mastery of your desires” (Plato).
v 19 ... “To preach (herald or proclaim, same as the second preach in v 18) the acceptable year of the Lord.” The year or era in which God has been pleased, for the best of reasons, to bring these blessings to the people. God’s chosen opportunity had come. The best illustration of what these words meant for the people in the time of Christ, and for us, comes from a picture of the times when these words were first spoken five hundred years before Christ. The Jews had been in exile from their home and country for nearly seventy years. They suffered many hardships. They were broken-hearted, bruised, and blind. At last “the acceptable year of the Lord” had come. How did it come? It came first through their learning the lessons God was teaching them. They were cleansed from idolatry. They learned the value of the Word of God, of God manifest. They were bound together as a nation. Then came the providential opportunity through a change of rulers in Babylon. The acceptable year had come; and they started for home with a burst of joy such as has no parallel in Scripture, the Revival, Second Birth, and Second Exodus of the Jewish nation.
v 20 ... “And he closed the book.” By rolling up the roll. Notice how the quotation stops when it comes to the fearful sentence, “and the day of vengeance of our God.” The time for that had not yet come. If they believed and obeyed, it would never come. He appealed to that which was highest and best in them. It was not until this highest appeal had failed to reach their hearts, that Jesus warned the Jewish leaders with the “Woes” that must certainly come, every word of which was a thunderbolt.
v 21 ... “This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.” That is, those prophecies, fulfilled in a measure to your fathers, are now to have their fuller, larger, and more glorious fulfillment. I Myself am the Messiah, through whom these promises shall be realized. The year of jubilee has come. This verse expresses the substance of what Jesus said to the audience before Him.
3. How This Gospel Is Fulfilled Today
In the first place, the words are to be taken literally. The Gospel is actually in the world, and has been ever since Jesus came, making the world a better and happier place in which to live. It has removed disease, suffering, oppression, and wrongs. It has brought in brotherly love, and general human welfare, educational opportunities, schools, libraries, hospitals, means of travel, comfortable homes, more than any other power the world has known. Imperfect as yet, but infinitely beyond any other part of the world that has not felt the power of Christ’s Gospel. In the second place, this has been done in the only possible way, making men better in heart. There is no way of making the world better than by new hearts that seek first the kingdom of heaven and its righteousness. Save the soul and then the body can be saved. You can make a perfect world outwardly only as fast and as far as men are filled with diving love, and grown into the heavenly character.
Scripture Reading: Luke 4:22-27
4. How His Message Was Received At Nazareth
v 22 ... “All bare ... witness.” There was a general agreement as to “the gracious words” (literally, the words of grace) of Jesus. His promises were beautiful; the visions He presented were entrancing; His application of the Scriptures most comforting. To some these feelings were no doubt sincere and deep. The words of grace found lodgment in their hearts. But, after thinking it over, they began to say ...
v 22 ... “is not this Joseph’s son?” The question is given more fully in Matthew. “Is not this the carpenter’s son? Is not his mother called Mary? and his brethren, James, and Joses (Joseph), and Simon, and Judas? And his sisters are they not all with us? Whence then hath this man all these things?” It seemed absurd that a common man, whose relatives were ordinary people and showed no special talent or power, a carpenter who had made furniture for their houses, a man brought up in a common way, without education, without rank, without wealth. Could this man be the glorious King, the Wonderful, the Counselor, the Prince of Peace, the Deliver of the Jews and the Renovator of the world?
v 23 ... “Ye will surely say.” For He saw the taunt in their hearts, even if it had not been murmured.
v 23 ... “Physician, heal thyself.” Do for yourself what you have promised to others. Show in your own person the powers and glories you say belong to the Messiah. You can do it here, right now, by working miracles as “we have heard done in Capernaum.” But Jesus never worked a miracle merely to show His power; and He could not without destroying the very purpose of His miracles, which was to express the loving kindness of the Heavenly Father, thus proving that He was the Son of God. It would be like a man making a big gift to some poor man merely to show his own benevolence, and not to help the poor man. It would only show that he was a hypocrite like the Pharisees whom Jesus condemned.
v 24 ... “No prophet is accepted in his own country.” A general truth, the statement of a common experience. No matter what Jesus should do there, they would not accept Him. Greatness is often an invisible quality, manifested on special occasions, and, hence, not realized in ordinary circumstances. Just as it would be difficult to recognize a great genius or general, if clothed in beggars’ rags, or in an inferior body. In such a way the people of Nazareth did not recognize the Son of God in the familiar guise of a Galilean – a carpenter’s son. Christians should never be discouraged because of rejection, but remain open-eyed to see the real Prophet of Truth, in whatever guise He comes.
vs 25-27 ... “But I tell you a truth.” The two incidents (from the Old Testament) that follow were given to show that Jesus acted exactly like the prophets they revered, when He did in Capernaum what He did not do for them. However, He quietly healed a few sick (Mark) who came for help.
Scripture Reading: Luke 4:28-30
5. Jesus Rejected
v 28 ... “And all they in the synagogue ... were filled with wrath.” The tense (‘dorist’) implies a sudden outburst. The implication that they were not worthy of having miracles done for them, the assumption of conscious superiority, was “the climax of all that was intolerable to them as coming from a fellow-townsman whom they wished to rank among themselves; and at these words their long-suppressed fury burst into a flame. The speaker was no longer interrupted by a murmur of disapprobation, but by a roar of wrath” (Farrar).
v 29 ... “They thrust him out,” expelled, compelled Him with force.
v 29 ... “Led him unto the brow of the hill.” Nazareth was not built upon the brow of the hill, but on its side, and the brow is not beneath but over the town, and Jesus was led up the hill behind Nazareth where there is a brow of a cliff in the abrupt face of a limestone rock 30 or 40 feet high overhanging the Maronite covent at the southwest corner of the town.
v 29 ... “Might cast him down headlong.” Compare the Tarpeian rock at Rome, from which the Roman mob cast unpopular people.
v 30 ... “But he passed through the midst of them.” Was this miraculous? Some think that He passed through the group of infuriated people with a majesty which overawed them, not by a miracle. What do you think? Compare the soldiers at the betrayal of Jesus, how, when “he said unto them, ‘I am he,’ they went backward, and fell to the ground” (Jn. 18:6). Thus the people of Nazareth threw away their opportunity, and rejected themselves by rejecting Jesus. Over them, and over all who reject Jesus, He weeps as He did over Jerusalem: “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!” “He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart” (David, Ps. 91:4).
Illustration: The Shadow of His Wings – An article in National Geographic a few years ago provided a penetrating picture of Jesus gathering us, like a hen gathers her chicks, under His wings. “After a forest fire in Yellowstone National Park, forest rangers began their trek up a mountain to assess the inferno’s damage. One ranger found a bird literally petrified in ashes, perched statuesquely on the ground at the base of a tree. Somewhat sickened by the eerie sight, he knocked over the bird with a stick. When he struck it, three tiny chicks scurried from under their dead mother’s wings. The loving mother, keenly aware of impending disaster, had carried her offspring to the base of the tree and had gathered them under her wings, instinctively knowing that the toxic smoke would rise. She could have flown to safety but had refused to abandon her babies. When the blaze had arrived and the heat has singed her small body, the mother had remained steadfast. Because she had been willing to die, those under the cover of her wings would live.” And because Jesus was willing to die for us, all who dwell “under the shadow of His wings” will also live forever.
