Mount Precipice

The enraged audience jumped up and dragged Jesus out of the city. During the service in the synagogue, he had read a Bible passage from the Book of Isaiah about God’s coming salvation. Jesus suggested that the salvation could not be meant for the people listening to him at that moment. Filled with indignation, they dragged him to the precipice, wanting to throw him down. But Jesus simply turned and walked straight through the crowd without anyone keeping him from leaving.

This incident says a lot about Jesus. His sermon was the first one he preached in his hometown of Nazareth. The text he picked for the occasion said, “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free.” That is his mission: to set people free. His walking away without anyone hindering him shows the quiet authority he must have exuded. Some of the people might have already started to wonder whether he could really be the one God had sent.

Bible Passage: Luke 4:16-30
He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written: ‘The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.’ Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. He began by saying to them, ‘Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.’ All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his lips. ‘Isn’t this Joseph’s son?’ they asked. Jesus said to them, ‘Surely you will quote this proverb to me: “Physician, heal yourself!” And you will tell me, “Do here in your home town what we have heard that you did in Capernaum.” ’ ‘Truly I tell you,’ he continued, ‘no prophet is accepted in his home town. I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon. And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed – only Naaman the Syrian.’ All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. They got up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him off the cliff. But he walked right through the crowd and went on his way.

Reflection: What do you think about Jesus? What do you admire about him? What relationship do you have with him?