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From Jesus to Christ - February 25, 2007

From Jesus to Christ

Luke 4:16-30

February 25, 2007

Rev. Dave R. Garwick

Last week we talked about the last thing tat Jesus experienced BEFORE He began His public ministry.  Today we look at the first official thing He did in starting that ministry - kind of his Grand Opening.  This is the starting gun that began His three year race to the cross.  Today also happens to be the First Sunday in Lent, which is the run-up to Holy Week, the cross of Good Friday and the resurrection of Easter morning.

It all began with one fateful act on Jesus' part:  He identified who He really was.  Publicly.  Now, there had been other public times that Jesus was identified as something godly special, but we have no idea that the public itself actually witnessed these things.  There was that visit of the Wise Men...but other than them no one else seemed to catch on to whom this kid really was.  And then, shortly ago, Jesus had been baptized in front of everyone in the Jordan and there had been a voice from heaven declaring that Jesus was the beloved Son of God.  But again, there is no evidence that anyone else heard this or got the idea.

THIS time however, Jesus is flat out telling people who He REALLY is.  And better yet, He is making this debut in His home congregation.  These people had known Him all His life.  They had know Him as "Josh," the son of Joseph the carpenter and his wife Mary.  He was such a nice young man - everyone spoke so well of Him.  He was regularly at worship.  He had been doing this at least since He was twelve years old:  remember how His folks had lost track of Him and where did they find Him but in the Temple listening to the elders?  A little aside here:  I figure that if it was JESUS' custom to be worshiping regularly in church, then who are we to do less? 

Any rate, on this particular Sabbath, the guy they know as Josh apparently is the lector.  So He reads a lesson from the Old Testament book of Deuteronomy.  Long ago that prophet mysteriously heard the words of the yet-to-come Messiah:  "The Spirit of the Lord is on Me, because He has anointed Me to preach good news to the poor."  All Jews had been waiting - in fact they are still waiting - for the arrival of the Messiah who would be anointed by God because Messiah means "anointed one."  "The Spirit of the Lord is on Me, because He has ANOINTED Me to preach good news to the poor."  And THAT Messiah would be the one to set everything straight.

So "Josh" reads that ancient prophecy and then puts down the scroll and looks right at the people and says, "Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing."  In other words, He was saying 'I am that guy.  I am the Messiah.'

Now there is a part of me that thinks, "Gee, those folks had it easy.  I wish God could be as clear and direct with us."  No questions.  No confusion.  None of this business about having to believe by faith alone, without seeing.  God just walks right in and says, "Here I am folks!"

But apparently this did not go down as easy as it might appear to us.  First off, the people were understandably a little confuse:  "Isn't this just Josh whom we've seen grow up?  HE is the Messiah?!  I never saw anything THAT unusual about Him."

And then their confusion becomes anger when they take as an insult Jesus' remark that God sometimes reveals Himself most specially among outsiders.  They took that as unpatriotic.  Now they wanted to kill Him!

This incident is so very important to us for a least a couple reasons.  First off, this is perhaps the clearest evidence that Jesus really IS the Messiah.  This is where He himself said so.  Our only real chance of happiness beyond the grave is trusting that Jesus IS the Christ which means Messiah, which means "the anointed one".  But the way we are trained to think in this world and the competing claims of other faiths threatens to melt that trust as fast as hot water on snow.  One way or another it always seems to come down to the very same things that eroded the faith of Doubting Thomas who had such trouble believing what he could not see.  That is why it is so important to remember how Jesus opened His ministry - by saying that He WAS the anointed one, the Messiah.

Here is the second reason why it is so important to know about this incident.  It was His very own people who were most familiar with Him who could not accept Him as the Messiah.  Most of US have been around Jesus too long to be all that excited by Him.  At one level that is totally natural:  most older couples who have a very deep love for each other nevertheless do not get excited by each other like they did when the first dated.  So it makes total sense that genuine love for Jesus really would look less intense for the lifetime believer than for the new Christian.

But in the case of Jesus' neighbors, their familiarity with Him led to something else, something that each of us needs to look out for.  They had become so familiar with Jesus, that they could not receive Him as their Christ, their Messiah, the one anointed by the Father to bridge this temporary earthly realm with the permanent heavenly one.  We all know about Jesus, but the question is:  do we trust Him as our Lord and our Savior?

What I mean is, we know things ABOUT Jesus:  He was born in Bethlehem, He grew up in Nazareth, He was the son of Joseph and Mary.  Well, His neighbors all knew THAT.  But the Bible says that because His neighbors did not trust Him as the Messiah, He was "not able to do many miracles there".  Imagine that!  The Son of God, through whom all things were made in heaven and on earth, all things visible and invisible, was "not able' (?!!) to do many miracles there because of their unwillingness to trust Him?!!?

We however have something going for us that His neighbors did not have.  We have seen Him suffer and die in order to save our lives.  We have seen Him rise from the dead.  We have been joined to Him at the soul through Holy Baptism so that we have the right and the promise and the hope to inherit all that He has.  We have heard Him promise forgiveness of sins and eternal life for all who trust in Him.  And we have been given the gift of the Holy Spirit to guide us Home.

In short, we have Jesus not as our too familiar neighbor, but as Christ, the Messiah, our Lord and our Savior.

Amen.  May it be so.