Christian Art | Jesus Preaching In Nazareth
Luke 4: 16-30 – Week 22 Ordinary Time, Monday (Audio Bible KJV, Spoken Word)
16 ¶ And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up for to read.
17 And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written,
18 The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,
19 To preach the acceptable year of the Lord.
20 And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him.
21 And he began to say unto them, This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.
22 And all bare him witness, and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth. And they said, Is not this Joseph’s son?
23 And he said unto them, Ye will surely say unto me this proverb, Physician, heal thyself: whatsoever we have heard done in Capernaum, do also here in thy country.
24 And he said, Verily I say unto you, No prophet is accepted in his own country.
25 But I tell you of a truth, many widows were in Israel in the days of Elias, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, when great famine was throughout all the land;
26 But unto none of them was Elias sent, save unto Sarepta, a city of Sidon, unto a woman that was a widow.
27 And many lepers were in Israel in the time of Eliseus the prophet; and none of them was cleansed, saving Naaman the Syrian.
28 And all they in the synagogue, when they heard these things, were filled with wrath,
29 And rose up, and thrust him out of the city, and led him unto the brow of the hill whereon their city was built, that they might cast him down headlong.
30 But he passing through the midst of them went his way.
The three synoptic Gospels tell us of this episode of Jesus’ life, when he returned home to Nazareth and preached in the synagogue there. Luke’s Gospel gives us the text of Isaiah read by Jesus, in which Jesus’ announces his messianic mission – to bring the good news to the poor, to live and to identify with the poor, to heal us and set us at liberty from sin. As Jesus closes the book, he omits the following from Isaiah 61: 2: ‘…and the day of vengeance of our God.’ This is deliberate interruption. Jesus is not come to maintain old enmities. Jesus’ way is peace. It is the people of all the world who are to be blessed in Christ.
Jesus announces himself as the fulfilment of the prophecy. What follows may seem curious in Luke: ‘And all bare him witness, and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth.’ All speak well of Jesus. The people’s response is wonder. As they ask, ‘Is not this Joseph’s son?’ we may feel we empathize with this question, and see it as being of a piece with the wonder. Jesus’ next words might then seem very strange.
If we look to Matthew’s and Mark’s Gospels, we find slightly different accounts of this episode, which might help us to understand why Jesus speaks as he does. Matthew writes (Matthew 13):
54 And when he was come into his own country, he taught them in their synagogue, insomuch that they were astonished, and said, Whence hath this man this wisdom, and these mighty works?
55 Is not this the carpenter’s son? is not his mother called Mary? and his brethren, James, and Joses, and Simon, and Judas?
56 And his sisters, are they not all with us? Whence then hath this man all these things?
57 And they were offended in him.
We find, then, that wonder is here become astonishment, and the question, ‘Is not this Joseph’s son?’ is elaborated in order to seek to locate Jesus firmly and precisely within the known community, this very location within the known community thereby becoming a denial of Jesus and all he truly is, which utterly transcends what these people can know. This comes as a denial, on the part of the people, of the possibility of freedom, completion, redemption within the community. There is a denial of the potential for Jesus to be here, for absolute good to be realised and discovered within this community. It is as if we were to say: I know you, I know who and what you are, therefore I cannot see Jesus in you. This does not sound like a loving place we might want to be in.
Jesus speaks against those people of Nazareth now in the synagogue. He sees that the people of Nazareth will demand miracles too, this to satisfy their vanity, not to convert them and draw them closer to God. Jesus reproaches the people, speaking of the Old Testament prophets, who were sent by God not to the people of Israel but to foreigners. Jesus reminds the people of the hardness of heart so often evident in the history of the people of Israel, as they turned away from God, sinful, disobedient, hopelessly in error. The crowd now has that same hardness of heart, lacking in faith and humility, in love of God, and this in the synagogue, where they should praise God and not their own pride above all. The people’s anger is so extreme that they seek to kill Jesus. Jesus mysteriously passes through them – his time is not yet – leaving the people to their hatred and their drawing away.
Concluding Prayer
O Lord, you will not withhold
your compassion from me.
Your merciful love and your truth
will always guard me.
For I am beset with evils
too many to be counted.
My sins have fallen upon me
and my sight fails me.
They are more than the hairs of my head
and my heart sinks.
O Lord, come to my rescue,
Lord, come to my aid. (Psalm 39/40)
Saint Cyril’s exhortation to catechumens on the cusp of their baptism is both tender and trenchant—a passionate plea for authentic conversion and inward renewal. Saint Cyril’s language, though steeped in fourth-century catechetical formality, rings with timeless clarity: ‘Confess what you have done… if you confess at the acceptable time, you will receive the heavenly treasure.’ The stakes could not be higher, nor the invitation more generous [ … ]
Sometimes, when I read my Bible, I pause in the reading and say to myself: ‘This bit’s real.’ It would be fair to say, I have issues with Mary, because, contrary to what we are taught to say, Mary isn’t my mother. Rather: Mum is. One bit of the Bible-text says this: And when his family heard it, they went out to seize him, for people were saying, “He is beside himself.” … And his mother and his brothers came; and standing outside they sent to him and called him. And a crowd was sitting about him; and they said to him, “Your mother and your brothers are outside, asking for you.” And he replied, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” And looking around on those who sat about him, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother, and sister, and mother.” (Mark 3: 21; 31-35.) Here she comes. She is in considerable distress. I can imagine that. I can relate to that. To save her boy from whatever he’s got himself into this time. And you’re not telling me there isn’t something inside that. Her boy is beside himself. Radical. Radicalized. Radicalizing. A misunderstood word. /ˈradɪk(ə)l/ adjective & noun. 1 Forming the root, basis, or foundation; original, primary. 2a Inherent in the nature of a thing or person; fundamental. b Of action, change, an idea: going to the root or origin; far-reaching, thorough. c Advocating thorough or far-reaching change. d Characterized by departure from tradition; progressive; unorthodox. ‘He has a demon! And he is mad!’ – thus ‘the Jews’. (e.g. John 10: 20.) Come home! It’s all she wants. His family want him back now. But it is an exclusive cult: there is an inside and there is an outside; and on the outside, they are not meant to understand, lest they be converted. He has defined himself as different from anything she was. Only at the end does Jesus say to his Mum – and with savage, bitter irony: ‘Woman, behold your son.’ And then he dies. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. We ask that we might find Mary in our hearts as a Yes! place for Jesus. It is also recommended that we pray to Jesus that we may be further in oneness with Mary. It is self-emptying, such that we only exist insofar as we are responsive to God’s Word. * Last term, and put-out to pasture, the old Archbishop Emeritus came over to stay for a few days and did the odd class with us. He spoke of Yes! as the meaning of Mary’s virginity. And we were not very nice about him. One or two took umbrage. One or two got the hump. In a sense, his Grace, the Arch, basically wanted to move anyone he’d ever known from a high-place – a mountain – received theological ‘truth’ – to an imminent, human plane. Earthing the spiritual. Recalibrating metrics of life’s believability toward a spiritual sense of things. He might have asked the impermissible question: what happened? His Grace described it. God’s love as a cloud. This descended upon Mary – and subsumed her. Within the cloud, Mary capitulated utterly. She became only and purely a response to God’s love. As he spoke, the Arch cradled her. He carried her in his lap – in his hands. His Grace was a consecrated bishop. He was faith. He sat squat, a rounded man, hands cupped and ankles crossed, fingers interlocked, with parted thighs. Rumpled, washed, speckled. A lifetime’s skin… There could be no doubt His Grace spoke through long-term personal relationship with Mary. It was Julian went for him: ‘So are you saying Mary was a Virgin? Or are you not saying Mary was a Virgin?’ Nasty. No, it wasn’t pretty. Julian twisting his silver ring. For a moment, what Julian had said to the Arch simply failed to communicate. No, for a moment, that dumped on the air meant nothing. Then His Grace said: ‘There is a range of possible meanings we may understand in the question of Mary’s virginity. For example, there are understandings of the word virginity entailed in the action of giving birth.’ Julian said: ‘Duh! So had she had sex or hadn’t she?’ Trigger words. No, it wasn’t pretty. On that went for a little while. At length, Julian’s point seemed reluctantly conceded. Then the Arch told us a new story, an additionally human event, the more to baffle us. Controversially, he told us that Mary could not have been Joseph’s first wife, for this would not have been the way of things in the society of that time. His belief was that Joseph must have taken Mary into his household through pity. That would be normal, he said, for Joseph to bring a young, vulnerable girl, who is about to have a baby, within his protection, not meaning to enjoy with her marital relations, but through kindness. ‘And this story of the inn and stable,’ the Archbishop said, ‘it can’t have been like that really. Joseph has travelled with Mary to stay with his family, at home in Bethlehem, and they don’t want Mary in their house, for reasons which I am sure we can understand. It must have been there was considerable resistance to Mary. But Mary gives birth, and who can resist a baby? That’s what happened. It must have been. ‘I’m convinced that must have been how it happened really.’ Later that term, toward the beginning of Advent, we met boys who had been here before, in Valladolid, and now were in regular seminary. They had heard and recited verbatim all the Archbishop had said to them. Their spot-on impressions of each of the fathers were scathing. […]
This poem addresses the burial and rejection of Christ’s body, using images of coldness, hardness, and stone to explore themes of human indifference, sin, and divine love. The poet begins by questioning where Christ’s body is placed, lamenting that it finds rest on ‘a cold hard stone’. Despite the existence of ‘so many hearts on earth’, none is receptive enough to ‘receive thee’, symbolizing the rejection and abandonment Christ endures even in death. The stone, a literal image of Christ’s tomb, also symbolizes the hardened state of human hearts unwilling to accept or contain him [ … ]
