Bible Study Notes: St Luke's Gospel
Session 15 : Chapter 4, 14-39
1. Verses 14-30
Jesus returned to Galilee powerful in the Spirit. News
that he was back spread through the countryside. He taught in their meeting
places to everyone's acclaim and pleasure.
He came to Nazareth where he had been reared. As he always did on the
Sabbath, he went to the meeting place. When he stood up to read, he was
handed the scroll of the prophet Isaiah. Unrolling the scroll, he found
the place where it was written,
God's Spirit is on me;
he's chosen me to preach the Message of good news to the poor,
Sent me to announce pardon to prisoners and recovery of sight to the blind,
To set the burdened and battered free,
to announce, "This is God's year to act!"
He rolled up the scroll, handed it back to the assistant, and sat down.
Every eye in the place was on him, intent. Then he started in, "You've
just heard Scripture make history. It came true just now in this place."
All who were there, watching and listening, were surprised at how well
he spoke. But they also said, "Isn't this Joseph's son, the one we've
known since he was a youngster?"
He answered, "I suppose you're going to quote the proverb, 'Doctor,
go heal yourself. Do here in your hometown what we heard you did in Capernaum.'
Well, let me tell you something: No prophet is ever welcomed in his hometown.
Isn't it a fact that there were many widows in Israel at the time of Elijah
during that three and a half years of drought when famine devastated the
land, but the only widow to whom Elijah was sent was in Sarepta in Sidon?
And there were many lepers in Israel at the time of the prophet Elisha
but the only one cleansed was Naaman the Syrian."
That set everyone in the meeting place seething with anger. They threw
him out, banishing him from the village, then took him to a mountain cliff
at the edge of the village to throw him to his doom, but he gave them
the slip and was on his way.
© The
Message
Fortified by his profound experience in the desert, Jesus began his ministry with enthusiasm. Along the shores of Galilee and in the hill town villages, he went to the synagogues where he shared the Good News of salvation. His listeners loved him and his message. But when he came to his hometown of Nazareth he met a different response in their synagogue.
Let's for a moment pause and put our selves in a synagogue, this was a simple, unadorned meeting room for prayer and religious instruction. People sat around a small platform on which was a chair and a lectern. Behind this was a glass case, which held the books of Scripture. I suppose a little like a Baptist Chapel.
The service was composed of four parts, (1) Opening Prayer (2) Reading from the Bible (3) A sermon (4) A Discussion. Rather like the opening part of our service that we still call the Ministry of the Word. The synagogue administrator oversaw the proceedings. The day that Jesus came to the Nazareth synagogue was a day filled with unusual expectation. Let's just imagine we went with Jesus on that Sabbath Day.
Everyone knew him and his family. He had been a respected carpenter among them for many years. His widowed mother was an honoured member of the community. The people heard glowing reports of what an extraordinary speaker he turned out to be. Admiring comments about him flowed in from all over Galilee. They anticipated a satisfying prayer meeting with one of their own who had made such an impressive mark elsewhere.
After the prayer, the administrator gave Jesus a scroll on which was written chapter 61 of Isaiah. Jesus read the Hebrew words and then recited them in Aramaic, for most of the listeners no longer understood the ancient Hebrew, speaking rather the dialect now known as Aramaic. So let’s have a look first at this passage.
Jesus closes the scroll, gives it back to the presiding officer and sits down to deliver his sermon. The verses he had read spoke of the Spirit anointing the Messiah for the purpose of preaching Good News to the poor. It was a preaching matched by good works, such as liberating the imprisoned, healing the blind, freeing the oppressed, witnessing that in fact the Messiah had indeed arrived.
These words are gripping the hearts of the listeners because they ached for the fulfilment of that prophecy in a time when their whole experience was one of oppression, both from the Romans and from the Jewish rulers who collaborated with the oppressors.
As we look around we recognise that many of them had relatives and friends who languished in prisons for defying the army of occupation. They felt the sting and humiliation of not being masters in their own homes. The impulse to revolution and uprising was close to their hearts. The preaching of John the Baptist revived the longing for the Messiah and persuaded them that the hour was at hand.
Jesus knew very well the explosive political context that gave urgency to the words of Isaiah. But he was not interested in political rebellion.
He came to preach the real meaning of Isaiah, which was the Kingdom of God, the rule of love, justice, and mercy in each human heart. He paused after the reading and allowed the intense eyes of the participants to fix themselves on him. He let the silence gather up the force of Isaiah's words and intensify the expectation of his listeners.
Then he spoke the electrifying words, "Today this scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing" (verse 21). The Messiah was here. Liberation was at hand.
I wonder how we might have felt?
Luke tells us that the listeners were amazed at the words of grace (God's goodness) that flowed from Jesus. Then it dawned on them that Jesus was applying the text to himself and his ministry. Much as they wanted a Messiah they could not believe it would be Jesus. They knew him too well. Was he not the son of Joseph and Mary?
Worse yet, he was defining messiahship in spiritual terms. God's real rule was liberation from oppression here by the spiritual means of love, justice, and mercy, not by the sword and popular uprising. The Kingdom of God was a divine reality that would free them from all that oppressed them, especially personal sin. Its fulfilment would occur both here and hereafter.
Jesus is noticing that they understand him very well and cannot accept his message. They judged he had the right theme with the wrong application.
He tells them that a prophet is never accepted in his own country. People had rejected Elijah and Elisha. Now they would reject him. The furious worshipers proceeded to prove Jesus was right.
Enraged they hustle him out of the synagogue and we rush with him to the edge of a cliff where they threaten to throw him over and kill him. Jesus miraculously walked out of their grasping and murderous arms and walked away from his home village. So, from the very start of his ministry, the seed of opposition to his message was planted. Like the prophets of old, he would be rejected and eventually be martyred.
2. Verses 31-39 : The Famed Capernaum Exorcism
He went down to Capernaum, a village in Galilee. He was
teaching the people on the Sabbath. They were surprised and impressed
- his teaching was so forthright, so confident, so authoritative, not
the quibbling and quoting they were used to.
In the meeting place that day there was a man demonically disturbed. He
screamed, "Ho! What business do you have here with us, Jesus? Nazarene!
I know what you're up to. You're the Holy One of God and you've come to
destroy us!"
Jesus shut him up: "Quiet! Get out of him!" The demonic spirit
threw the man down in front of them all and left. The demon didn't hurt
him.
That set everyone back on their heels, whispering and wondering, "What's
going on here? Someone whose words make things happen? Someone who orders
demonic spirits to get out and they go?" Jesus was the talk of the
town.
Luke now moves us on in this action-packed Gospel to another synagogue experience.
In his desert temptations Jesus proved that Satan would not have power over him. Now Jesus liberated someone else from the domination of evil. Previously at the Nazareth synagogue he preached the Good News of a kingdom of God that freed others from all that oppressed them, especially evil. Here in the Capernaum synagogue he practiced what he preached by exorcising a demon from a possessed member of the congregation.
Luke tells us that Christ's sermon that day impressed the listeners because he spoke with such authority. This meant that Jesus did more than cite other authorities as was customary. Jesus spoke with personal authority.
Christ's ministry is a stunning reproof to all who would try to make the quest for power the road to authority. Christ's witness exposes the illusion of people who cannot understand why it turned out that the more power they had, the less authority they wielded.
Power enslaves. Authority liberates. Power frightens. Authority invites loving loyalty and creative sacrifice. Power humiliates and weakens people. Authority fulfils its followers. Tyrants leave a legacy of death and destruction. Authoritative leaders produce spiritual communities that opt for life and love.
Let's imagine we are in that Synagogue on that day.
Jesus in the Capernaum synagogue communicated that mood of authority. Jesus completes his sermon and the customary discussion begins. Suddenly! We here a discordant scream, we are startled and shocked all of us. A man possessed by an unclean demon is here. He is ranting and raving. The demon's cry bursts from his mouth. It speaks, it asks Jesus why he has come to destroy "them" - he is speaking on behalf of the community of demons.
Jesus had just spoken authoritatively to the worshipers. Now he acts with authority over the demon. With his commanding voice he silences the demon and demands that it leave that poor, unfortunate man. The evil demon obeys Christ's divine authority and exited the body of the man, throwing him in a convulsive leap from his bench to the floor in front of Christ.
The intensity and immediacy of this scene is unforgettable. No participant can be indifferent or psychologically removed - let alone physically distant - from the astounding event this day. The violent power of evil is evident. The extraordinary authority of Christ's inexhaustible goodness and love is more impressive. The mystery of love outdistances the frightening mystery of evil. In a world where evil seems to have too much control, a sign of liberty had appeared. Light could master darkness. Good conquered evil. Love surpassed hatred. If the participants harboured the suspicion that evil could not be overcome - only pacified - they now had reason to believe the impossible was possible.
Unlike magicians who sweated and laboured to drive out demons, Jesus simply spoke with authority and drove the evil spirit away. Jesus used no tricks and showed no fear either of the demons or of the opinions of those who witnessed what he was doing. In the full flow of his authority he drowned the harsh reed of evil.
This chapter of Luke concludes with the healing of Peter's mother-in-law. She was in the grip of a major fever. Jesus came to her bedside and rebuked the fever (just as he had rebuked the demon) and the fever left her. Jesus came both to conquer the cause of sickness, which was sin and evil, and to remove the symptom of evil, which was illness. On Good Friday and Easter he would even conquer death itself - death, the ultimate outcome of evil.
So what do learn from this passage? Well, firstly in this chapter of Luke, Jesus gives us a spiritual life plan for resisting temptations. Then He prepares us to share our faith with others even if they reject it. Continuing the rough the chapter he invites us to participate with him in the removing of evil from our world.
The richness of Christ's teaching, example, and grace will become even more evident as we journey with him throughout Galilee, to Jerusalem, and as we witness his redemptive actions in Holy Week and Easter time.
© Fr Michael Fuller: February 2009