TEXT: LUKE 4:16-30
THE CUSTOMS THAT JESUS CONTINUES TODAY!
Preached by Rev. Kenneth W. Wieting

To the Church of God at Luther Memorial Chapel and University Student Center called as saints, Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.  

True Christianity is often misunderstood!  A common misconception is that “you Christians think you’re better than everyone else.”  That error extends itself to perceptions of why Christians go to weekly worship – as do-gooders - to put yourselves above others – to do one more thing to add to your spiritual resume.

The true realities are quite the opposite.  Christians know they are full of sin – in daily, deep need of forgiveness - not better than others.  They do not find comfort in comparing themselves with others nor do they attend weekly worship to put themselves above other people.  Understanding their spiritual sickness and their essential poverty before God, Christians gather in the Divine Service to receive the medicine and healing and gifts that no one but the risen Christ can give them.

Our Gospel today speaks of weekly worship in this way: as was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath Day, and he stood up to read.  The word for “custom” in Greek is ethos.  It means habit or pattern or way of life.  The man Jesus did not miss weekly worship and that is powerful witness to us today.  He didn’t go to put Himself above others but as true man to hear God’s Word and pray to His Father.  He was tempted in every way as we are and His weapon to withstand Satan included the Word of God He received in weekly worship.  When our weekly routine intentionally and continually omits that which Jesus saw as essential to his life as true man, we are in one sense putting ourselves above Jesus. We are saying, “I’m stronger than you Jesus.” “I don’t need what you habitually needed and received.”  That sin God addresses in the Third Commandment and Dr. Luther richly expresses its meaning, We should fear and love God so that we do not despise preaching and His Word, but hold it sacred and gladly hear and learn it. There is more!

Synagogue worship centered on reading Moses and the Prophets from which instruction was then given.  Psalms and prayers were included much like the service here today.  That was the scene in the synagogue of Jesus’ hometown of Nazareth when he stood up to read.  And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him.  He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.  He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

We live in a world of bad news – sometimes shockingly bad news – as the horrible scenes from Haiti have driven home in recent weeks.  The destructive forces at work in this sinful world can take our breath away and turn us inside out.  They can leave us stunned and silent and sickened and empty.  That this earth groans under God’s curse and that even nature is out of harmony – some still deny – but surely not Christians who read and believe the Scriptures.  Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy upon us now and in the hour of our death.  The people of Jesus’ day also knew shockingly bad news as children frequently died from disease, as nations conquered and slaughtered others and carried them away into captivity, as disasters of nature struck without warning.

It is into this world of shockingly bad news that Jesus came speaking shockingly good news.  The shockingly good news to those in the synagogue would have been encapsulated in the words that Jesus read from Isaiah, “to set at liberty those who are oppressed and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”  The word for “liberty” is the standard New Testament word for “forgiveness”.  It indicates a total freeing from captivity to sin.  The year of the Lord’s favor would have summed it up even more.  Isaiah’s hearers were familiar with the great Year of Jubilee when slaves were freed and property reverted to its original heirs and debts were forgiven.   This text is full of magnificent promises to dying sinners.  It overflows with Messianic hope and comfort for people in captivity.  And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down.  And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him.  

The 500 or so residents of Nazareth knew the recent reports of his preaching and healing miracles just 20 miles away in Capernaum.  The boy and man who had come to this house of worship every week had left Nazareth a few weeks before.  He had been baptized and tempted in the wilderness and had begun His work.  Now He was home again.  Everyone knows everyone in a town that size.  What would He do here?  The eyes of all…were fixed on him.  

And he began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.  These words were like a lightning bolt in that house of worship.  Hometown Jesus announced the dawn of the Messianic age as taking place in Him before their eyes and in their ears.  The verb describing the people’s response literally means they witnessed to him or spoke of Him – it doesn’t say “for” or “against”.  Our version assumes the positive – “all spoke well of him”. So for just a few seconds perhaps there was admiration of His gracious words or perhaps not!  The “not” possibility is very real because there was something major missing in Jesus’ quote from Isaiah.  In proclaiming the acceptable year of the Lord Jesus left out the second half of the verse, which reads, “and a day of vengeance of our God”.  In its Old Testament context this meant judgment on the Gentiles as God’s people were returned from Babylonian captivity.  Jesus had taken a text of judgment against those who persecuted God’s people and turned it into a text of mercy.  In other words there were some earthly, political issues at work, every bit as emotional as the health care issues and terrorism issues and economic issues of our day.   

And they said, “Is this not Joseph’s Son?”  In His hometown He seemed ordinary and familiar and now even fraudulent.  Besides, who was He to take away their anticipated sweet revenge in the destruction of their enemies and in reclaiming Gentile territory?  Their long time acquaintanceship with Jesus boiled over into hometown suspicion and anger.  And he said to them, “Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, ‘Physician, heal yourself.’  What we have heard you did at Capernaum do here in your hometown as well.”  And he said, “Truly, I say to you, no prophet is acceptable in his hometown.  Then He gave two examples of God ministering to Gentiles.  Elijah fed a pagan widow even when Israelites were starving.  Elisha healed a pagan general of leprosy even when there were multitudes of lepers in Israel.  Jesus was saying that the salvation He brought was not limited to Nazareth nor was it even limited to the sons of Abraham.  The liberty – the release from sin He brought - was for all.  That did not fit with their single package view of religion and politics.

When they heard these things, all in the synagogue were filled with wrath.  And they rose up and brought him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built so that they could throw him down the cliff.  Disappointment and pride and anger combine to lead a hometown mob to a hometown cliff.  Familiarity leads to contempt, so much contempt that they intended to hurl their life-long neighbor to his death.  

Dear Christians – our familiarity with the Gospel – with Lutheran teaching – with weekly worship can tempt us with the hometown hankerings of Nazareth.  If Jesus doesn’t relieve my suffering or give me smooth sailing then maybe I should push him aside and get a different Jesus.  If political issues don’t work themselves out the way I desire than perhaps God is not performing.  Surely we have a special claim on His services – according to our desires and delights.

Thankfully Jesus did not allow Himself to be thrown down that hometown cliff.  Passing through their midst he went his way so that He could come into your midst today.  His way was the way of the cross.  He would go to another hill, not first to be thrown down, but first to be lifted up, naked and bloody and humiliated.  Not only did His hometown reject Him there, but so did His disciples and the world He created and His heavenly Father.  As He was lifted up on that hill, Jesus was simultaneously hurled down the precipice of the damned.  He was flung down our eternal cliff to remove eternal punishment from us.

Risen from that hellish fall – even having proclaimed His victory in that realm - Jesus brings shockingly good news into this cursed and dying world!  In fact, He is the Good News and He is here for you!  

He comes today not as our hometown, have-it-your-way buddy.  He comes as our heavenly have-it-My-way Helper and Healer.  It is still His ethos, His habit to gather in weekly worship – not in the synagogue of Nazareth – but in the midst of you His Church.  He is the Head - we are His body.  He is the Bridegroom - we are His holy Bride.

He is the one who can straighten out misconceptions about the faith for true Christianity is all about Christ.  True Christian worship is all about receiving the gracious words that still come out of His mouth and the gracious gifts that still come from His hand.    

In the Name of Jesus, Amen