“Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.”
Lk
1:1-4; 4:14-21
G. B. CAIRD
Mark records the rejection of Jesus by the
people of Nazareth almost at the end of the first year of his ministry (Mark 6:1-6).
Luke's account is probably an independent version of the same incident (vv. 22b
and 24 may have been added from Mark), and implies a previous ministry of some
duration in Capernaum. Nevertheless he places the incident at the beginning of
his story of the Galilean ministry, because it announces the pattern which the
ministry is to follow, and for this reason he has condensed into a brief
compass events which may have taken longer to develop.
Having repudiated in his temptations the
various false conceptions of Messiahship current among the Jews, Jesus
publishes his commission to bring in God's year of Jubilee. It is greeted first
with enthusiasm and then with doubt, and finally threatened with mob violence
when he hints at the inclusion of the Gentiles within God's purpose of grace.
The rest of the Gospel is simply the working out of this program.
Jesus claims that the scripture has been
fulfilled in their hearin. They are listening to the promised preaching, the
good news of which the prophet spoke. He has not merely read the scripture: as
King' messenger he has turned it into a royal proclamation of amnesty and
release. He is the Servant of the Lord, sent to announce to Israel that “'Your
God reigns” (Is. 5:27); and that this kingly power of God is t be exercised in
pardon, healing, and liberation. Beyond all this the reader of the Gospel is
expected to recognize echoes of Jesus’ baptism experience, which would be
missed by the Nazareth congregation.
Jesus' announcement that the messianic age
had dawned was received at first with rapt attention and excited comment, but
when the people began to realize that he had incidentally laid claim to central
position for himself in the inauguration of God's reign admiration turned first
to doubt, then to hostility.
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