Luke 4:20-30 - They Wanted to See a Miracle

In this passage Jesus is preaching His first recorded message in the Gospel of Luke in His hometown of Nazareth in the synagogue on the first Sabbath that He was there. He begins His message by reading from the scroll of Isaiah, one of the favorite prophets of the Jewish rabbis. In our English Bible, Jesus was reading from Isaiah 61:1-2. Many of the people present knew that Scripture by heart. They expected Him to complete the sentence, "and the day of vengeance of our God." Instead, He closed the book and returned it to the custodian. Then He sat down and began to teach them.   Every eye was fixed on Him. The whole countryside was amazed by His miracles, the kind of miracles and the kind of ministry foretold by Isaiah, that had just been read. The nation at large, while delighted with His miracles, was really looking for Him to pour out the vengeance of God on the Romans. What would He say about that? Nothing! The day for that kind of thing had not yet come; it has still not come.   Just the same, His words exploded like a bomb when He ended the silence and began speaking. First, He (the village carpenter) announced that He was the Christ, the Anointed One, the One of whom Isaiah had written these words: “Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing” (4:21). The people in the synagogue could find no fault. His grace and power were evident to everyone (4:22). But a reaction was already building. The village carpenter, is this the very Christ? Impossible! They waited. Surely some monumental miracle would now endorse this claim. But no miracle came.   Jesus was speaking again: “You will surely say this proverb to Me, 'Physician, heal yourself! Whatever we have heard done in Capernaum, do also here in Your country.' " (4:23). Now Jesus had a proverb of His own to quote: "No prophet is accepted in his own country" (4:24). At first, they admired the way He taught, but it didn't take long for their admiration to turn into antagonism. Why? Because Jesus began to remind them of God's goodness to the Gentiles!   The Prophet Elijah bypassed all the Jewish widows and helped a Gentile widow in Sidon (1 Kings 17:8-16), and his successor Elisha healed a Gentile leper from Syria (2 Kings 5:1-15). Our Lord's message of grace was a blow to the proud Jewish exclusivism of the congregation, and they would not repent. Imagine this hometown Boy saying that Jews had to be saved by grace just like the pagan Gentiles!   The problem was that His listeners would not believe in Him. They saw Him only as the son of Mary and Joseph, the Boy they had watched grow up in their own city. Furthermore, they wanted Him to perform in Nazareth the same miracles He had done in Capernaum, but He refused. That's the meaning of the phrase, "Physician, heal thyself." “We want to see a miracle”!   The congregation was so angry, they took action to kill Jesus! St. Augustine said, "They love truth when it enlightens them, but hate truth when it accuses them." That applies well to many congregations today, people who want "gracious words" (Luke 4:22), but who don't want to face the truth (see John 1:17). Today, people want the excitement of miracles and made to feel better about themselves both physically and emotionally when they come to church, but they don’t want the truth that they are sinners and need to repent and turn from their sin!   We don’t need to see a miracle to believe in Jesus, but we will become a miracle ourselves when we by faith repent of our sin and trust Him to be our Savior!   God bless!