Luke 4:31-37 - Jesus First Rejection

Jesus had just preached His first recorded message in the Gospel of Luke in the synagogue of His hometown of Nazareth. The message began with the people in amazement at “the gracious words that proceeded out of His mouth” but ended with the people “filled with wrath” attempting to kill Jesus by throwing Him over a cliff on the edge of the village. Instead of receiving Him as the Messiah that He told them that He was, they rejected Him.   Think about it! It is hard enough to be rejected and mistreated by those we don’t know, but to be rejected by those who are longtime friends and acquaintances in our hometown would be extremely painful. John’s Gospel tells us that “Jesus came to His own and His own received Him not” (John 1:11). This is the first recorded rejection we have of Jesus in Luke, and you can imagine the heart of Jesus must have been broken. But Jesus, no doubt knew the prophecy of Isaiah 53:3, “He is despised and rejected by men, A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.”   I have heard the stories over the years of many pastors and Christians who enthusiastically begin preaching or teaching only to almost immediately run into conflict and opposition from the very people they are attempting to minister to, and they are so hurt that they just throw up their hands and give up and quit. But thank the Lord, Jesus did not give up or quit. He quietly slipped away and walked about 30 miles to the town of Capernaum and continued His ministry of teaching in the synagogue on the Sabbaths.   We know from previous verses (Luke 4:14-15; 23), that Jesus had already been in this region of Galilee, preaching, teaching, healing, and doing miracles. And that He was well known as the stories began to spread throughout the area. Notice in verse 31 where it says, “Jesus went down to Capernaum, a city of Galilee”. “Jesus went down…”.  Jesus came down to us from heaven. “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich.” (2 Corinthians 8:9).   This region of Galilee was a region of darkness. Matthew’s Gospel describes it this way: “And leaving Nazareth, he came and dwelt in Capernaum, which is upon the sea coast, in the borders of Zabulon and Nephthalim: That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, The land of Zabulon, and the land of Nephthalim, by the way of the sea, beyond Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles; The people which sat in darkness saw great light; and to them which sat in the region and shadow of death light is sprung up. From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew 4:13-17).   This region of Israel was indeed a dark area spiritually! As you read the Gospels you get the idea that there was demon possessed people everywhere. There is wickedness and evil on every hand. Hatred, violence and conflict abound as Capernaum was at the north side of the Sea of Galilee and was a stopping place for all the traffic of both armies and traders going from the north to the south on their way to Egypt and other parts of Africa.   This is the region Jesus chose to make His headquarters for His three and a half years of ministry on earth. We couldn’t come up to Jesus, so He came down to us. And almost immediately again Jesus is opposed by a demon possessed man.   We live in a dark, demon possessed, sin cursed world today! We should not be surprised when we face opposition as we attempt to share the Good News. And we should always remember Jesus who is our example and the verse in Romans 5:20; “…But where sin abounded, grace did much more abounded”.   Thank God Jesus didn’t quit and neither should we.   God bless!