This scene always catches my attention when I read it. Jesus is in Nazareth, his hometown. People know him. He's speaking and teaching and in verse 22 Luke writes, "All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his lips. 'Isn't this Joseph's son?' they asked." Everything was going so well... until Jesus prophetically tells them what they will ask of him-- that he show them the miracles they've been hearing of him doing in Capernaum. And then saying that no prophet is accepted in his hometown was not exactly the most crowd-pleasing statement. In fact, it made them so upset they took Jesus to a cliff in order to throw him off and kill him. Then he escaped. What happened here? How did it go south so quickly? One minute, they're praising the hometown boy who made good, and the next they want to kill him! People don't like to be played. Here it seems that when Jesus revealed he knew the heart of this people, that he was saving everybody some time by not giving them what they wanted, it infuriated them. A good entertainer knows that you have to keep the audience happy or they'll turn on you in a second. They were wanting to be entertained. They were wanting a time of show-and-tell. But Jesus wasn't their puppet. He wasn't there to please them. And the crowd turned. As he prophetically told them what they would want from him, they prophetically showed him what was to come in his future. He escaped the crowd this time. But as we know, that wouldn't always be the case.
Readings: Numbers 30:1-31:54; Luke 4:1-30; Psalm 63:1-11; Proverbs 11:20-21
