Hometown Boy

Last night, my wife and I watched The Chosen, Episode 3, Season 3. It was a powerful episode. Jesus spoke in the Nazareth synagogue, and read a scroll written by the Prophet Isaiah… our chapter 61. The people who heard the message rebelled when he claimed that he had fulfilled the prophecy and he kick-started ‘the acceptable year of the Lord.’ He then put aside the scroll just opened – as for stopping where he did? Most meaningful, but that’s a musing for another day. Anyway, when Jesus was pressed further on that claim, he asserted that he was the law of God, and let’s just say, things got a little dicey from there. Folks wanted to toss him off a cliff! Why? Well, because they knew him! Jesus grew up among them. Jesus himself knew that prophets were not accepted in their hometowns. Actually, the entire situation was crazy: those who lived in Nazareth couldn’t accept Jesus as Messiah, and those Jews who lived elsewhere – when hearing Jesus was a Nazarene? They wondered aloud, ‘What good ever came out of Nazareth?’ 

So, let me get this straight: those who grew up with Jesus rejected him, and those who heard about him…? Sounds about right… what else is new?