January 26
(Luke 4:28-30 NIV) “All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. {29} They got up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him down the cliff. {30} But he walked right through the crowd and went on his way.”
(Isaiah 53:1-5 NIV) “Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? {2} He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. {3} He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. {4} Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. {5} But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.”
Jesus came to save people we don’t like, or perhaps even hate. That can cause problems. Most of us have a list of people who do not deserve to ever be forgiven. There are people in our lives that we believe should rot in hell. The Jews hated their Gentile neighbors so much that even the mention of giving them aid set off a firestorm, and even became grounds for a death sentence. These hostile hometown haters took Jesus to a cliff to throw him off. They wanted to kill him. But He didn’t hate back. He didn’t call down fire on Nazareth. He just “walked through the crowd and went on his way.” Their judgment would come later. Christ had received His first rejection notice. It wouldn’t be the last. He is still being rejected today. Everyone likes Jesus the social worker -- very few like Jesus the prophet. But his rejection led to a resurrection and the reject became the Redeemer. Accept Him! -- Friar Tuck’s Word of the Day
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