Neh 8:2-4, 5-6, 8-10; 1 Cor 12:12-30; Luke 1:1-4;4:14-21
In this passage from Luke, Jesus is still at the beginning of his public life. He comes home to Nazareth. He makes his debut in the hometown synagogue where he prayed as a boy. He has a mission, His father’s business, to do as we saw last week. He is the new priest-scribe Ezra who speaks in the first reading from the Book of Nehemiah. Jesus opens the scroll like Ezra and explains God’s word to the people. He says he is the Father’s anointed who will bring liberty and healing. We know he was not well received. A prophet not received in his hometown. Next week we will hear how they wanted to throw him over the cliff! Why were they so angry anyway? The “gracious words that came from his mouth” were, scholars tell us, words of salvation. The problem was that Jesus was proclaiming that salvation is for all, not just for Israelites, and he was reminding them that they were not always faithful; they had not heeded the prophets sent to them. He was too much for them. They were angry; but he escaped – for now. Scholars tell us that his passing through their midst anticipates his breaking from the tomb on Easter morning. How did he escape from their midst anyway? What was his helicopter? Maybe Dcn. Brian can explain that for us next weekend.
Jesus’ mysterious escape from death may make us think of times when we have been brought through difficult situations: a stand we had to take in our family or at work; a difficult word we had to say because it was the right thing; or an illness overcome. The point is God is with us. Don’t we sing “When you pass through raging waters in the seas you shall not drown”?
Our time to die has not yet come. Christ sends each of us on a mission. Each of us is a word that God wants to speak—as if from that scroll — ‘to the nations.’ We hear in the Dismissal, “Go, announce the Gospel of the Lord.” As all politics is local, so for most of us, ‘the nations’ is local, right here in Harrodsburg. We hear in St. Paul today in First Corinthians, we all have different gifts for the building of the Kingdom. Each of has a mission, and each of us has God’s protection unto death. And when our time to die does come, our ‘helicopter out of the situation’ is, of course, God’s mercy. Each of us anticipates, hearing: “Well done, good and faithful servant” as we, too, break out of the tomb as Jesus did.