DEVOTION
THE GOSPEL
ACCORDING TO LUKE
WRATH OR LOVE
Luke 4:20-30
20 Then he rolled up the
scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the
synagogue were fastened on him, 21 and he began by saying to them, "Today this scripture is fulfilled in your
hearing." 22 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. 23 Jesus said to them, "Surely you will quote this proverb to me: 'Physician,
heal yourself! Do here in your hometown what we have heard that you did in
Capernaum.'"24 "I tell you the truth," he continued, "no prophet is accepted in his hometown. 25 I assure you
that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah's time, when the sky was shut
for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land.
26 Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the
region of Sidon. 27 And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of
Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed — only Naaman the
Syrian." 28 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.
NIV
Why did the truth make those people
turn from speaking well of him and being amazed by his gracious words, to wanted to throw him over a cliff to his death? We think we have to understand the mind
of the Jews to get a grasp on what happened. First, they had always thought they
were the chosen people and God was only concerned about them. They were his,
and He was theirs. The rest of the people were Gentiles, unlike the Jews,
horrible people only subject to worshipping idols and thus God would have nothing to
do with them. When Jesus talked about Elijah not healing any Jew of leprosy but
did so for a Gentile, a Syrian, or when the famine was in the land, he did not go
at any Jewish widow but again to a Gentile widow in the region of Sidon. Jesus
was showing them God was the God of all people, every person was his creation
and he loved and cared about them. The takeaway we get from this is that we should
see all people the same because we are all the creation of God, and we know
that God so loved the world he gave his only begotten Son, Jesus, to die for all
people, so everyone could be saved and brought back into their rightful place
in God’s Kingdom. We know God does not show favoritism, and yet we have to ask
the question if we might be doing that very thing. Do we show favoritism to
some people and sort of ignore others? We have witnessed the formation of
little cliques in the church, excluding any others, even to the point of telling
someone they do not belong. We have seen that in the world, but we are
amazed this would happen in the church, with this showing favoritism. Then we must
always see all the people who have yet found the truth and are living without
the knowledge of the grace of God. We can never judge them or get upset or
think that God does not want them, or love them, and therefore we should show
them the love that God has for them, but loving and caring about them, praying
for or better yet, with them for their needs, either material, like the widow
in Sidon, or their physical needs, like the Syrian leper. Let us be like Jesus,
always wanting the truth for all people, and seeing them as God does, loved and
wanted, and never having any wrath.
