Love or Wrath

 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.