“Tell everyone you are the Messiah without telling them you are the Messiah.”

How do you tell people who you are without directly saying it? But instead saying something provocative?

Jesus gets up in the synagogue and reads them a series of verses from Isaiah that everyone knows to be Messianic.

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
    because he has anointed me
    to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives
    and recovering of sight to the blind,
    to set at liberty those who are oppressed,
 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

Everyone nods their head. This is a special verse. And it is the words that they have been longing to be fulfilled for centuries.

Then Jesus says and does something absolutely shocking.

 And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him.  And he began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

He just told everyone he is the Messiah and the fulfillment of these Scriptures. Furthermore he had rolled up the scroll, returned it tot he attendant and sat down. This wasn’t a discussion of “I think I’m the Messiah.” This was a bold statement. A declaration. An announcement.

You can hear the shock waves through the synagogue. At this point people may or may not have been thinking of him as God in the flesh. I’m sure some were just thinking he was a prophet. A righteous prophet.

We know this was likely that they more thought of him as a prophet because of his powerful words and not yet the Son of God, because at this point they still spoke well of him. If he had said he was the Son of God (it’s coming), they would have tried to kill him right then for blasphemy (which they would do later). But this moment, it says this:

 And all spoke well of him and marveled at the gracious words that were coming from his mouth.

It was a powerful moment. But then Jesus said something that was deadly. And they tried to kill him for it.

He had been doing miracles in Capernaum and elsewhere. His hometown folks had heard of this. So they wanted him to do the stuff here in his own hometown. To do the miracles. But Jesus said this:

And they said, “Is not this Joseph’s son?”  And he said to them, “Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, ‘“Physician, heal yourself.” What we have heard you did at Capernaum, do here in your hometown as well.’”

And he said, “Truly, I say to you, no prophet is acceptable in his hometown.  But in truth, I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heavens were shut up three years and six months, and a great famine came over all the land,  and Elijah was sent to none of them but only to Zarephath, in the land of Sidon, to a woman who was a widow.  And there were many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian.”  

When they heard these things, all in the synagogue were filled with wrath.  And they rose up and drove him out of the town and brought him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they could throw him down the cliff.

But passing through their midst, he went away.

They wanted Jesus to prove himself. Do a miracle and let us decide if you are who you say you are. But Jesus knew better. He knew that no matter what he did, they still would not believe him.

He gave examples from Scripture. The great prophet Elijah did not go to his own people but went outside of Israel to a widow where he performed a miracle. In the same way Elisha could not go to his own people but went to a Syrian.

Here’s the truth. Your own hometown, especially when it is a small town, will not recognize your greatness. A small town out of jealousy does not want to see anyone get ahead. They are ruthless and cruel when someone succeeds, calling them arrogant and full of themselves. Jesus knew this. And told them that this was the case.

Their response? They tried to kill him.

This was proof of what he had just said. If they were willing to kill him for just pointing out the obvious and recalling Israeli history, then did they really think. they would believe if he did miracles?

Furthermore if he did miracles there, it wouldn’t be about serving the people. Serving was always at the heart of every miracle. They didn’t want service to their friends and neighbors, they wanted a miraculous sign. A show. A proof. That’s not what miracles were about and Jesus didn’t fall for it.

But why try to kill him for this?

It was because they took it as an insult. He insulted their faith in God. Whether it was true or not didn’t matter.

So they dragged him out of town with the intent of pushing him off of a cliff. But by the grace of God, as Moses crossed the Red Sea so Jesus walked through the crowd, unharmed. It wasn’t his time.

Now it comes to us. What about our faith? Like the hometown crowd of Jesus, are we so familiar with Jesus that we do not believe? Do we not believe who he says he is? Do we now believe he loves us like he says he loves us? Or are the stories and words and Scriptures too familiar…