From a pamphlet from 2002 titled: The Meaning of the Incarnation
By Fred Pruitt
Return to Nazareth
Some time later ….
Coming up a dusty road, back to his hometown after an absence and a few life-changing experiences, followed by a few new friends, Jesus spies the familiar surrounds of Nazareth’s approach. Soon he will see his mother and then on the Sabbath tomorrow, he will speak in the synagogue. Family friends come over that evening for a meal and to welcome Jesus back home. Everybody has a fine meal with wine reserved for special occasions, there is singing, and then off everyone goes to their homes to prepare for the Sabbath on the morrow.
It’s a Sabbath like any other. All the men arrive in their attire, milling about in the center, the women observing from the outer chamber. They pray, they sing, then the rabbi offers the podium to anyone who wishes to read or comment on God’s word, and Joseph’s son, Jesus the carpenter, familiar to most in the room, rises at the invitation and walks to the front. He takes the scroll and opens to the prophet Isaiah. He begins to read:
The spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me; because the LORD hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound; To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD.
That’s all he said. And then:
He closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him. (Luke 4:20).
My impression has always been that synagogues were often buzzing with individual activity, and that perhaps it would not be uncommon that the speaker would only be one voice among many. But when He read the words of Isaiah they all quieted down. Those were Messiah scriptures. They all knew that. Perhaps they were waiting for Him to comment on what He’d read, for certainly He couldn’t have meant that the prophecy applied personally, to Him. But He simply read the passage, closed the book, gave it back to the rabbi, and returned to His seat. He gave them a further moment to think about it. And then He hit them with the kicker:
And he began to say unto them, This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears. (Luke 4:21)
Up until then, it had been a day like any other day. Deeply imbedded in mankind was the Promise of the Coming One, the Deliverer, and the flames were kept alive the world over in legend, story, myth, and other ways the True God continued to give His testimony to His lost sheep. But in the Jewish nation, especially in hard times, it was the Hope of Israel, and all knew some day Messiah would come.
But from Adam til now all days had been the same. The Messiah had not come. Life had gone on. Flesh and blood was flesh and blood. People were born, people died. Generations succeeded generation after generation. Still the Messiah had not come. And every day was a normal day, some harder and some easier than others, with joys and sorrows, loves and hates, hopes attained and dashed, wars, strife, business. It was life, life as it had always been.
But Flesh and Blood walked up to the front of the synagogue that day and said to them — they were schooled in the theology of the Messiah and they well knew what He was declaring to them — “I am He.” “I Am the Coming One, the Lord’s Anointed.” “I Am Messiah!”
“This is fulfilled right now in your hearing.” He declared Emmanuel in their midst. That very moment.
“How can this be?” they all wondered at once. “We know this man. He’s the son of Joseph, the carpenter. How can he be the Messiah? We watched him grow up. He’s like us. How can someone just like us be the Messiah?” Who knows what all they thought?
By the sheer force and power of His Word they were cut to the quick to the point of rage and would have killed him, their hometown boy, but He walked through their midst and went on His way, trailed by His new friends who had followed Him from Jordan. He knew their difficulty. He knew what was in man. But He declared Himself first among His friends and relatives and people He had known all His life. They were the first people who were given the opportunity to “no longer see Christ after the flesh.”
No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him. (John 1:18). Jesus came not to bring us to Himself but to the Father Who was only seen in the Son Who declared Him.
To read the entire 18-page pamphlet, click here: The Meaning of the Incarnation
