Pastor’s Corner: “Jesus’ Cliffhanger”
Luke 4:29 (AMP) – 29 Jumping up, they mobbed him and forced him to the edge of the hill on which the town was built. They intended to push him over the cliff,
Would You Throw Jesus Off a Cliff?” Our gut reaction expressing the conviction of our hearts is to say “No!” We may not want to literally throw Jesus off a cliff, but there is a sense in which we might be tempted to do so figuratively, let me explain:
In Luke 4, Jesus visited his hometown of Nazareth. He had already achieved significant local fame due to his extraordinary teachings and miracles (4:14). So, when the Sabbath came around, Jesus was invited to read the Scriptures in the synagogue, He selected a passage from Isaiah 61 which announced the mission of the Messiah. After reading this passage Jesus sat down and said, “The Scripture you’ve just heard has been fulfilled this very day” (4:21).
At first the people in the synagogue were amazed and impressed by what Jesus said. They wanted Him to do some magic tricks, like He supposedly did in other towns. Otherwise, they figured He was just a small town carpenter’s kid with delusional fantasies. But then Jesus stirred the pot by predicting that He would not be accepted in Nazareth by connecting His ministry to the actions of the prophets Elijah and Elisha, who healed Gentiles but not their fellow Jews. This angered the synagogue congregation which drove Jesus to the edge of a hill to push him off. Somehow and astonishingly He managed to escape! (I’ll save that for another devotional). What just happened, did we miss something?
Jesus had returned to the town and to his home church full of the Holy Spirit and they did not like it. God was in their midst, it should have been the start of a wonderful revival, there should have been many conversions and healings, it should have been a time of wonderful blessing and joy. But what did they want to do when God showed up in power? They wanted to kill Him! No longer was God in their box, so they wanted to hurl Him off a cliff. This seems like an overreaction and quite harsh!
Why did the people in Nazareth reject and try to kill Jesus? To put it simply, he failed to meet their expectations. When He refused to do what they wanted, they were quick to reject Him. Plus, they were understandably fearful that His messianic message might bring Roman wrath down upon them. Better to get rid of Jesus than to let Him mess up their plans and their lives!
We may have never wanted to throw Jesus off a cliff, but there has certainly been many times in our lives when He failed to meet our expectations. Sometimes He didn’t answer urgent prayers that we had offered to Him. Sometimes we have stumbled over things He said that didn’t fit our image of “Jesus meek and mild.” Sometimes His call to discipleship has unsettled us and threatened to take us out of our comfort zone. In these times, we haven’t chucked Jesus out of our lives. But we have definitely ignored Him, or to found ways to twist His words so as to match our agenda. We haven’t said, “Get out of here Jesus.” But we have said, “Why don’t you sit there quietly while we do our own thing for a while.”
Have there been times in your life when Jesus has unsettled you? How did you respond to Him? In what ways do you find yourself wanting to ignore the call of Jesus? What leads you to embrace Him as your Lord and Savior? In the future, when Jesus unsettles you, what will you do? Will you allow Him to lead you into deeper faith and discipleship? Or will you “throw Him off a cliff”?
In His Grace,
Pastor Hamilton