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11. The Sermon in
Nazareth.
When Jesus was back
in Nazareth, he went to school. However, this does not refer to a
children's school. However, Jesus is also in the children's schools.
Where two or three are gathered in his name, he is there in their midst.
But in those schools the adults came together on the Sabbath day and
read the books of the law and the prophets and talked about them. Jesus
stood up and wanted to read, and read in the book of the prophet Isaiah:
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me; therefore the Lord has anointed me.
He has sent me to preach to the afflicted, to bind up the wounded in
heart, to preach deliverance to the captives, to set at liberty those
who are bound, to preach a year of favor from the Lord.”
He spoke to them about this text. Among other things, he said: “This
scripture has been fulfilled before you today”, indicating that he was
the one in whose name the prophet had spoken. They should have rejoiced
that the one whom God had sanctified as the Savior of mankind was small
and grew great with them. They should have been the first to recognize
and love him as the Savior because he had grown up among them as a pious
child. At first they were also amazed at his blissful speech. But in the
end they said coldly: “Is he not Joseph's son?” They were not honestly
seeking the truth. They had no faith in him because he was too well
known to them. Jesus therefore said: “No prophet is accepted in his own
country.” - In the end, they even wanted to kill him. -
The people of Nazareth had such great contempt for themselves that they
believed that a man who had grown up among them and whom they knew so
well could not be a prophet; he must at least come from Jerusalem. He
who despises himself and his homeland is not on the right path. Jesus
left the city of Nazareth and went to Capernaum. So he was immediately
welcomed and loved by the foreign Samaritans and rejected by his
acquaintances in Nazareth, as is still the case. Many who are far from
him seek him and find him. Many who are close to him despise the son of
Joseph.
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