Rejected at Home

Luke 4:28-30

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Surprising truths about Jesus. Have you ever thought about how Jesus made people mad? Really mad. I mean, it probably shouldn’t surprise us. He’s killed. He’s murdered on a cross at the end of his earthly life. But even early in his ministry, Jesus gets up in his hometown. He goes to church. He starts to just share beautiful, good news about how he’s been anointed, to proclaim good news to the poor, to set the oppressed free. He says, I’ve fulfilled this promise, and eventually what happens is just complete rejection.

The people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. They got up. They drove him out of town. They took him to the brow of a hill on which the town was built in order to throw him off the cliff. But he walked right through the crowd and went on his way. (Luke 4:28-30)

Jesus was rejected at home. They just could not accept that this person from Nazareth, the one that they knew that he would be the Savior. And maybe at first it says they were excited about the words he said. But I wonder if for a little while they thought they could control Jesus and he would be their Messiah, that they could have access to all of his miracles. But he makes it clear that that’s not the case. He’s come for a different reason, and they reject him. And they try to kill him. They abuse him. And what does Jesus do? Well, it’s not his time, so he walks away.

Maybe you have also been rejected for being a Christian. Maybe you’ve been rejected and hurt at home or been in difficult or abusive situations where people are trying to control and manipulate or hurt you. I want you to know that Jesus is with you and that Jesus has been there too, and that Jesus cares about what you’re going through. And one solution, when he’s facing an incredibly abusive, difficult situation, is that he walks away from that. And sometimes that’s what the Christian needs to do in a situation like that, too.

All while knowing that Jesus is no stranger to rejection and abuse, the scene that happens here shouldn’t surprise us because it would happen again later, when Jesus would come in on Palm Sunday and people would cheer Hosanna to the King of David, and just days later it would switch to crucify him. Crucify him. As he’s rejected on the cross, rejected by the people, rejected by his people. And ultimately, because he bears our sins, rejected by God Himself. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

And Jesus endured all of that rejection so that you could know that you will never be rejected by God. That God will never look at your sins or your failures and say, I don’t want him, I don’t want her. Jesus has rescued you. Jesus has saved you through his rejection. The Lord be with you.