Today's reading prompts us to reflect on the truth expressed in a well-known saying whose Gospel origin, however, is far from universally known today: no prophet is accepted in his own country...
Today's reading prompts us to reflect on the truth expressed in a well-known saying whose Gospel origin, however, is far from universally known today: no prophet is accepted in his own country (v. 24). By quoting a messianic passage from the Book of Isaiah, Jesus quite plainly identifies Himself as the One of whom the prophet spoke (vv. 17-21). At first glance, His listeners' reaction seems paradoxical: on the one hand they agree with Jesus, but on the other they immediately begin to doubt. How could their fellow townsman, whom they had known since childhood, make any claim to be the Messiah (v. 22)? They demand miracles from Him not as signs of the Kingdom but as proof of His messiahship (v. 23). It is then that Jesus speaks the bitter words about a prophet in his own country (v. 24).
Yet the paradoxical reaction of Jesus' listeners was actually quite understandable, and not merely because “great things are best seen from a distance.” The issue here was ordinary familiarity, which often proves to be one of the most serious obstacles on the spiritual path. Their doubts are justified, not by chance, with the thought that they have known Him since childhood: “Is not this Joseph's son?” So how could there be any question of messiahship? Of course, if Jesus had been recognized by respected people or official authorities and they had directly identified Him as the Messiah, He would undoubtedly have been welcomed with joy and celebrated as a famous fellow townsman. But there was no official recognition, and the townspeople had to decide for themselves. The force of habit weighed upon them.
Fallen human beings tend to see reality not as it is but as they are accustomed to seeing it. Clichés are common and widespread, and they arise for a reason: reducing reality to patterns and using ready-made models to describe it form a kind of psychological mechanism by which human beings adapt to the world—a mechanism without which, after the Fall, they can no longer manage. Yet this same adaptive mechanism often prevents a person from seeing what is new and unusual. It offers ready-made patterns and models where they do not apply, where the realities involved fit no pattern and can be described by no model.
The Kingdom to which Jesus bears witness is just such a reality. It fits no familiar framework. Yet Jesus' fellow townspeople do not want to lose that framework; they are prepared to defend it at any cost, and Jesus simply will not fit within it: an unrecognized Messiah, a disturber of the peace, someone passing Himself off as no one knows whom and claiming what no one in their small town had ever claimed or would ever have dared to claim. This is how He appeared to the people of Nazareth. They were left with only one remedy: to rid themselves of their excessively troublesome fellow townsman. And they would have done so if they could (vv. 28-30).
As we can see, it is not only the hatred of religious rigorists and the maneuvering of politicians that lead Jesus to the cross. He is driven there also by the narrowness of fallen human nature.
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4:25 Wherefore - Seeing ye are thus created anew, walk accordingly, in every particular. For we are members one of another - To which intimate union all deceit is quite repugnant.
4:26 Be ye angry, and sin not - That is, if ye are angry, take heed ye sin not. Anger at sin is not evil; but we should feel only pity to the sinner. If we are angry at the person, as well as the fault, we sin.And how hardly do we avoid it. Let not the sun go down upon your wrath - Reprove your brother, and be reconciled immediately.Lose not one day. A clear, express command. Reader, do you keep it?
4:27 Neither give place to the devil - By any delay.
4:28 But rather let him labour - Lest idleness lead him to steal again. And whoever has sinned in any kind ought the more zealously to practise the opposite virtue. That he may have to give - And so be no longer a burden and nuisance, but a blessing, to his neighbours.
4:29 But that which is good - Profitable to the speaker and hearers.To the use of edifying - To forward them in repentance, faith, or holiness.That it may minister grace - Be a means of conveying more grace into their hearts. Hence we learn, what discourse is corrupt, as it were stinking in the nostrils of God; namely, all that is not profitable, not edifying, not apt to minister grace to the hearers.
4:30 Grieve not the Holy Spirit - By any disobedience.Particularly by corrupt discourse; or by any of the following sins.Do not force him to withdraw from you, as a friend does whom you grieve by unkind behaviour. The day of redemption - That is, the day of judgment, in which our redemption will be completed.
4:31 Let all bitterness - The height of settled anger, opposite to kindness, ver. Eph 4:32.And wrath - Lasting displeasure toward the ignorant, and them that are out of the way, opposite to tenderheartedness. And anger - The very first risings of disgust at those that injure you, opposite to forgiving one another. And clamour - Or bawling. "I am not angry," says one; "but it is my way to speak so." Then unlearn that way: it is the way to hell. And evil speaking - Be it in ever so mild and soft a tone, or with ever such professions of kindness.Here is a beautiful retrogradation, beginning with the highest, and descending to the lowest, degree of the want of love.
4:32 As God, showing himself kind and tenderhearted in the highest degree, hath forgiven you.