NOTES for Luk 4:16-22
The words of the prophet Isaiah that the Lord Jesus reads in the Nazareth synagogue are among the best-known messianic prophecies. For centuries they were read in Jewish gatherings and filled believers' hearts with joy and hope. Through all the vicissitudes of history, through every disaster and tragedy, every fall and rising again, Israel carried the hope that Someone would come who would bring healing to the brokenhearted and release to captives, who would set the oppressed free. Over centuries of foreign oppression, such prophecies also became the banner of an unhealthy patriotism that understood ‘the year of the Lord's favour’ in far too earthly a sense. And now, not for the first time, a preacher appears in Israel, working miracles and proclaiming unheard-of things, saying, after John the Baptist, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ Nazareth, meanwhile, was the only place where people knew that He was Joseph's son and therefore a descendant of David.
The evangelists tell us that He taught as one having authority, not as the scribes and Pharisees. And the familiar words of Isaiah, known as a prophet's rendering of direct speech, truly become, on His lips, speech in the first person—His own speech. That is why, when He sat down, everyone's eyes were fixed on Him. The Greek text puts this a little more vividly than the Russian Synodal translation: ‘everyone's eyes were riveted on Him.’ Everyone is waiting to hear what He will say next. And on that day Jesus speaks the words for which people have waited for centuries: ‘Today this scripture has been fulfilled.’ In Him people's expectation was fulfilled; in Him our hope for life, truth and love continues to be fulfilled to this day.
And then something terrible happens. As soon as Jesus, the Saviour sent by God, says that salvation is given to everyone, not only to the Jews, they drive Him out to kill Him. This is a grave warning to us all. We must remember how easily we can reject God's mercy and God Himself if that mercy exceeds the capacity of our hearts. And that is precisely why it is so important for us to learn to forgive and show mercy ourselves.