NOTES for Luk 4:22-30
22 And all bare him witness, and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth. And they said, Is not this Joseph's son? |
23 And he said unto them, Ye will surely say unto me this proverb, Physician, heal thyself: whatsoever we have heard done in Capernaum, do also here in thy country. |
24 And he said, Verily I say unto you, No prophet is accepted in his own country. |
25 But I tell you of a truth, many widows were in Israel in the days of Elias, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, when great famine was throughout all the land; |
26 But unto none of them was Elias sent, save unto Sarepta, a city of Sidon, unto a woman that was a widow. |
27 And many lepers were in Israel in the time of Eliseus the prophet; and none of them was cleansed, saving Naaman the Syrian. |
28 And all they in the synagogue, when they heard these things, were filled with wrath, |
29 And rose up, and thrust him out of the city, and led him unto the brow of the hill whereon their city was built, that they might cast him down headlong. |
30 But he passing through the midst of them went his way, |
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The Lord comes to the one to whom He Himself wants to come. God's coming into a person's life is not a reward for one merit or another, whether ascetic feats or perfect piety. The Lord comes to those who need it as a matter of life and death. But there are many who are in need. Or does He choose the most humiliated among them? Perhaps that applies in some measure to the widow of Zarephath in Sidon, but hardly to the commander of the Syrian king's army. So the Lord chooses in some way unknown to human beings. No one will ever find a pattern here. The Lord is living, and everything living cannot be fully fitted into laws. For us, however, law is the mind's only support, the only thing that gives us any confidence. Yet that very confidence is what fails us. How sure the people of Nazareth were that they knew, knew well, this man, Jesus. But that confidence kept them from seeing God in Him.
We should not think that the Lord is somehow playing with us, or simply trying to surprise us, because everything here is far too serious. Human lives are at stake. Of course, that is not what this is about. It is simply that we, precisely we, do not understand God's providence or the whole complexity of His ways. "My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, says the Lord" (Isa 55:8). This mismatch is what sometimes makes us wonder why grace came down on this particular person, why in just this way, just at this time, when it is obvious to us that there are people around who are much more worthy or more needy. We simply have to try to believe that everything that happens by His will happens in the way most needed for the paths of grace.
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