A Sore Spot

01.04.13

Luke 4.28 28 All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. NIV

Jesus had come to His hometown to begin His ministry and He proclaimed to them that He was the fulfillment of Isaiah 61.1-4. It seems at first they were gracious to Him and said things like: Nice job Jesus. Or, It seemed like You were speaking just to me. Or, That is one of my favorite passages. Or, I wish my mom would have been here to hear this – she is having such a hard time.

It was a great sermon and as long as it hadn’t touched them they were fine, but then Jesus did the unthinkable: He made an application: “Truly I tell you,” he continued, “no prophet is accepted in his hometown. I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon. And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed—only Naaman the Syrian.” Aw c’mon Jesus, whaja hafta go and do that for!?

What do we do when God doesn’t do what we want Him to do? What do we do when we pray and pray and lose the job anyway? What do we do when we cry out for healing and mercy and our mom (or dad) or son, or daughter, or husband, or wife, dies? What do we do when we pray and pray for our government leaders and then they keep making such unfair policies? What do we do when we are really counting on God to come through and it seems He left on vacation without checking it with us…? That’s how the people in that synagogue felt that moment when Jesus reminded them of an ugly part of their history.

The Sidonians were the ancestors of the Philistines and were lowlife scum in the eyes of the Jews. The Syrians were the Assyrians and they were a cruel and vicious enemy to Israel and came up with some of the most wicked and horribly creative ways of punishment which they inflicted upon the Jews. And when Elijah the prophet was ministering, he ministered to a Sidonian widow and a Syrian military commander. It was a sore spot in Jewish history that hadn’t seemed to have healed.

Sore spots happen and sometimes they remain for a long time, and sometimes, never heal. What do we do when that happens?

What do we do when God doesn’t do what we want Him to do? How do we approach the parts of the Scripture which tell us about forgiveness and humility when our society and culture wants nothing to do with those things?

Then as now, Jesus wants us to deal with the skeletons in the closet – or the pains deep within and trust Him to help us through them…will we trust Him that, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”

Father, Help me with what I don’t want to deal with; what I try to ignore; or what I try to take out on others because I am impotent to resolve…and I want my revenge.