Too Close For Comfort

At the very beginning of His public ministry, Jesus was given the book of the old prophet Isaiah.  He opened it and read the following passage:

God’s Spirit is on me;

He’s chosen me to preach 

the Message of good news to the poor,

Sent me to announce pardon to prisoners and 

recovery of sight to the blind,

To set the burdened and battered free,

to announce, “This is God’s year to act! Luke 4:18

To the people listening, this was all well and good.  They’ve heard it many times before. Nobody can argue with such nice, encouraging words written long ago by a great but dead prophet.  But, that’s all they were – nice, encouraging words dangling in their hearing like a lame man’s legs, without power.

Not much different from how we read our Bibles today.

Jesus sits down.  He looks around at their burdened and battered faces and says,

Today…

…this Scripture…

…has been fulfilled…

…in your hearing.

Today.

Scripture.

Fulfilled.

The people, of course, didn’t believe Him.

 In fact, they were filled with rage for getting into their faces so much so that they intended to kill Him by throwing Him off the city cliff. They liked their God kept at arm’s length. Confined to His sky and here, on Earth, to the pages of an old book. Kept on dusty bookshelf. Handy, in case we need Him. 

But, none of this Word-Made-Real, Word-Made-Flesh business. 

It was just a bit too much, too close for their comfort.