What To Do With Jesus?

When Jesus began His ministry on earth He went to the synagogue – the local church of His time – and when they asked Him to read He read these words:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, for he has anointed me to bring Good News to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released,

that the blind will see, that the oppressed will be set free, and that the time of the Lord’s favor has come.

Luke 4:18-19

These were words that the Old Testament prophet Isaiah had been given to share with God’s people hundreds of years before.

But what Jesus did next shocked everyone around Him. 

He rolled up the scroll, handed it back to the attendant, and sat down. All eyes in the synagogue looked at him intently. Then he began to speak to them. “The Scripture you’ve just heard has been fulfilled this very day!”

Luke 4:20-21

Jesus told those gathered there that day and tells us today that He is the one God has sent to be Good News for the poor, to bring about release from captivity, sight to the blind, and a life to be lived in God’s favour.

The people there believed God wanted to do these things and even believed God would send a Messiah to bring all this about.  They just had their own ideas about who that would be and they just refused to believe the actual person God sent who was seated before them.

The more Jesus spoke the more they recognized that he had authority but the more they couldn’t accept what He was saying because he didn’t fit into their mold.  Before the day was out they were trying to kill him.

What will we do with Jesus today?  That has always been and continues to be the great question of every generation. 

Loving God, thank you for Jesus, Your Son, chosen from before the foundation of the world, to come at just the right time, to live among people to demonstrate Your power and Your kindness, and then to die on a cross in payment for the sins of every human being.

Help us to recognize the ways we do just what His own community did on the day He read those words – refuse to accept His way in whatever the circumstance is that we see things differently.

Jesus, You are the way, the truth, and the life.  We need You to shape our thinking and understanding of life rather than trying to get You to bend to our perception of how life works and how You fit in.

Give us the humility we need today to receive You, receive all that You say, and choose to walk in Your ways so You can truly give us sight, freedom, good news.  Amen

What will we do with Jesus today?  It’s not a bad question to reflect on for a few minutes today.