(rough draft)
The Evening Lessons
With the older apostles out working for the kingdom, the groups of younger men and women had more time to discuss things with Jesus. During these evening talks on the third preaching tour, Jesus discussed, “The Love of God,” “Dreams and Visions,” “Malice,” “Humility and Meekness,” “Courage and Loyalty,” “Music and Worship,” “Service and Obedience,” “Pride and Presumption,” “Forgiveness in Relation to Repentance,” “Peace and Perfection,” “Evil Speaking and Envy,” “Evil, Sin, and Temptation,” “Doubts and Unbelief,” “Wisdom and Worship.”
David’s messenger service kept Jesus and all of the various groups scattered around the land informed about the progress of the kingdom. These messages encouraged everyone, and they did a lot to hold the group together. Jesus would work with one group of evangelists for a few days at a time, before moving on to another. Since this was their first time out teaching, the woman’s group spent most of their time with Jesus.
Before everyone spread out across Galilee to teach, they were all told to return to Nazareth in time to meet with Jesus on Friday, March 4th. In due order, around this time all of the various groups of evangelists started moving toward Nazareth. Those who arrived early set up camp for everyone in the high ground north of the city. Andrew and Peter were last to show up about midafternoon that day. This was the first time Jesus had been back to Nazareth since beginning his public ministry.
The Stay at Nazareth
This Friday afternoon Jesus walked around Nazareth, not being recognized by anyone. He wandered by the house and carpenter shop where he grew up, and then hung-out for a half hour or so on the hill were he used to play when he was a kid. These memories stirred up more human emotion in his soul than any other had since the day he was baptized by John in the Jordan River. As he headed down from the hilltop, he heard the trumpet blast announcing the sundown just like he had so many times before growing up in Nazareth. Before heading back to the camp, Jesus strolled by the synagogue where he had gone to school, and he let his mind flood with the memories of his childhood. Earlier that day, Jesus had sent Thomas to the synagogue to arrange for him to hold the following mornings service.
The people in Nazareth were not known for being very religious, or for righteous living. As time had gone on, this village was increasingly contaminated by the low moral standards of near-by Sepphoris. During Jesus’ time living in Nazareth, the people had become divided in their opinion about him, and a lot of them resented it when he had decided to move to Capernaum. While everyone had heard about Jesus’ doings after leaving Nazareth, most of the people were mad that he hadn’t included them in his earlier preaching tours. The town had been in an uproar over Jesus for months by this time, and most of the people held him in low regard.
So, instead of welcomed homecoming, Jesus was met with hostility and hypocracy. Even more, his enemies knew that he wanted to speak at the synagogue in the morning, so they had hired a bunch of thugs to make as much trouble for him as they could.
Most of Jesus’ older friends, including the chazan that had mentored him so well when he was a lad, had died or moved away from Nazareht. And the younger folk living there now were mostly jealous of him. They didn’t remember how he had been so devoted to his family after Joseph’s death, and they bitterly critized him for not visiting his brother and sisters enough who still lived in Nazareth. And Jesus’ family’s attitude toward him just made everything worse. In fact, Jesus’ reception in Nazareth was so bad, that the really orthodox Jews were getting down on him for walking too fast on the way to the synagogue in the morning.
The Sabbath Service
It was a beautiful day that Saturday morning, and everyone from foes to friends showed up at the synagogue to hear Jesus talk. So many people arrived that there wasn’t room for everyone inside, so many of the people traveling with Jesus had to listen from outside the building. Jesus had spoken hear many times before, and when the head of the synagogue gave him the scripture to read, no one seemed to realize that it was the same manuscript that Jesus himself had given to the synagogue when he was a young man.
The services were held just like they had been when Jesus was a kid. He took the podium with the head of the synagogue, and they began by reciting two prayers. First,
“Blessed is the Lord, King of the world, who forms the light and creates the darkness, who makes peace and creates everything; who, in mercy, gives light to the Earth and to those who dwell on it and in goodness, day by day and every day, renews the works of creation. Blessed is the Lord our God for the glory of his handiworks and for the light-giving lights which he has made for his praise. Selah. Blessed is the Lord our God, who has formed the lights.”
Then after a moment’s pause, they went on with the second prayer,
“With great love has the Lord our God loved us, and with much overflowing pity has he pitied us, our Father and our King, for the sake of our fathers who trusted in him. You taught them the statutes of life; have mercy upon us and teach us. Enlighten our eyes in the law; cause our hearts to cleave to your commandments; unite our hearts to love and fear your name, and we shall not be put to shame, world without end. For you are a God who prepares salvation, and us have you chosen from among all nations and tongues, and in truth have you brought us near your great name—selah—that we may lovingly praise your unity. Blessed is the Lord, who in love chose his people Israel.”
They then led the congregation in reciting the Shema, the Jewish creed of faith. This ritual meant repeating a lot of passages from the law, and was to show that the worshipers took on themselves the yoke of the kingdom of heaven, and the yoke of the commandments as applied to the day and the night.
Then came a third prayer, “True it is that you are Yahweh, our God and the God of our fathers; our King and the King of our fathers; our Savior and the Savior of our fathers; our Creator and the rock of our salvation; our help and our deliverer. Your name is from everlasting, and there is no God beside you. A new song the delivered sung to your name by the seashore; together did all praise and call you King and say, Yahweh shall reign, world without end. Blessed is the Lord who saves Israel.”
The synagogue chazan would normally then take his place before the ark, or chest, that contained the sacred writings and begin to recite nineteen prayers, or benedictions. But this time, to give Jesus more time to talk, he shortened this part of the service and only read the first and last of the ninetine prayers.
The first was, “Blessed is the Lord our God, and the God of our fathers, the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob; the great, the mighty, and the terrible God, who shows mercy and kindness, who creates all things, who remembers the gracious promises to the fathers and brings a savior to their children’s children for his own name’s sake, in love. O King, helper, savior, and shield! Blessed are you, O Yahweh, the shield of Abraham.”
And then the last of the ninetine benedictions was, “O bestow on your people Israel great peace forever, for you are King and the Lord of all peace. And it is good in your eyes to bless Israel at all times and at every hour with peace. Blessed are you, Yahweh, who blesses his people Israel with peace.”
The congregation didn’t look at the ruler as he recited the benedictions.
Afterward, he offered an informal prayer suitable for the occasion, and then all of the congregation joined together saying amen.
At this point, the chazan went over to the ark and took out a roll, which he gave to Jesus to read. Normally, they called on seven people to read at least three verses of the law, but this time they let Jesus choose what to read.
Jesus stood up in front of the group, and read from Deuteronomy, “For this commandment which I give you this day is not hidden from you, neither is it far off. It’s not in heaven; you don’t have to ask who will go up to heaven and bring it down to us so that we can follow it. Neither is it beyond the sea, so that you would have to ask who will go over the sea to bring the commandment to us so that we can follow it. No, the word of life is very near to you, it’s in your heart so that you can know it.”
And when Jesus had finished reading from the law, he turned to Isaiah and began to read, “The spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and the recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are bruised and to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.”
Jesus then closed the book and, after handing it back to the chazen, sat down and began to talk to the people. He began by saying, “Today these scriptures are fulfilled.” And then Jesus spoke for almost fifteen minutes on “The Sons and Daughters of God.” Many of the people were happy with the talk, and they marveled at Jesus’ wisdom and graciousness.
It was normal in the synagogue, after the end of the formal service, for the speaker to hang-out so that people could ask him questions. So, on this sabbath morning Jesus stepped down into the crowd that had pressed forward to ask questions. In this group were a lot of malcontents who just wanted to stir stuff up, and around the fring of the people were the thugs that had been hired to rough up Jesus. The apostles and other disciples who had been outside the synagogue, were now inside, and they quickly saw the trouble brewing. They tried to Jesus to leave, but he wouldn’t.
The Nazareth Rejection
Jesus was surrounded by a crowd made up mostly of his enemies, with a few of his followers scattered through them. In reply to their taunts, Jesus half humorously said, “Yes, I am Joseph’s son; I am the carpenter, and I am not surprised that you remind me of the proverb, ‘Physician heal yourself,’ and that you dare me to do in Nazareth what you have heard I did at Capernaum; but you should know that even the scriptures say that ‘a prophet is honored everywhere except in his own country and among his own people.’”
But things started to get physical, and pointing their fingers at him, people said, “You think you are better than the people of Nazareth; you moved away from us, but your brother is a common workman, and your sisters still live among us. We know your mother, Mary. Where are they today? We hear big things about you, but we notice that you do no wonders when you come back.”
To answer them, Jesus said, “I love the people who dwell in the city where I grew up, and I would be happy to see you all enter the kingdom of heaven, but it’s not for me to determine what God does. The transformations of grace come as the result of the living faith of those who receive it.”
Jesus could have, and would have, good-naturedly managed the crowd and disarmed even his violent enemies. But Simon Zelotes with the help of Nahor, one of the younger evangelists, took it upon themselves to round up a group of Jesus’ friends in the crowd, and then they confronted Jesus’ enemies and told them to leave.
For a long time, Jesus had taught the apostles that a soft answer turns away wrath. But Jesus’ followers weren’t used to seeing their Master treated with such discourtesy. This was too much for them, and they got mad and started yelling back at the people who were making trouble. This just added fuel to the fire, and the mob started to take on a mind of its own. Those who had been hired to rough up Jesus took the lead, and now grabbed ahold of him and hauled him out of the synagogue to the edge of cliff that was near-by so they could throw him off to his death. But just as they reached the edge, Jesus stopped, turned around, faced his captors, and simply folded his arms. He said nothing, and his followers were astonished as he walked forward and the mob parted allowing him to pass without harm.
Jesus’ disciples followed him back to camp, where everyone recounted what had happened. Then they all got ready to return to Capernaum the next morning. This bad experience right at the end of the third preaching tour sobered the crew. They were starting to understand the meaning behind some of Jesus’ teachings, and they were beginning to realize that the kingdom was only going to come about after much bitter disappointment.
Everyone left Nazareth that Sunday morning, and after taking different routes to get back to Bethsaida, they all showed up there by noon on Thursday, March 10. This time instead of coming together like some enthusiastic and all-conquering band of triumphant crusaders, they were much more sober, serious, and disillusioned.
Bob