CHAPTER I. JESUS REJECTED AT NAZARETH. JESUS HEARS OF JOHN'S IMPRISONMENT-HE RETURNS TO GALILEE AND IS PERMITTED TO LABOR FREELY-HE COMES TO NAZARETH-HE ATTENDS THE SYNAGOGUE SERVICE-HE READS THE LESSON FROM THE PROPHETS-JESUS EXPOUNDS THE WORDS OF THE PROPHET-THE INCREDULITY AND SCORN OF THE NAZARENES-JESUS REBUKES THEM SHARPLY-THEIR RAGE-THEY ARE FOILED IN THEIR ATTEMPT TO KILL JESUS-THE NAZARENES GIVEN OVER TO UNBELIEF-THEIR REJECTION OF JESUS ACCOUNTED FOR-GOD, IN HIS WORKS, SIMILARLY UNRECOGNIZED BY MEN-JESUS APPEARED ON EARTH AS A MAN HIS SINLESSNESS A FACT NOT READILY APPRECIABLE PY MEN-HE CONTINUED SO LONG IN OBSCURITY-THE FAMILIAR ACQUAINTANCE OF THE NAZARENES WITH JESUS, A HINDRANCE TO THEIR HIGHER KNOWLEDGE OF HIM. SOON after the events narrated in the preceding chapter, and while He was engaged in the further prosecution of His labors, our Lord received the painful, and yet not unexpected tidings, that John the Baptist had been thrown into prison.* The stern and uncompromising character of John, his evident lack of sympathy with the ruling classes among the Jews, his unsparing rebukes of the wickedness of the age, and his open and positive endorsement of Jesus as the Messiah, had, at length, aroused against him a hostility which could not be appeased short of his life. Knowing as He did the secret hatred and the diabolical plans of the Jews; and conscious that the news of John's imprisonment would embolden them to attempt putting an end to His labors by a like violence, our Lord withdrew from *See Matthew iv. 12. Jerusalem, and returned to Galilee. Here, favorably received by the people, who appear not yet to have been infected by the animosity of the Jews at Jerusalem, He engaged in teaching in the synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the Kingdom. That He was permitted to do so freely, was not strange. The synagogue worship was distinguished for its freedom. The right of teaching was not restricted to any class. After the reading of the Scriptures, in the synagogue service, any respectable person was permitted to speak. Then, too, the hostile policy of the Jewish leaders had not yet developed itself openly, so as to attract the attention, or excite the passions of the people. On one of His missionary tours, Jesus came to Nazareth, the city where He had been brought up. He seems to have arrived several days previous to the Sabbath, during which time He healed a few sick people and preached to His former neighbors as He had opportunity. Some reports of His miracles at Jerusalem, and perhaps of the healing of the nobleman's son, must have reached them, yet His coming seems to have created no extraordinary sensation, though many, doubtless, felt a vague curiosity to see and hear the youthful artisan whose name already resounded through the land. When the Sabbath was come, Jesus, according to His custom from childhood, went into the synagogue to unite in the public worship of God. The people had been accustomed to see Him there in company with His mother and other relatives, not as a teacher, but as a quiet worshiper. He had come and gone, just like any other pious mechanic. They had not noticed anything extraordinary in Him. They had seen nothing to censure; and, on the other hand, there had been little to attract attention. On this occasion, when opportunity was given, probably after the reading of the prescribed section of the law, Jesus stood up as a signal,-doubtless in accordance with the usage of the synagogue, that he would read the lesson from the prophets. The servant of the synagogue handed Him the book of the prophet Isaiah. Unrolling the volume till He came to what we call the sixty-first chapter, He read the first verse and a part of the second. The passage is translated by Luke into Greek very freely, giving the full sense of the Hebrew original, without rendering word for word, as in our English version: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He hath anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor: He hath sent Me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year to the Lord."* What a full, glowing description of the Messiah and His work! Anointed from above with the Spirit, when the heavens were opened, and the Holy Ghost, in the likeness of a dove, descended and abode upon Him, He was commissioned to proclaim glad tidings to the miserable and perishing; to the sorrowful and poor in spirit; to heal the hearts that were contrite and penitent; to announce liberty to all in bondage, and deliverance to all who were bruised by any kind of oppression; in a word, to publish the great, the beautiful year of jubilee, the year of redemption and freedom for mankind,-such was the Messiah's work as foreshown by the evangelical prophet. Having read these words, Jesus rolled up the volume, gave it to the servant of the synagogue, and sat down. Something in His appearance, and in the reading, combined with a curiosity previously excited, concentrated upon Him the attention of the whole congregation. He at once began to discourse to them on the Scripture just *Isaiah lxi. 1. 2. |