Who Do You Understand Jesus to Be?

[214 words]

“Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him, and he began by saying to them, ‘Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4:20-21).

For centuries, God’s chosen people had been expecting a Savior, God Himself. In one of those passages, Isaiah had written over 700 years before that the Messiah would fulfill certain requirements: “The Spirit o the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” After returning to Galilee after His baptism and temptation in the power of the Spirit, news spread about Him and He taught in the area’s synagogues. It was in His hometown of Nazareth, however, where everyone knew Him as ‘Joseph’s son,’ that He chose to declare Himself, through the fulfillment of Isaiah 61, to be the Christ and God Himself! No wonder those who remembered Jesus lugging tools for His earthly father were furious and wanted to drive Him off a cliff.