The Rabbi’s Riddle

Shabbat! I am so thankful for a day of rest after a full week. Meeting in local congregations is such a foundational part of our culture, even though we are required to travel to the Temple for three festivals each year – five days there and five days back. That shows our dedication to our G-d, our desire to follow pretty much all of his instructions. Jerusalem is so impressive, but thankfully most of our Shabbat services are right here at home.

Here in Nazareth, these are MY people. I have been learning with some of these men since we were children. I even LIKE some of them… at least sometimes.

I especially like hearing the words from the Torah. Familiar words seem to speak anew each time I hear them. During the rest of the week, things can be rather parched around here. It’s comforting to think about the old days when G-d actually spoke to his people through his servants.

Okay, time to prepare for worship:

“Hear, Israel, the Lord is our G-d, the Lord is One. Blessed be the Name of His glorious kingdom for ever and ever. And you shall love the Lord your G-d with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be in your heart. And you shall teach them diligently to your children, and you shall speak of them when you sit at home, and when you walk along the way, and when you lie down and when you rise up. And you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be for frontlets between your eyes. And you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.”[1]

Where is your glorious kingdom Adonai? Have I missed something? Most of the time it seems so far away. Do I ever get close to it? We dedicate ourselves to learning the words of G-d, yet we live on this dry earth. Oh Lord, where is your rain?

“Comfort, comfort my people says your G-d. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received from the LORD’s hand double for all her sins. A voice cries: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD; make straight in the desert a highway for our G-d. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill will be made low; the uneven ground shall become level and the rough places plain. And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the LORD has spoken. A voice says, “Cry!” And I said, “What shall I cry?” All flesh is like grass, and all its beauty is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our G-d will stand forever.”[2]

“My flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where this is no water. So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding your power and glory. Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you. So I will bless you as long as I live, in your name I will lift up my hands.”[3]

You, G-d, are my G-d, earnestly I seek you; I thirst for you, my whole being longs for you, in a dry and parched land where there is no water.[4]

 

Well looks who’s here! I have known Yeshua since we were little, but I have not seen him in quite some time now. There have been so many amazing stories about him, but they all seem to have occurred quite some distance from here. He was always a bit different than the rest of us boys, yet he always cared about everyone, even when we were children.

I suppose it makes sense that he became a Rabbi, along with being a carpenter. In both roles he seems dedicated to building things up.

But in all the time we were growing up, I never once saw, or even heard, about any miracles until a few months ago. And he never made any claims about who he ‘really’ was. Could all those reports just be made up? If he is half the man they say he ‘really’ is, I need to keep my eyes open.

In town after town they say he heals many who are sick, casts out demons, cures those with seizures and heals even the paralyzed! They even say he calmed the stormy sea with just words. What does he have in store for us today?

Worship continues:

“And it shall come to pass if you surely listen to the commandments that I command you today to love the Lord your G-d and to serve him with all your heart and all your soul, that I will give rain to your land, the early and the late rains, that you may gather in your grain, your wine and your oil. And I will give grass in your fields for your cattle and you will eat and you will be satisfied. Beware, lest your heart be deceived and you turn and serve other gods and worship them. And anger of the Lord will blaze against you, and he will close the heavens and there will not be rain, and the earth will not give you its fullness, and you will perish quickly from the good land that the Lord gives you.

“So you shall put these, my words, on your heart and on your soul; and you shall bind them for signs on your hands, and they shall be for frontlets between your eyes. And you shall teach them to your children, and you shall speak of them when you sit at home, and when you walk along the way, and when you lie down and when you rise up. And you shall write them on the doorposts of  your house and on your gates, in order to prolong your days and the days of your children on the land that the Lord promised your fathers that he would give them, as long as the days that the heavens are over the earth.”[5]

Ah, our Rabbi has chosen the scroll and called on Yeshua to read. Yeshua stands and moves forward to position himself before the scroll. He rolls to his chosen passage.

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisonersand recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free,to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”[6]

Wait! He is rolling up the scroll and taking his seat in the shammash. Why did he not finish this passage of Isaiah? I thought he would know better than this. He did not even teach before he sat down. Who will shed light on these words?

Everyone is looking at him now. The silence lingers, but he does not look ashamed or concerned. What a strange turn.

 Oh, Yeshua will speak again:

“Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”

What an uplifting message! The whole crowd hums in pleasant surprise. What could he mean? How could it be fulfilled? Yes! Let’s have the year of the Lord’s favor! Let’s have freedom and healing. Let’s hear some good news for a change! Well done, Yeshua! Maybe my thirst will be satisfied. G-d’s words are like water on parched lips.

“Isn’t this Joseph’s son, the carpenter, Mary’s son?” some whisper around me.

Don’t I know it! Some here even probably watched over him when he was a baby. They know of his infantile limitations, just like the rest of us.

Some are murmuring now. Sounds like they think he has an Isaiah-complex. In hushed tones they are discussing whether he thinks that the Spirit of the Lord is on himself, or if he was just quoting the holy words?

And now he has more to say:

“Surely you will quote this proverb to me: ‘Physician, heal yourself!’ And you will tell me, ‘Do here in your hometown what we have heard that you did in Capernaum’.”

“Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in his hometown. I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon. And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed—only Naaman the Syrian.”

No! No! No! What are you doing? How can you speak to us in this way? That message will not resonate here!

And how can you claim to know what we think? But since you mention it, why is it that we hear of these miracles around the region, but you have not done any of these things to help your own people? And, by the way, why did you leave off the rest of the passage – “the day of vengeance of our G-d?” Now that is what we really need around here. To break the chains of our oppressors and finally put ourselves in charge of our own future. Now that would be a really big deal. But, instead, you highlight G-d’s failures among our people, and lift up Gentiles!

Looks like Yeshua will be facing vengeance, based on what these men are saying. He will not be accepted here again anytime soon!  He burned his own bridge!

Now the men are driving him out of the synagogue! Even after what just happened here, I cannot join them against my boyhood friend. What do they think they will do?

They are driving him to the edge of town in this darkness, toward the brow of the cliff to push him to his death… yet… somehow, he seems to illuminate every soul on that hill, as if he, himself, is reflecting some light on this shadowy evening.

They have him right there, but now they seem to be hesitating. What on earth is going on?

He is walking right through the crowd! Without violence! He is not angry! He is not striking out at anyone. And having forced him to that point, they are not attacking him. He just continues on his way.

Is he truly set apart, or is he common? Could we, indeed, see the fulfillment of the prophecy he read?

What type of man is this? How could he do so much good elsewhere, and yet be so reckless here? Of course, he was not even given opportunity to work miracles among us. Would that he was, in fact, the person that some of our people in other towns are starting to suggest. Oh Lord, please be faithful to your people. Exalt your Holy Name! Pray send us your chosen one!

 

(c) 2017 Chuck Curtiss

To read other similar stories in this series see The Witness List.

Based on Luke 4:14-30, Mark 6:1-6

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. http://www.zondervan.com.

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[1]Deuteronomy 6:4-9 (The Shema)

[2]Isaiah 40:1-8

[3]Psalm 63:1b-4

[4]Psalm 63:1

[5]Deuteronomy 11:13-21

[6]Isaiah 61:18-19