Prophets keep walking and trusting
by Kathy Matuschka
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All the people were amazed and said to each other, ‘What words these are! With authority and power he gives orders to impure spirits and they come out!’ (Luke 4:36)
Once again (in a different Gospel this time), we read that the crowds were amazed at the authority Jesus spoke and acted with. This was immediately after all the people in the synagogue in Nazareth were so doubtful and furious, they were about to throw him over a cliff! It seems that the life and actions prophets can be quite polarising.
Did Jesus deliberately bait his home crowd, or was he merely responding to the respective energies he was sensing firstly in Nazareth and then in Capernaum? Regardless, if you were to keep reading in the Book of Luke, you would see more and more stories where Jesus proves his authority to heal, and people seek him for words of life and healing, suggesting it was the people in Nazareth who had misjudged Jesus and not those who followed.
If you think of the enormous power and authority Jesus carried, he could have done a lot more in his hometown than walk away. Jesus, who made a fig tree whither, could have vindicated himself with ease in that situation. But he chose not to.
Jesus’ actions showed that he trusted his Father, even while his name (and possibly that of his family) was maligned. Jesus, who knew human temptations, kept walking (verse 30).
Dear Jesus, as you lived on this earth, you showed me how to be human. By your Holy Spirit, may I grow in trust so that I can do the work you have for me each day and then leave all things with you, whether they appear to have ended well or not. Amen.
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