Monday of the Third Week of Lent
“24 And Jesus said, ‘Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in his hometown. 25 But the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months and there was a severe famine over all the land, 26 yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. 27 There were also many with a skin disease in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.’ 28 When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. 29 They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff. 30 But He passed through the midst of them and went on his way” Luke 4:24-30.
Jesus had just entered the Synagogue of His hometown of Nazareth on the Sabbath and stood up, read from this text from Isaiah:
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” Isaiah 61:1-2.
He then rolls up the scroll of the Torah and says: “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing” Luke 4:21. The leaders of the Synagogue wonder if this Jesus is not the son of a carpenter, Joseph! Then Jesus speaks the text above, that “no prophet is accepted in His hometown” (Verse 24). Jesus is the proverbial outsider wherever He goes, and yet the insiders often miss the grace of God. Such is what Jesus meant when He spoke of the widow to whom Elijah was sent. She alone was the outsider, and she received the grace of God. The same is true of Naaman the Syrian who alone was healed of leprosy.who desires God’s grace. The insiders don’t get it, while the outsiders do!
So today pray that you will live as an outsider who receives God’s grace, and pray that you live outside all that our culture and it legions of temptations seduce you to try to live without the grace of God.
Are you an insider or an outsider?
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy on me a sinner.
From the Bible:
“ Naaman, commander of the army of the king of Aram, was a great man and in high favor with his master because by him the Lord had given victory to Aram. The man, though a mighty warrior, suffered from a skin disease. 2 Now the Arameans on one of their raids had taken a young girl captive from the land of Israel, and she served Naaman’s wife. 3 She said to her mistress, “If only my lord were with the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his skin disease.” 4 So Naaman[a] went in and told his lord just what the girl from the land of Israel had said. 5 And the king of Aram said, “Go, then, and I will send along a letter to the king of Israel.”
He went, taking with him ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold, and ten sets of garments. 6 He brought the letter to the king of Israel, which read, “When this letter reaches you, know that I have sent to you my servant Naaman, that you may cure him of his skin disease.” 7 When the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his clothes and said, “Am I God, to give death or life, that this man sends word to me to cure a man of his skin disease? Just look and see how he is trying to pick a quarrel with me.”
8 But when Elisha the man of God heard that the king of Israel had torn his clothes, he sent a message to the king, “Why have you torn your clothes? Let him come to me, that he may learn that there is a prophet in Israel.” 9 So Naaman came with his horses and chariots and halted at the entrance of Elisha’s house. 10 Elisha sent a messenger to him, saying, “Go, wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored, and you shall be clean.” 11 But Naaman became angry and went away, saying, “I thought that for me he would surely come out and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God and would wave his hand over the spot and cure the skin disease! 12 Are not Abana[b] and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them and be clean?” He turned and went away in a rage. 13 But his servants approached and said to him, “Father, if the prophet had commanded you to do something difficult, would you not have done it? How much more, when all he said to you was, ‘Wash, and be clean’?” 14 So he went down and immersed himself seven times in the Jordan, according to the word of the man of God; his flesh was restored like the flesh of a young boy, and he was clean.
15 Then he returned to the man of God, he and all his company; he came and stood before him and said, “Now I know that there is no God in all the earth except in Israel; please accept a present from your servant” 2 Kings 5:1-15.
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