Thoughts for the Day

Luke 4:23 Jesus said to them, “Surely you will quote this proverb to me, ‘Physician heal yourself!  Do here in your home town what we have heard that you did in Capernaum.’ “

Not for the only time in the gospels, we find Jesus responding to unvoiced questions and getting right to the heart of the matter.  He puts words into the mouths of his audience and voices their expectation.  “Physician heal yourself!” has always struck me as a proverb that is not quite ‘on the button’ so to speak, but the meaning becomes clear as we read on, and there is a distinct pre-echo, if there can be such a thing, of the words that will be levelled at Jesus on the cross: ‘He saved others; let him save himself if he is God’s Messiah”.  Is Jesus God’s Messiah?  That is the heart of it.  Is he God’s Messiah, or is he (simply) Joseph’s son?  “Do here in your home town what we have heard that you did in Capernaum.”  Was that their expectation?  Was that why they were still speaking well of him? Were they looking forward to the local lad doing his amazing “stuff” here?  Did they feel entitled to a piece of him because he grew up there?  But they were missing the point.  The amazing “stuff”, the wisdom, the miracles, the healings, weren’t the end product, they were the signpost, the testimony to who he was.  And that was something they who had witnessed him growing up struggled even to consider.  So Jesus told them bluntly he wouldn’t be putting on a show for them and they became outraged and drove him out of the town.  It’s strangely understandable but terribly sad.