We find Jesus to-day in Nazareth, where he lived in his boyhood. It is
the Sabbath-day, and he has gone to church, and stands reading to the
people from the Bible. He read in the book named Isaiah; read about
himself. These are the words: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because
He hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; He hath sent me
to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives,
and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are
bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord.” When he had read
these wonderful words he closed the book, and gave it to the minister,
and sat down. All the people looked at him, wondering what he would
say. Then he began to talk. He told them that the promises he had been
reading to them were fulfilled. All listened and wondered at the tender
and beautiful words that he spoke. They whispered to each other, saying,
“Isn’t this Joseph’s son?” Then he said to them: “You will surely remind
me of the proverb, ‘Physician, heal thyself.’ Do some of the wonderful
things here that we have heard of you doing in Capernaum. But, remember,
no prophet is highly thought of in his own country. Remember that during
that time of famine in Israel, when it didn’t rain for three years and
six months, there were many widows, but the prophet Elijah was sent only
to one at Sarepta, a city of Sidon. And there were many lepers in Israel
while the prophet Elisha lived there; but Naaman, the Syrian, was the
only one that was cured.”
This preaching made the people angry, and they started up in wrath and
thrust him out of their city, and wanted to push him headlong down the
hill on the top of which Nazareth was built. But just there he showed his
power, in passing quietly through the crowd of angry people, holding them
back by the power of his gaze, and went away.
[Illustration: JESUS IN THE TEMPLE, READING THE BIBLE.—Luke iv. 16.]