Encore Post: Synagogues are like churches. They are places where the Jews gather on the Sabbath (Saturday) to hear a passage from the Old Testament read, to hear a sermon and to pray together. The Old Testament is read from a scroll, instead of a book. Someone would help the reader take it out of a storage box called an ark, unwrap it and roll the text to the place where he should start to read. Often the people would sing while they do this.
When the reading was finished, it was put away until the next Sabbath. When a boy reached the age of twelve, he got to read it for the first time in event called Bar Mitzvah, which means “Son of the Covenant.” If the reader was also a teacher, he would sit down and explain the reading.
This is what Jesus was doing when he returned to Nazareth. He read from Isaiah 61. This passage predicts the ministry of the Messiah to preach the Gospel and heal the sick. He announced that he was that Messiah.
The problem was his neighbors and friends had a hard time believing he was the Messiah. He grew up in such a normal way that there was hardly anything for the Gospels to report for the first thirty years of his life. The contractor down the block is the Messiah — please! They wanted results! What’s in it for them? Nothing! Their lack of faith in Jesus meant he could not perform miracles at home.
That day they tried to kill him, it failed. But it would not be long before Jesus would go to Jerusalem. There he suffered and died for their sins, ours and the sins of the whole world. When he rose from the dead, he set us all free. When he returns for us, then we will also be healed — not for a little while, but for forever.
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