One of the villagers of Nazareth describes his excitement at Jesus’ homecoming:

Have you ever been there at “a moment”?   You know, a time it is clear history is being made; when something significant, perhaps life changing, is taking place?  I’m convinced I was yesterday.  And right here, in Nazareth too!

Now, word was spreading everywhere about Jesus, but we could go one better than that!   Most of us knew him. His Mum came from here, and he’d lived in our village since he was a boy.  We’d watched him grow up, some of us boys went to school with him, and we saw him train as a carpenter like Joseph, his father.  He was a good chippy, too!  He’d have had a good future ahead of him if he’d stuck only stuck at it.  It’s a growth industry round here, thanks to all the new development Herod’s doing just down the road at Sepphoris.  But then, of all things, he had to go off to Capernaum and take up preaching, didn’t he?!  Word had it that he was good at that too.  Now he had come back home, where he belonged, this was our chance to find out.

We all crowded into the Synagogue to hear what all the fuss was about.  The place was filled with a buzz of expectation, everyone determined to see our boy come good. And they were not wrong about him, you know?  Where he learnt his craft, I have no idea!  He was a bright lad and did well in school with the Rabbi, but no-one in the village really expected him to be any more than a carpenter.  And yet here he was a preacher now! And he definitely had a commanding presence about him. 

The buzz died down to silence as he stood up and was handed the scroll.  He took it and, almost without needing to read it, began to recite that beautiful passage from Isaiah.  I’ve heard it many times before, studied it’s meaning with the Rabbi again and again, but when Jesus started out with “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me…”  it didn’t feel like he was reading scripture, but simply stating a fact.  It was so real, so true, that I could not disagree: he had been anointed to preach Good News! He did it so freely, so naturally, my heart warming with every word.  Yes, this was a moment: a ‘Wow’ moment!  A special, Godly moment, for sure!

For a while I quite forgot that it was Jesus, the carpenter’s Son from right here in our village, who was speaking.  I was lost in reverie, with the sense of God’s promised favour feeling nearer than ever before.  It was as though hope grabbed a hold of my heart and started it beating to a new and stronger rhythm.   His words became a song that fired my imagination; their imagery alive so alive you could almost touch it and know it to be true.   Yes, I could see blind people being restored, lame people dancing, prisoners running free and the poor and the oppressed rejoicing in God’s richest blessings – all that God has promised and everything we had long hoped for.  His words brought this all to life and filled the world with possibility. 

“And today – here and now, in Me, those words come true!” 

‘Yes!’ and ‘wow!’

And ‘Wow!’ and ‘Yes!’

He didn’t need to say anything more. 

Every instinct told me that he was right: that this was the moment.   The Kingdom of God is here! Freedom, healing and salvation are running over the horizon to meet us!  This is God’s new day and He will fulfil his word.