GOSPELS 4 NAZARETH AND THE YEAR OF JUBILEE

GOSPELS 4 NAZARETH AND THE YEAR OF JUBILEE 
After the six weeks of temptation in the wilderness Jesus made his way to Galilee on his way back to his hometown of Nazareth. That journey took quite a long time because he performed miracles and healings and regathered his disciples by the sea of Galilee. 
The arrest of John the Baptist by Herod would neatly fit anywhere into those six weeks of Jesus in the wilderness. 

Mark’s Gospel records in detail the story of Jesus on his journey from the southernmost end of the Jordan after his forty days in the desert as he heads home northward along the seashore of Galilee. He needed to regather his disciples as they had gone back to their fishing for those six weeks while he was in the desert, probably not knowing for how long Jesus would be absent.  Remember that Jesus had already chosen some of them at the time of his baptism by John when they left off being John’s disciples and decided to follow Jesus. Matthew tells the same story of Jesus regathering his disciples as they were fishing. 

Mark 1:14 Now after John was put in prison, Jesus came to Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, and saying, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel." And as He walked by the Sea of Galilee, He saw Simon and Andrew his brother casting a net into the sea; for they were fishermen. Then Jesus said to them, "Follow Me, and I will make you become fishers of men." They immediately left their nets and followed Him. When He had gone a little farther on from there, He saw James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, who also were in the boat mending their nets. And He called them (kaleo – called out to them- and they realised Jesus was back), and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired servants and went after Him. And they went into Capernaum. (Capernaum was a large busy bustling city)
and on the sabbath day he went to the synagogue and taught. And they were astonished at his teaching: for he taught them as one that had authority, not like the scribes.

Mark then tells powerful stories of the supernatural works of Jesus starting with him casting out an unclean spirit from a man in the synagogue in Capernaum. Jesus and the disciples left the synagogue and Jesus then healed the mother-in-law of Simon Peter, and Mark goes on to say that by sunset the open courtyard was filled with the sick and demon-possessed and a huge crowd of people from all over the city of Capernaum gathered outside the door to watch - and Jesus healed great numbers of sick folk that evening.

Jesus then healed a leper and a few days later healed the paralytic man who was lowered down through the roof by his friends and then goes walking by the sea and sees Matthew in his tax collector office and calls him to follow him also. Mark writes that such throngs soon surrounded Jesus that he couldn’t publicly enter a city anywhere but had to stay out in the barren wastelands where people came from everywhere to find him. Many more healings and miracles occur in the following chapters of Mark throughout what might have taken many, many, months, as Jesus went in and out of Capernaum to other regions of greater Galilee. And we will look at some of these at another time. But the Gospels agree that that initial time of his powerful ministry of healings and miracles was a prelude to Jesus returning to his hometown of Nazareth (Matthew 4:23, Luke 4:14, Mark chapters 1 to 6)

Jesus would have returned home to the modest and humble township of Nazareth where there would have been the usual measure of poverty and sickness – it hadn’t featured in any of the previous healing and miracle work . Nazareth was in an insulated part of the Galilean countryside surrounded by hills and olive trees, and Jesus would have turned up as the familiar ordinary young carpenter that shared their uneventful lifestyle. And in the synagogue, he would have shared the duty of giving a reading from the Scripture like all the other young men who routinely shared in this way, along with the older men in the community. 
By the time that he eventually got to Nazareth everyone would have heard about his preaching and healing and miracles that had happened along his way home which had taken such a long time, but they were not going to believe a word of it until they saw it with their own eyes. Nazareth had a reputation of being a disagreeable and unpleasant place and all the Gospels except for John’s Gospel talk about the rejection of Jesus in Nazareth. John’s Gospel’s only comment about Nazareth is found in John1:45 where Philip found Nathanael and said to him, "We have found Him of whom Moses in the law, and also the prophets, wrote—Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph." And Nathanael said to him, "Can anything good thing come out of Nazareth? (a mindset)

We now read Luke’s account of the homecoming of Jesus. 
Luke 4:14 Then Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee, 15 and news of Him had gone out through all the surrounding region.16 So He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up. And as the custom was (for all the young men in the place), He went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up to read. And He was handed the book of the prophet Isaiah. And when He had opened the book, He found the place where it was written: "The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me, Because He has anointed Me To preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed; To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD." (Isaiah 61:1)

Then He closed the book and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all who were in the synagogue were fixed on Him. And He said to them Today you have heard this Scripture fulfilled." (He is saying I am the fulfilment of Isaiah 61)! They bore witness to him – (They knew that he had spoken truth and had proved it by his recent ministry – and they knew who he was), and they were amazed by the gracious words which he spoke, and they said, "Is this really Joseph's son?" 
They were stunned and amazed and impressed but by saying ‘is this really Joseph’s son?’ They displayed the archetypical unbelief syndrome that was the flaw and failure of Israel and of all of us.

Then he said, “Probably you want to quote me that proverb, ‘Physician, heal yourself’, (meaning, ‘Why don’t you do miracles here in your hometown like those you did in Capernaum?’) But I’m telling you that no prophet is accepted in his own hometown! For example, remember how Elijah did no miracles of provision for the many Jewish widows needing help in those three and a half years of famine (who thought they deserved it because Elijah lived there on the Sidon coast), but he was not sent to them by God. Instead, Elijah used a miracle to provide for the widow of Zarephath, which was miles and miles away (sixty miles north of Nazareth). Or what about the prophet Elisha, who healed Naaman, a Syrian, rather than all the Jewish lepers needing healing (and who thought they deserved it - but God is not given to political correctness).
These remarks stung them to fury; and jumping up, they mobbed him and took him to the edge of the hill on which the city was built, to push him over the cliff. But he walked away through the crowd and left them. 

Jesus had just proclaimed the ‘Acceptable Year of the Lord’, which refers to the Year of Jubilee, which was meant to be celebrated every fifty years and though still on the calendar it was left unfulfilled, with minimal observance. The Jubilee Year was to be a ‘Super Sabbath’ year of observance and celebration. However, the celebration of the Super Sabbath depended on the observance of the seventh year Sabbath being obeyed seven times in a row, for 49 years and then would come the fifty year Jubilee year (Super Sabbath). 

The observance of the seventh year Sabbath meant that Israel were to have a year off their agricultural work every seven years and trust God for him to grow the crops and manage the weather and the locusts, so that they could enjoy being his family in the earth - and he would supernaturally grow the crops and bless their time of enjoyment of being families together - proving to the nations round about that they were the only nation that was favoured by the only God of Heaven. But they had no faith to ever do this.

The Jubilee year spoke of the greatest fulfillment of what might have been. This was the year of being given God’s rest and blessing and provision for their lives both individually and as a people of God. It was the year when all work of any kind had to cease, debts were forgiven, Leviticus 25 says and each of you shall return to his possession, and each of you shall return to his family and landholdings were returned to the original owners, and the slaves were given their freedom, and the families were to celebrate the blessings of being God’s children. It was to be a statement of God’s favour upon them forever for all the world to see.

You will notice that after Jesus proclaimed the ‘Acceptable Year of The Lord’, The Year of Favour, The Jubilee Year - he closed the Book, and there was a special reason for that. The next sentence in Isaiah 61 that he would have read said ‘and to proclaim the day of vengeance of our God’. But that was not what Jesus came to do. 
‘For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. (John 3:17)
But now - Jesus was telling them that he was the manifestation of what the Jubilee Year really meant. He was the one who would bless and provide and set free and take them to himself and to his Father and unify them to be as one with all the other peoples and nations of the earth - as part of the Family of God. 
Israel didn’t want to hear it then - but Jesus still wants peoples and nations of the earth, including Israel, to believe him and receive him and his Promise before he returns. Jesus was and still is our Jubilee and still on God’s calendar - it is an interesting observation that two thousand years since Jesus made his Jubilee proclamation, his calendar would now be marking the fortieth Jubilee around this time
James 5:7 Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it, until it receives the early and the latter rain.

The Bible says that as we press on to know the Lord he will come to us like the rain, like the latter and former rain to the earth (Hosea 6:3).
The early rain is the gentle rain of God’s loving grace that softens the hearts of men and women as they faithfully receive the understanding of God’s love and grace. The latter rain is the deluge of God’s sovereign outpouring of grace upon the earth which will come at his appointed time and where people of all ages will be touched by God and suddenly transformed by his grace. Let us remain constant in prayer and faithfully believe.