When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:
‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.’
Jesus begins his ministry at the synagogue in Nazareth, and is immediately driven out of town. No one can argue that Jesus was a poor speaker or lacked conviction or had bad intentions. He was literally a perfect man and still was rejected from the very start! Our own success or failure should not determine our level of obedience to God’s command to go. With that being said, it is possible that God provides more assistance and ease to spiritual infants, perhaps asking less of them than the great High Priest himself. C.S. Lewis writes about this idea in his essay “The Efficacy of Prayer.”
“Meanwhile, little people like you and me, if our prayers are sometimes granted, beyond all hope and probability, had better not draw hasty conclusions to our own advantage. If we were stronger, we might be less tenderly treated. If we were braver, we might be sent, with far less help, to defend far more desperate posts in the great battle.”
Perhaps, as we mature in our faith (GROWing, you might say) God gives us greater responsibility to GO and work his will with the training wheels off. Most Christians strive to act like Jesus, so we should not be surprised when the world starts to treat us like Jesus, too. The world, even the religious world, rejected Jesus from the beginning of his ministry, and will reject the children who bear his likeness in their actions.
Christ Preaching in the Temple, Guercino Giovanni Francesco, 1625
