How’s Your Hearing? / Luke 4:16–30 / Pr. Ted A. Giese / Sunday January 26th 2025 / Season of Epiphany / Mount Olive Lutheran Church

Mount Olive Lutheran Church / Pr. Ted A. Giese / Sunday January 26th 2025: Season of Epiphany / Luke 4:16–30 “How’s Your Hearing?”

And [Jesus] came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up. And as was His custom, He went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and 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 proclaim good news to the poor.

         He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives

                 and recovering of sight to the blind,

                 to set at liberty those who are oppressed,

         to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.” 

        And He rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on Him. And He began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” And all spoke well of Him and marveled at the gracious words that were coming from His mouth. And they said, “Is not this Joseph's son?” And He said to them, “Doubtless you will quote to Me this proverb, ‘“Physician, heal yourself.” What we have heard You did at Capernaum, do here in Your hometown as well.’” And He said, “Truly, I say to you, no prophet is acceptable in his hometown. But in truth, I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heavens were shut up three years and six months, and a great famine came over all the land, and Elijah was sent to none of them but only to Zarephath, in the land of Sidon, to a woman who was a widow. And there were many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian.” When they heard these things, all in the synagogue were filled with wrath. And they rose up and drove Him out of the town and brought Him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they could throw Him down the cliff.  But passing through their midst, He went away.

Let us pray: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in Your sight O Lord. Amen.

Grace peace and mercy to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Good Christian Friends have you thought much about how you hear what is said to you beyond the physical ability to hear?

How do you receive news? Is it solely dependant on the one who delivers it? Or does the news itself over-ride who delivers it to you? How does it go when you receive good news from someone you dislike? Or bad news from someone you love? Does it make a difference to you? If you’re in a bad mood and good news comes to you does it always cheer you up? Does the mood and the mindset of the hearer, the ear and the heart, make a difference or not? Or does it make no difference at all?

On the one hand, in the Old Testament Reading from Nehemiah[1] we hear how Ezra the scribe and priest read to all the people, gathered together as one man, in Jerusalem from the first five books of the Bible recorded by Moses and how the ears of those men, women and children where attentive; how it cut them to the quick, how the public reading of Scripture and the preaching[2] that day made them mourn and weep over their sin so much so that Ezra needed to sooth their hearts with words of grace and mercy with a command to gather for a feast of fat and sweet wine to be shared among the rich and the poor alike saying “do not be grieved, for the joy of the LORD is your strength,” for, as Ezra said, “that is holy to our Lord.”[3] These were men women and children who were confronted with their sin and the mighty historic works of the LORD on their behalf and they were moved to repentance and thankfulness. The Word of God had been preserved[4] and it had come to them and they basked in its light with gladness and thanksgiving, because they were repentant and heeded the call to return to the LORD their God. 

While on the other hand, in our Gospel Reading, from the Gospel of Saint Luke,[5] the very Word of God made manifest, the very Word of God made flesh, the very Light of men[6] shone upon the men women and children gathered together in the synagogue in Nazareth as Jesus stood before them, and they, after hearing God’s Word read to them from the scroll of the prophet Isaiah, by the very Word of God Himself—after hearing Jesus’ word of preaching after He sat down—became incredulous, disbelieving, unconvinced in their hearts and minds and Saint Luke tells us “when they heard these things, all in the synagogue were filled with wrath,” and in two shakes of a lamb’s tail they’d dragged Jesus up to the brow of the hill upon which their town was built to throw Jesus off the cliff to His death. But the Lamb of God was not to die that day; so we hear that Jesus miraculously passed through their midst, and went away. 

These are two very different reactions to the Word of God coming to the people. Take note that in both cases these were publicly professing believers in God. The events recorded in Nehemiah certainly unfold differently than the events recorded by Saint Luke.

Now the people in Nazareth that Sabbath Day didn’t like that Jesus wasn’t healing everyone as He’d done at the sea side town of Capernaum,[7] later on however, while in Jerusalem, after healing a man born blind on the Sabbath Day Jesus would have a similar experience rooted in the same sort of issue that He’d faced in Nazareth. In a damned if you do damned if you don’t sort of scenario Jesus is condemned for doing the thing that earlier He was condemned for not doing. This is the epitome of the reality that, try as you might, you simply can’t please everyone. Again this is rooted on whether people could hear Him, not just physically with their ears, but spiritually in their hearts: So here Jesus addresses His disciples and followers along with all those who were most upset with Him saying,

“My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.”

[Saint John tells us how at that very moment having heard Jesus speak these words] The Jews picked up stones again to stone Him. Jesus answered them, “I have shown you many good works from the Father; for which of them are you going to stone Me?” The Jews answered Him, “It is not for a good work that we are going to stone You but for blasphemy, because You, being a man, make Yourself God.” Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your Law, ‘I said, you are gods’? [Here Jesus was appealing to Psalm 82:6 which reads “I said, “You are gods, sons of the Most High, all of you;”] [So Jesus continues saying to them] “If He called them gods to whom the Word of God came—and Scripture cannot be broken—do you say of Him whom the Father consecrated and sent into the world, ‘You are blaspheming,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’? If I am not doing the works of My Father, [Jesus says to them] then do not believe Me; but if I do them, even though you do not believe Me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in Me and I am in the Father.” [So here Jesus is basically saying ‘trust the sweat not the face,’ or put the other way ‘if you don’t trust the face start with trusting what the one with the face is doing.’[8] Saint John then records how] Again they sought to arrest [Jesus], but [Jesus] escaped from their hands.[9]               

So not the edge of a cliff but still ears that would not hear, hearts that would not trust, minds that would not believe. Jesus, the Light of Men was bringing the Word of God to them upon His words, and in His flesh, and they would rather live in darkness. In 1524 our dear Rev. Doctor Martin Luther reflected on how people through time and even in His day would reject the Good News of the Gospel found in Scripture and embodied in Christ even among people who publicly professed to believe in the promises of God. Luther says:   

“Let us remember our former misery, and the darkness in which we dwelt. Germany, I am sure, has never before heard so much of God’s word as it is hearing today; certainly we read nothing of it in history. If we let it just slip by without thanks and honour, I fear we shall suffer a still more dreadful darkness and plague. O my beloved Germans, buy while the market is at your door; gather in the harvest while there is sunshine and fair weather; make use of God’s grace and word while it is there! For you should know that God’s word and grace is like a passing shower of rain which does not return where it has once been. It has been with the Jews, but when it’s gone it’s gone, and now they have nothing. Paul brought it to the Greeks; but again when it’s gone it’s gone, and now they have the Turk. Rome and the Latins also had it; but when it’s gone it’s gone, and now they have the pope. And you Germans need not think that you will have it forever, for ingratitude and contempt will not make it stay. Therefore, seize it and hold it fast, whoever can; for lazy hands are bound to have a lean year.”[10]

Dear ones there are great blessing to be like the people we heard of from our reading in the Old Testament book of Nehemiah and great warnings to be taken considering the people we heard of from Nazareth in the Gospel of Saint Luke and the ones we heard of later in Jerusalem from the Gospel of Saint John. When the Word of God comes to your ears do you listen or do your grab the one who speaks those words and attempt to drive them away, maybe even plot their harm or death? Do you hold God’s Word as sacred and gladly hear and learn it or do you despises it? Again, as we started, the question again presents itself “does the one speaking those words impact the way you hear them?”

Consider The Third Commandment: You shall sanctify the holy day. [Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.] What does this mean? We should fear and love God so that we do not despise preaching and His Word, but hold it sacred and gladly hear and learn it. Were the people from the Book of Nehemiah upholding this Commandment? Yes. Were the ones in Nazareth from the Gospel of Saint Luke upholding this Commandment? No. And neither were the ones from the Gospel of Saint John who picked up stones to stone Jesus to death.[11] Luther demonstrated that this is a perennial issue that the Church needs always to be paying attention to, but of course when Luther wrote those words in 1524 after that everyone straightened up flew right, right? They all kept the Third Commandment perfectly after that? Sadly, no: so we today also have to carefully consider these things. Jesus is not standing in the pulpit here today in the flesh but remember what He’d said to His disciples near the end of the Gospel of Saint John “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent Me, even so I am sending you.”[12]

Saint Paul gives this advice to Saint Timothy as Timothy prepares to be an overseer of pastors in the Church, “For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.” [Then Paul gives this advice] “As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.”[13] Where Paul and Timothy and men like Luther and myself fail at perfectly enduring suffering in the face of persecution—when people dislike the message we have been sent to deliver to them from God’s Word—even so, and all the more, we can rest assure that Jesus was ever steadfast in this regard, and while it was not His day to suffer and die as the people from His home town attempted to throw Him off the cliff, and it was not His day to die when in Jerusalem after healing the man born blind, He would nevertheless perfectly endure suffering and fulfil His mission of Salvation on His Good Friday cross. And when He’d breathed His last, do you remember what He said? He said, “It is finished.” Do you have ears to hear those words? For all the times you’ve refused to listen, for all the times you’ve stopped up your ears, for all the times you’ve despised the preaching of God’s Word, maybe said ‘ah, I’m gonna skip it this week, I don’t need to hear it, it’s all the same anyways,’ for all the times you hated the pastor sent to you, right there at the cross Jesus took those sins upon Himself into the grave and from that cross, from that empty grave they are finished, they are removed, they are forgiven. Trust in that. He who has ears to hear: “Ask and you shall receive.” Ask for forgiveness and Jesus will pour His forgiveness out upon you with abundance.

In the mean time, be prepared daily to hear God’s Word and take to hear these passages as a help and a guide in that preparation:     

From Psalm 90:12 “So teach us [Lord] to number our days

               that we may get a heart of wisdom.”

From Psalm 25:7 “Remember not the sins of my youth or my

               transgressions; according to Your steadfast love remember me, for the sake of Your goodness, O LORD!”

From Psalm 51:10 “Create in me a clean heart, O God,

               and renew a right spirit within me.”

Dear ones, in all these, pray that you will have the ears to hear when the Lord brings to you both His holy Law that warning and correction, and His holy Gospel that Good News of the promises of Salvation in Christ for you, found in His Holy Word. Amen.    

Let us pray: Lord have mercy on us, Christ have mercy on us, Lord have mercy on us, “take our minds and think through them, take our lips and speak through them, take our hearts and set them on fire; for the sake of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, Amen.

[1] Nehemiah 8:1–3, 5–6, 8–10
[2] Nehemiah 8:8
[3] Nehemiah 8:10
[4] The Biblical Book of Nehemiah recounts the rebuilding of Jerusalem and the return of the exiles from Babylon after 59 years of captivity (597 538 BC).
[5] Luke 4:16–30
[6] John 1:4
[7] Luke 4:23
[8] Matthew 7:15-20
[9] John 10:27–39
[10] “To the Councilmen of All Cities in Germany That They Establish and Maintain Christian Schools, 1524,” Luther’s Works, Volume 45, Christian in Society II, Concordia Publishing House 1963, page 352.
[11] John 10:31
[12] John 20:21
[13] 2 Timothy 4:3–5

Photo Credit: Main Photo detail of the ear of a woman listening from freepik.