Recent political events have left us shaking our heads over the country where that beautiful song was born. But it’s the same old, old story the whole world and the timeline over—of grudges as priorities, of personal interest superseding moral fibre. And my first (rather ungodly) instinct is to crow, ‘It would never happen here.’
Wouldn’t it? I’m not so sure.
As the Church worldwide, we sings songs with lyrics such as ‘Heaven is my home,’ but it’s easy to let them roll off our tongue on autopilot, all while harbouring a secret place in our hearts where our country is enthroned. Let me get this out of the way: I am a proud Kiwaussie. I adore my native New Zealand, not least because it has contributed such a great number of missionaries per capita. And I adore my adoptive Australia, which has given me wings to fly. Like many of you, I dream dreams about her standing on her own two feet economically, whilst still holding her arms out to the world in all its richness and all its poverty. I am not so very different from any other citizen of any other country, and I can’t point any fingers.
Jesus Himself had a few fingers pointed at Him when He was home, home on the range. It was one part ‘Local boy makes good’ and one part ‘Who do you think you are?’ He was the tallest poppy they’d ever come across. In Luke 4:24–29 NIV, we get a glimpse of what can happen when God speaks and nationalism hears.
‘Truly I tell you,’ He continued, ‘no prophet is accepted in his hometown. I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon. And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed—only Naaman the Syrian.’
All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. They got up, drove Him out of the town, and took Him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw Him off the cliff. But He walked right through the crowd and went on His way.
To be fair, Israel DID have a corner on God. They were, in fact, the only nation on Earth who could make such a claim. The trouble was, this corner was not exclusive. It was always intended to be the spearhead by which the knowledge of God could be restored to the world. And, it must be remembered, in the first century they were in a defensive posture, with Rome looming over them every day. Sharing salvation with Gentiles was the very last thing on their minds.
Here on this Sabbath in Nazareth, we have a situation where God reminds them of His own wider history, from His own Word. The message is loud and clear: if you reject God, He has other options. And that was intolerable. Just one chapter back, John had told his audience, ‘God can raise up sons for Abraham from these stones!’ Was he gesturing to the rocks of the riverbed … or the hardened Roman soldiers on the fringe of the group? The point is the same: it’s the heart, more than the lineage. The faith, not the blood, of Abraham.
Throwing someone off a cliff was, of course, against the law of both the Ten Commandments and that of Rome. Mob frenzy itself was highly illegal. And even though the chief priests later told Pilate that Israel had a private law demanding the death of anyone claiming to be the photocopy of God, this was not strictly true. Leviticus 24:15 says that if you curse God you must be stoned. Stoning, unlike gravity, is comparable to calling the earth itself as witness against the guilty. It’s ironic that if Jesus had had a trial that day, He could have been killed by sons of Abraham throwing ‘sons of Abraham’. But surely, in every generation, there would have been the occasional mentally disturbed person claiming to be the son of God, yet not getting stoned for it. How did a claim become equated with a curse? This quantum leap was surely a case of the original being unfaithful to the translation. There were no contemporary provisions for the real Messiah to make His claims. It was all sewn up so that power remained in the hands of the rich and nervous.
So here in Nazareth we have a mob whose patriotic ideals were so important to them that they could tolerate neither the rule of law, nor the presence and words of God Himself. And this, on the back of wonderful prophecy!
Before we smirk and say, ‘Sound familiar?’ we must remember that we may not have been tested in this situation. We simply do not know what all the buttons in us actually are, until they’ve been pressed. All we’re left with is sober judgment on our own soul—the humility of knowing some of our buttons, and few of their consequences.
Jesus’s actions that day were triply merciful. By facing down the crowd, or melting through it, He preserved His life for later sacrifice. He prevented the earth from testifying falsely against Him. And—most stunning of all—He saved the town from the wrath of Rome, who did not tolerate lynching. Those involved could have faced crucifixion themselves; He took their cross upon Himself, quite literally.
When we’re writing, we must be careful—even now, I’m not sure I’ve done enough circumspection—not to thumb our nose at others. We must resist the underlying current of ‘we are the greatest nation on earth, we’re better than [insert a country], we are God’s and therefore untouchable, yeah we take shortcuts but it’s all good because we’re loved.’ God takes His Word seriously. No country is perfect, and if we want the Lord’s favour to rest on us, the route is to walk humbly with Him and heed Him. When we do that, we are far more likely to do justly and love mercy, because righteousness and compassion flow from our relationship with Him. According to Proverbs 13:34, this is what exalts a nation—though at all times, we should instead be exalting the Lord!
 I was born in the city called by His name. All of us in this group are from the Great South Lands of the Holy Spirit, but nationalities count for nothing if our hearts are not turned in faith toward God, if we do not admit that in the final analysis, our citizenship is in Heaven. We are foreigners and strangers on earth, looking for our forever-home, our heavenly country and the city prepared for us by our Father (Hebrews 11:13–16). If we are ever called upon to choose between citizenships, this will be our comfort. It’s the hand, not the land: no one can snatch us or cast us away from our beautiful Lord.
What are you most looking forward to in the New Jerusalem?
Thank you for this timely word.
You’re welcome. Hope I can remember to keep myself in check as the days and events go by!