Jesus Heals Through the Ears

Text: Luke 4:16-30 Speaker: Pastor Matthew Ude Festival: Epiphany Passages: Luke 4:16-30

Luke 4:16-30

In Australia this last week 14 people were convicted of manslaughter. These people stood around a young diabetic girl, praying for days as she slowly died. They had the insulin she needed but didn’t give it to her because they wanted to see a miracle. They thought they were proving their faith, but faith in what? We have no promise from Jesus that he will heal diabetes or any other earthly sickness. Without a promise from God there is no faith only arrogance.

The evangelist Luke who was himself a doctor introduces Jesus to us as the great healer in our text today. But what kind of healer? Just as John introduction of Jesus points us ahead to the cross, so also Luke makes it clear that Jesus has come to heal sin, and that healing takes place through the word of the Lord.

Verse 16

Luke 4:16-30   ¹⁶ So He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up. And as His custom was, He went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up to read.

This account takes place much later in Jesus’ ministry than we would assume from its placement in Luke. In the book of Matthew this account is recorded in the 13th chapter in its proper chronological place at the very height of Jesus popularity as a prophet. The text in Luke also makes it clear that this comes later in Jesus’ ministry. Jesus is well known. He has already done many miracles in Capernaum.

Why then does Luke place it at the very beginning of Jesus preaching ministry?

Answer: This is his way of introducing us to Jesus’ ministry. This is who he is and what he came to do.

We saw last week how John begins the ministry of Jesus with the water into wine miracle. John has a purpose for this. The Book of John was written primarily to a non-Jewish audience. From the beginning of his Gospel John shows Jesus to be the son of God. He is the word made flesh, the all-powerful God who gives good things to men. In the water into wine account, we see God blessing his people, but we also saw how John still points the people beyond the earthly blessings to the true blessing of the cross that was to come.

Luke has a similar but different purpose in his gospel. He presents Jesus as the healer and the anointed. He is the Messiah, who has come to heal the nation of Israel. So, he takes this account which actually occurs chronologically much later in Jesus’ ministry and places it here as his introduction to who Jesus is and what his ministry is all about.

He is the healer, but he is the healer of the soul. He is the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies. He is the one who preaches repentance and forgiveness. He is the one who comes to heal the nation of Israel. All these things are beautifully woven together in this one account.

 ¹⁷ 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:  ¹⁸ “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 brokenhearted¹, To proclaim liberty to the captives And recovery of sight to the blind, To set at liberty those who are oppressed;  ¹⁹ To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD¹.” 

What is the purpose of Jesus’ ministry? 

Each of these phrases can quite easily be understood as an earthly physical problem, the poor, the brokenhearted, the captives, the blind, the oppressed. These are problems that so many people in so many different ages of the world have tried to fix. These are the problems that politicians argue about in debates. Here says Isaiah is the one that can actually do something about it.

Yet, neither Luke, nor Isaiah, nor Jesus are thinking primarily of physical earthly problems. That is clear because the tool that this servant of the Lord is using is the preaching of the word. This is all accomplished through the preaching of the word. Isaiah tell us the servant of the Lord will “preach good news,” “proclaim liberty,” “announce freedom,” and “proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.” The tool of the servant is the word of God. His healing is done through that word. The power of that word is mainly a spiritual power.

Notice the progressive effect this preaching has on those who receive it.

The people begin as those who are poor, that is poor in spirit because they do not have the word of God. Jesus preaches the gospel to these who are without the riches of heaven. These same people hearing the word of God, though they were blind can now see. Through God’s word they can see the truth that they are sinners, but that they are forgiven through Jesus Christ. Finally seeing both their sin and the grace of God which gives them forgiveness they are set free. They who were in bondage to sin are now set free from sin. They are no longer controlled by sin but instead can live in the freedom of Christ.

All the physical earthly ailments of this world are only the symptoms of a deeper problem. Jesus did not come to this world to fix the symptoms but to fix the deeper problem of sin. He accomplishes this through the preaching of his word. It is his word which gives riches to the poor, sight to the blind and freedom to those who have been oppressed by sin.  

Verses 20 – 22

20 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.  21 And He began to say to them, “Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”  22 So all bore witness to Him, and marveled at the gracious words which proceeded out of His mouth. And they said, “Is this not Joseph’s son?” 

The eyes of all were fixed upon him. That sounds like a good thing, but Luke is going to show us that they were intent on the wrong sense. They should have had their ears fixed on him, not their eyes.  

Why were their eyes so riveted upon him at this point?

The fact that he sat down was the common custom of the Rabbis. Their attention has nothing to do that with that.

Some have suggested that his standing up was unusual because he was volunteering to read. This would be unusual. The custom in the synagogue was for the leader to appoint readers before the service. However, this could easily be what was happening. Jesus stood up to read. Whether he had been asked to do this beforehand is not specified in the text.

Some have suggested that it was the passage he read. Instead of reading the normal passage for that day he turned instead to Isaiah 61. This is likely true.

There are other reasons they may have been riveted. It could have been his fame as a prophet. It could have been they were hoping to see a miracle. It could have been all these things combined.

What matters is that their eyes were fixed on him but as we are about to find out not their hearts and ears.

They were staring with their eyes to see Jesus, but their ears were not open to hear the word of the Lord. All they saw was the son of Joseph, they did not hear with believing hearts what he had come to proclaim. They wanted to see a miracle. They failed to understand that the miracle Christ does among them is one that is heard and not seen. One of the miracles mentioned by Isaiah mentions sight, but all of them repeatedly mention hearing, preaching, proclaiming, announcing.

As Paul reminds us,  “So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” Romans 10:17

Many of Jesus’ miracles come through the ears not the eyes. This is Luke’s point. The healing that Jesus came to do comes through the ears hearing the word of God and not through the eyes seeing miracles. We too often want to see great things. We too make the mistake of spending so much time watching that we forget to listen.

With our ears we hear the proclamation that our sins are forgiven. Through the word the soul is healed.

Verses 23 – 30

23 He said to them, “You will surely say this proverb to Me, `Physician, heal yourself! Whatever we have heard done in Capernaum, do also here in Your country.'”  24 Then He said, “Assuredly, I say to you, no prophet is accepted in his own country.  25 “But I tell you truly, many widows were in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, and there was a great famine throughout all the land;  26 “but to none of them was Elijah sent except to Zarephath1, in the region of Sidon, to a woman who was a widow.  27 “And many lepers were in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.”  28 So all those in the synagogue, when they heard these things, were filled with wrath,  29 and rose up and thrust Him out of the city; and they led Him to the brow of the hill on which their city was built, that they might throw Him down over the cliff.  30 Then passing through the midst of them, He went His way.

The people of Nazareth are filled with anger that he will not be the prophet that they want him to be.

How Ironic that he finally gives them the miracle they ask for just as they are about to throw him off the cliff. This is a miracle which will lead him to the cross.  

He was rejected by his own, yet he goes his way. His way is to the cross to redeem these very people. He refuses to die at their hands now, so that he can die for them and us at the right time.

Christ has come to set free all of creation from the bondage of sin. This release is a spiritual release that comes through the cross. It is not an undoing of all the pains and sufferings of this world while we are in this world.

Faith is not proven by refusing to give medicine and trusting that Jesus will heal. Faith is accepting the suffering of this world and looking forward to that life which is to come.

Jesus can and does heal the physically sick and give sight to the physically blind, but this is not what he promises us. His promise to us is that he will heal our souls and cleanse our sin. His greatest miracles are those that come through hearing the word of the Lord. Amen