Lk 4,24-30

Luke’s gospel brings us back to Nazareth, where Jesus lived most of his life among “his own.” But at the beginning of his ministry his own rejected him  in their synagogue.  Jesus must have carried the hurt of that rejection;  how could he forget it?

The crowds that welcome him to Jerusalem on Palm Sunday call him “the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee.”  But  few disciples from Nazareth accompany him; some women from there will stand by his cross as he dies. From what we know of Nazareth and its subsequent history, Jesus didn’t find much acceptance there. “He came to his own and his own received him not.”

The lenten gospels prepare us for the great mystery of Jesus’ death and resurrection by having us understand the one who took on himself our sorrows. Will rejection by our own, someone close to us, be one of the ways we participate with him in this mystery?