Pause for Thought

How does one define 'passing through'? The account in Luke 4:16-30 concludes with that concept. I have never seen or heard a discussion of that recorded fact. It seems most folk will not pause long enough to consider such a thing. In this short study, we will pause for thought. We will embrace the concept. We will seek definition.

Jesus had gone home to Nazareth and preached famously. To the very people who had known him before the commencement of his public ministry, Jesus read from Isaiah. He stood and read from Isaiah 61:1, then he returned the scroll to the minister and sat down.

All eyes were on Jesus. Estimates place the population of Jesus' Nazareth from 400 to 480. One may imagine a synagogue large enough to accommodate that population. Quite a large crowd would gather there each Sabbath.

After his reading, Jesus angered the locals with his words. They felt insulted. The implication of his speech made them indignant. They somehow transformed, on that holy day, from a church-going crowd into a blood-thirsty mob. However many men had filled that synagogue, they took Jesus physically and dragged him to a high precipice to hurl him over the edge to his death.

Make no mistake: they had Jesus in hand. They had seized him by his wrists. They held him by his shoulders and arms. They shoved him angrily from behind with the bulk of the mob following. When they reached the cliff, he simply passed through that mob and went his way. How is that possible?

Here are some questions I wonder if anyone ever asks. Where were his disciples? Did they struggle to free their master from the mob? There is no mention of them. Some synagogues permitted women and older children to quietly listen from an enclosed upper balcony. Was Mary there? Did Jesus' siblings attend? The text is silent on this point. We are given only two points of reference: Jesus and the mob.

Let us pause long enough to consider what 'passing through' may involve. I leave you with these notions. Definitions include: 'passing through a hole or around something'. Did Jesus bolt through the crowd like a football player? Also, there is the passing through of 'infiltration'. Did Jesus somehow pass himself off as one of the crowd while he made his way to the trailing end of the mob? Had there been sudden confusion among them?

Somehow, Jesus moved through the physical mob in a way that ended with his body being no longer in their center. Had he used a power similar to that of walking on water? We have too little information to form a clear picture but for me, personally, I favor the infiltration scenario.