What happens to a people when you suddenly have to live in the future in the present? Jesus goes to the Synagogue to plays to his home crowd (never an easy thing at the best of times) and discovers everyone sitting there are Scots. You see, Scots prefer being on the losing team. We've grown a culture round being the underdog and when someone becomes too successful we rally against them. Being called out from where we are into something more positive is like pulling the haggis and tartan out of Burns.
Yet in a sense this is what happens here. Jesus doesn't say anything wrong. The problem is he says what it right: all the ancient promises you've been living with are coming true. But we prefer that they didn't actually come true. We've quite comfortable. We know how to live with hope towards something. We don't know how to live in fulfillment of something. That's a different kind of lifestyle. It is much easier to live with hope than fulfillment.
But this is what Jesus says is happening and so the people think quickly and decide they prefer that the promises don't actually come true, and who was this young homegrown upstart to tell us of his ideas about promises anyway? We've lived with promises far longer than he has. We're very good at hoping. Not just so good at the idea of living in fulfillment. Blimey, does that mean this stuff is real?
Closing thought: what did we do with the last person who had a good idea?
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