A Rejected Father
by Fr. David M. Knight
March 4, 2024
Monday (Week III of Lent)
Lectionary No. 237
2 Kings 5:1-15; Psalm 42; Luke 4:24-30
"They drove him out of town, and led him to the brow of the hill, to hurl him down headlong…" Luke 4:29
How do you think Jesus felt when the friends and neighbors he grew up with drove him away and tried to kill him?
No one had greater appreciation for family ties—and by extension, neighborly ties—than Jesus, Son of the Father. His life as God was the mutual relationship of the Three Persons. Jesus came to earth to include us in their life of mutual interaction, so that the Father, Son and Spirit might “see and love in us” what they see and love in each other (see Sunday Preface VII).
And the people of his own home town rejected him.
That was rejection of his Father. Jesus didn’t work miracles in Nazareth because it was not for that he was sent. Jesus said, “The Son can do nothing on his own, but only what he sees the Father doing” (John 5:19). So in rejecting Jesus, they were rejecting the will of the Father. Spurning the relationship.
Every sin is a complete or partial rejection of relationship with the Father as Father, with the Son as Savior, with the Holy Spirit as bond of unity. If we were fully aware of how much the Three Persons value relationship with us, we would never sin.
ACTION: Ask what your sins do to your relationship with each of the Three Persons. And with other people.
PRAYER: “Father, hallowed be your name!"
Reflections brought to you by the Immersed in Christ Ministry
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