“Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee, and a report about him spread through all the surrounding country. Nevertheless, it is a dramatic beginning to Jesus’ public ministry. For Luke, what is most important to convey about Jesus is the Spirit’s presence upon him, even if he omits several features essential to Mark’s version of this scene. He transposes and redacts a later scene from Mark’s gospel (Mk 6:1-6) as a way to foreshadow the rejection Jesus will experience, beginning in Galilee and ending in Jerusalem. Luke offers a more detailed account of Jesus’ return to Galilee (Lk 4:14-30). The seeds of the God’s reign would only find fertile soil among the poor of Galilee.” The good news of God could not come from the splendid palace of Antipas in Tiberius, or from the sumptuous villas in Sepphoris, or from the wealthy neighborhood where the priestly elites lived in Jerusalem. The reign of God could only be proclaimed out of a close, direct contact with the people who most needed breathing space and liberation. These poor, hungry, afflicted people were the ‘lost sheep’ who represented all the dispirited people of Israel. The coming of the kingdom of God must begin among the most humiliated people. They did not represent the people of God, rather the oppressors, the cause of the misery and hunger of these families. ![]() The powerful lived in the cities, along with their diverse collaborators: managers, large landowners, and tax collectors. “In these Galilean villages lived the poorest and most marginalized people, dispossessed of their right to enjoy the land God had given them here more than anywhere else, Jesus found the sick and suffering Israel, abused by the powerful here is where Israel felt the harshest effects of oppression. Pagola describes the Galileans of Jesus’ time in this way. It was not only the place of his upbringing it was a locus of unjust suffering and oppression in first-century Jewish Palestine. Galilee had a special resonance for Jesus as the appropriate location to proclaim that the kingdom of God had irrupted into history. The kingdom of God implies a reign of God over creation where God’s love will be experienced by all people, where God’s compassion at the sight of human suffering will be felt by those in need, and where God’s justice will extend from the depths of the oceans to the outer reaches of space. “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near repent and believe in the good news.” (Mk 1:15) Mark announces the beginning of Jesus public ministry with a simple, but profound, proclamation. John would never fully realize his impact as the one who had prepared the way of the Lord (Mk 1:3), nor that his violent death would foreshadow a similar demise for Jesus (Mk 6:17-29) and many of his disciples (Mk 8:34-35). Īfter Herod Antipas arrested John the Baptist (Mk 1:14 Mt 4:17 Lk 3:19-20), Jesus left Judea to begin his public ministry in Galilee (Mk 1:14-15 Lk 4:14-30). As with the other contemplations of Jesus’ public ministry, we also end this one with the triple colloquy (conversation) of A Meditation on Two Standards. This Exercise presents Jesus’ Return to Galilee (Mk 1:14-15). The contemplations of Jesus’ public ministry help us come to know him, love him and join him in the unfinished work of the kingdom of God. When appropriately adapted they offer a way for all people of good will to do the same. ![]() Ignatius of Loyola (Exercises) to discern God’s will and live faith in action on behalf of all God’s people. A Faith That Does Justice engages The Spiritual Exercises of St.
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