Immediately after Jesus was baptized the Gospels remark that He was led by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness for forty days of fasting in which He was tempted thrice by Satan. At the end of those forty days, after being nourished by the ministering angels, Jesus returned home from the wilderness.
Luke records that upon returning home to His hometown of Nazareth, Jesus entered the synagogue on the Sabbath and picked up the scroll of Isaiah and began to read:
"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives, and recovering sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." (Luke 4:18-19; Jesus quoting Isaiah 61:1-2).
After reading this passage, Jesus then rolls up the scroll and says: "Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing."
Jesus was pretty bold. When He read this passage and then told the people that it was about Himself, we can be certain that it ruffled more than a few feathers.
Jesus could never be accused of pulling punches to cater to diplomacy or political correctness. He was unabashedly concerned with His mission, which was to live a perfect, sinless life, to teach about God's Word, and to die a horrendous death, all for the purpose of glorifying God and saving mankind from sin. He never swerved nor did He ever deviate from that path.
But, to be sure, He was not always the most popular among the religious folk because He had a nasty habit of making a scene and challenging the status quo. He hated religious hypocrisy, He despised religious pride, and He could not stand flippant apathy towards the things of God. We should never forget this!
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