Crushing Racism Sýnishorn

The Mission of Christ Crushes Racism

When Jesus started His ministry, He made a mighty announcement on the Sabbath at the synagogue in Nazareth, His hometown. He stated His mission by quoting a few passages from the Old Testament. It is interesting to notice that the heroes in those passages are not Jews, but Gentiles. The people were so furious with Him that they tried to throw Him off a cliff (Luke 4). Consider that they were at the synagogue to worship God and listen to the teaching of the Scriptures. Nevertheless, their reaction shows us that Jesus’s mission sounded like a terrible insult in the deep ethnic divisions of that day. Jesus was stating that His kingdom was not about one people or race, but open to all people.

Do you understand that this is how Jesus began His ministry? As He read His mission statement, He clearly declared first, that He was the Messiah, and second, that He had come to save not only the Jews, but people from every nation.

When you continue following His ministry and mission throughout the gospels, and arrive at Luke 10, you will once more see how His teaching shocked people. When Jesus told the story of the Good Samaritan, He presented a person despised by most Jews as the hero of the story. Can you imagine how hard it was for the audience to hear that a person they detested was actually seen by Jesus as a good person? Read the story of the ten lepers, and you will see that, again, the only leper who came back to thank Jesus for his miracle was a Samaritan. It was revolutionary!

Jesus pushed all the boundaries when He turned over the tables of the temple, declaring that God’s house was supposed to be a house of prayer for all the nations of the world (Mark 11:17). Reflect on the implications of this statement, together with Jesus’s last words to His disciples, “...Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations...” (Matthew 28:19 NKJV). May I remind you that Jesus’s mission is our mission? We are not called to preach the gospel to a specific nation, but to all the nations. The preaching of the gospel is a calling to crush racism. God does not show favoritism, so neither should we (Romans 2:11).

Prayer

Heavenly Father, open my eyes as I read Your Word, to see how Jesus’s mission crushed racism. Help me to follow His commandment and make disciples of all the nations.