January 23 – Luke
LUKE 4:14-21
Welcome to the third Sunday in Epiphany. Today, our Gospel reading comes from the book of Luke. In fact, today’s reading tells us of the first public act of Jesus. However, in reality it is not an act, but a sermon, and in a nutshell gives us Jesus’ life, ministry, and purpose in a nutshell.
In today’s seminaries, Jesus sermon that day would not have received a very good grade as it was less than the 15 to 20-minute rule for length, and had no story or joke to make people laugh.
To that end let me share this story with you. After a long, dry sermon, the minister announced that he wished to meet with the church board following the close of the service. The first man to arrive was a stranger. “You misunderstood my announcement. This is a meeting of the board,” said the minister. “I know,” said the man, “but if there is anyone here more bored than I am, I’d like to meet him.” So, like Jesus, I will try to keep remarks to a reasonable length this morning.
My question for you this morning, however is, “Wouldn’t it be nice if we could make predictions and they were accurate, especially with the Souper Bowl coming up!” If we only knew ahead of time who would kick goals, make great end runs, and which team would eventually win the game; we could make a mint betting on the game! However, no matter how we might study the stats of each team and players, there is no way to really make an accurate prediction. One only needs to listen to those who predict the stock market each day to know that when predicting anything, you win some and you lose some no matter how informed you are!
Over time, only a few prophets have proven to be without error in every single one of their predictions, and all of these have been Biblical prophets. Why, because they were inspired by God. However, no prophet has ever been or ever will be, as great a prophet as Jesus of Nazareth; which means that we can believe all that He said, including what is to come in the future of God’s world in the end times.
Today we find Jesus returning to His home town of Nazareth. He was a “home town boy,” everyone knew Him as the son of the carpenter, Joseph, and probably found it hard to believe the stories that would have filtered to them regarding Jesus’ miracles. On His return home, Jesus attends Synagogue with His family, friends and neighbors. At the synagogue, He was handed the scroll of Isaiah, and He found the place He wanted and read from it. In Jesus time, it was acceptable for anyone of good standing to read and speak at Synagogue. Perhaps they chose to hand Jesus the scroll just to see what the “home town” boy could do.
Regardless, what Jesus chose to read was written by the prophet Isaiah roughly 700 years before He was born. Anointed as a prophet to God, Isaiah claimed to speak on God’s behalf. Let’s listen again to the words Jesus read that day.
18 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
So, first of all, Jesus is telling them and us that God has sent Him, and that He has the spirit of God in Him. In short, that if God has sent Him, He is the long awaited and predicted Messiah. He has been sent to bring the good news of God to the poor in spirit.
Reading on: He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
That is, Jesus has been sent to give hope to those, including us here this morning, who are captives of fear, hate, and sin.
The prophesy goes on to say: and recovery of sight to the blind,
Jesus has come to help those who are spiritually blind see God, and if they listen to Jesus’ words, have faith in, and follow Him, they will know God, and be saved.
It goes on to say: to let the oppressed go free,
Again, giving hope to those who have been downtrodden, laden down with sin and lacking hope. Characteristics that describe many people right now in our own community and world. Just as Jesus promised them so long ago, He promises everyone today that if they have faith, through the cross we will be saved, forgiven of our sins, and will have eternal life.
Again, reading on: 19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” That is, to proclaim God’s love and grace to all who come to have faith.
After reading these words, Jesus then rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and while everyone stared at Him, He sat down. Then, Jesus said to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”
And when He spoke, it seemed that He spoke to each person sitting there individually. His ending words, are the shortest sermon in history. “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” That is, I am the long-awaited Messiah that Isaiah predicted! With Jesus statement He was identifying himself as the prophet sent by God to fulfill the Scripture and to fulfill our salvation. Jesus effectively applied the Scripture to Himself and His ministry. We can imagine the impact that these words had on those around Him; unbelief and even anger. How dare this son of a carpenter claim that He is the long-awaited Messiah?
As we read the Scripture, we see that Jesus fulfilled in His lifetime all of the things that He read that day from the book of Isaiah. More importantly, Jesus is still fulfilling His mission. Let me say it again, Jesus is still fulfilling His mission, and that is where each of us come in to the picture. For as disciples of Christ, we have been commissioned to continue carrying out Jesus’ mission in today’s world. Our part in Isaiah’s prophecy is to share the good news of Christ with those around us, and to show Jesus love to everyone that we meet whether rich or poor.
As we leave here this morning, let us not forget what Christ did for each of us on the cross, and that we can have unwavering trust in the word of God. What God has promised, He fulfills. And that is good news indeed! Amen