Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.
When we hear the Scriptures proclaimed and respond with faith we experience what Jesus meant when he said "fulfilled in your hearing." Jesus, the one anointed by the Spirit is in our our midst. He proclaims the way to true wealth for the poor, the pearl of great price and the treasure in the field. He himself is the one who will make us rich with heavenly treasure if we will only let go of greed and selfishness.
When the Spirit in us helps us to recognize the Spirit anointing the speech Jesus it is then that the power of his words gives us true freedom. His words can bring us freedom from sin, freedom for excellence, freedom to live as sons and daughters of God were meant to live. We become able to stand in freedom, to walk by the Spirit, no longer stuck in our lives.
The Spirit of the Lord shows us the places of our lives where we are blind to the action of God or to the needs of our neighbors. There is always more that God is doing than we can see. But he wants to open our eyes more and more, as we are able to adjust to the light. He wants to take us from a halting and stumbling walk with him to one illuminated by he himself who is the light of the world.
The year acceptable to the Lord begins within us by faith, and only afterward will transform the visible realities of our world. If we do not discover true riches in Christ we will never adequately address the very real poverty in our world. If we ourselves are not free in Christ we will never be able to see that the captives and the oppressed finally receive justice. Faith comes from what is heard, so we must listen to Jesus, and experience the fulfillment of his words as he speaks them to each of us individually.
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring glad tidings to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.
The people at Nazareth seemed to desire the external realities before the internal change. They heard of miracles in the surrounding regions and thought that they themselves deserved at least as much since Nazareth was the hometown of Jesus himself. When they didn't immediately receive those things they suggested that he might just be another one like themselves after all, that his words about Scripture were just lofty words with nothing practical behind them.
They also asked, “Is this not the son of Joseph?”
Yet Jesus did not respond to this provocation by proving himself. Rather, he taught them that mighty deeds were received by those with faith, and were meant to elicit that faith from others, perhaps many others, who themselves did not receive the signs but who would have to choose whether to be offended by them or moved to awe.
The Thessalonians needed to take the word of God more fully to heart. Paul called them to realize that in the dying and rising of Jesus they could also discover hope for their brothers and sisters who had fallen asleep. Those who died and those who were alive to witness the judgment of Jesus in 70 AD shared one hope, that all who believed would eventually be made one in Christ.
Before the LORD, for he comes;
for he comes to rule the earth.
He shall rule the world with justice
and the peoples with his constancy.
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