Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit,
and news of him spread throughout the whole region.
Jesus became famous by his teaching and his mighty deeds. But then he returned to Nazareth, where he had grown up, where people thought they knew him. It was easier for people in the surrounding regions to accept Jesus because they didn't have any expectations to limit him. But we ourselves are more like those of Nazareth. We grew up with Jesus in our communities. As a consequence we have a hard time believing him when he is doing something new. We doubt any manifestation of his power which we haven't already seen.
He came to Nazareth, where he had grown up,
and went according to his custom
into the synagogue on the sabbath day.
Jesus can and does speak new words to us through Scriptures which we have heard before. But to hear them we must not be so fixated on what we already think we know that we are unable to listen. When we read familiar verses they do tend to evoke familiar explanations. In Church we may find ourselves writing a homily in our heads rather than listening to the preacher, or comparing the preacher to some existing content of knowledge we have about the verses. Instead we should learn to be present and to listen, especially for the unfamiliar, for those things which don't immediately resolve into the larger picture we think we have. And these new things themselves may well be in the words themselves rather than any new interpretation, even though they are words we may have heard so many times before.
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.
After the year that passed, how we need and desire a year acceptable to the Lord! How we need this great year of jubilee prophesied by Isaiah. But we still tend to assume that such a year would have a basis in politics or economics. We still, and perhaps especially now, don't realize that our problems run deeper than these.
“Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.”
This confidently spoken explanation, full of divine authority, may have been extremely frustrating to the crowds in Nazareth. They had heard of the power of Jesus. They may have even been willing to accept displays of that power. But now it seemed as if he was saying something was the case when it was not, that black was white. Do we experience that frustration when we hear him speaking it with the backdrop of our own present circumstances, as insufficient or out-of-touch?
“Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.”
Yet if we have faith we realize that in Jesus the acceptable year did arrive and was present in his own person. In jubilee years debts were remitted, slaves were released, and ancestral property was returned to families. These are all realities which were perfectly given to us in Jesus. Our debt to sin was remitted. Our slavery to the Evil One was ended. We received the promised inheritance of eternal life.
Jesus helps us to understand and to be poor in spirit so that we can receive his glad tidings to the poor. He releases us from our captivity to sin and any of its strongholds in our minds and wills, captivity that had the real effect of preventing us from making progress in our lives. Jesus opens to eyes of our hearts, giving us sight when we were blind. We who may at times feel oppressed by circumstances, we who experience oppression from the enemy that makes us unable to love God or neighbor well, from all of these we are set free in him.
Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is begotten by God,
and everyone who loves the Father
loves also the one begotten by him.
To receive the words of Jesus is to be transformed by them. To truly believe that he is the Christ, that the Spirit of the Lord is upon him, is to be united to him. It is to be begotten by God, becoming sons and daughters in the Son, loving both the Father, and loving those whom the Father loves, those who bear the image of his Son.
The acceptable year proclaimed by Jesus might seem to abstract or otherworldly to really matter. But it is only by believing it that we will see any manifestations in this world.
For the love of God is this,
that we keep his commandments.
And his commandments are not burdensome,
When the commandments are the starting place we do experience them as burdensome. But when faith is the basis they are not burdensome. We believe the truth about who we have become in Christ, that is, victors, more than conquerors (see Romans 8:37) through him.
for whoever is begotten by God conquers the world.
And the victory that conquers the world is our faith.
People say they will believe this or that when they see it. But assuredly, we will only see the acceptable year if we first believe it. And it is believable because of him who speaks it.
No comments:
Post a Comment