Ezra the priest brought the law before the assembly,
which consisted of men, women,
and those children old enough to understand.
The people of Israel had returned from captivity in Babylon and completed the key projects of rebuilding the temple and the city walls. They gathered before Ezra for the culmination of this restoration, to listen as the law was proclaimed, the law which had not been heard for so long. What they heard ought to have resonated with the words of the prophet Isaiah. They were the poor now hearing glad tidings, the former captives now at liberty, those who could not see their homeland or read the law now having their eyes opened to those realities. They were the oppressed who were finally free. It was a year, after long exile, and after all of the rebuilding that followed, that might finally be acceptable to the Lord.
as he opened it, all the people rose.
Ezra blessed the LORD, the great God,
and all the people, their hands raised high, answered,
“Amen, amen!”
The people were pierced to the heart by what they heard. The law did not merely strike them as a curiosity or as entertainment but as a long lost treasure. Their response was not one which was consistent with those who merely heard a list of moral obligations, though those were of course among the words they heard. It was something which engaged them more entirely than any list of rules or moral philosophy could do. With the help of Ezra's interpretation it captivated their attention from daybreak till midday. Their whole body response to what was heard was evidence that they desired to come under the authority of what they heard.
Then they bowed down and prostrated themselves before the LORD,
their faces to the ground.
They clearly recognized that the law was a treasure, not a burden. Like the psalmist they could have said that the "ordinances of the LORD a true, all of them just". Yet, unlike they psalmist, this did not immediately move them to joy. There was something blocking them from experiencing the word as "refreshing the soul" and "rejoicing the heart".
“Today is holy to the LORD your God.
Do not be sad, and do not weep”—
for all the people were weeping as they heard the words of the law.
It seemed that as they experienced the value of the law they also came to realize all of the ways in which it had been absent, in which they had each been far from the law. It was as though they learned the way in which they were meant to be a part of the story of God and his people, the special destiny of those chosen to blessed and to bless the nations, and could now see even more deeply how far from that destiny the exile years had been. Even the reconstruction may have seemed too insignificant to ever fully return to embracing their destiny as the chosen people. They reacted as those traumatized by the oppression of their history, who recognized the beauty that was meant to be, but who doubted it could be realized in them.
He said further: “Go, eat rich foods and drink sweet drinks,
and allot portions to those who had nothing prepared;
for today is holy to our LORD.
Do not be saddened this day,
for rejoicing in the LORD must be your strength!”
The walls and the temple were rebuilt. The word of God was being proclaimed. But that word required a response. It was an invitation to the people that they themselves allow their own hearts to be individually restored by the word as they heard it. It was this word that would finally give structure and stability to all of the external structures by renewing hearts from the inside out.
rejoicing in the LORD must be your strength!
They were invited to fix their minds and hearts on the good news they were now hearing rather than allowing their attention to be dragged down by reflections on the past. They were not to focus on the ways in which Israel had failed, nor even the ways in which their own lives without the law were less than they were intended to be. The word of God itself, the law proclaimed and received, was the the only source that could ever get them beyond those things. Only by allowing the Lord to speak his own joy to them could their hearts join their bodies in this return from exile.
He unrolled the scroll and found the passage where it was written:
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 Lord.
What Nehemiah and Ezra experienced was at best a provisional example of what the prophet Isaiah spoke. During the period of history when Jesus himself read these words they were associated specifically with the coming of the Messiah in the minds of the Jewish people. That people again felt like captives, oppressed by the Roman occupation, and awaited someone who would once again proclaim to them glad tidings. Hence they paid rapt attention to Jesus as he handed the scroll back to the attendant and "the eyes of all in the synagogue looked intently at him", just the psalmist wrote, "The eyes of all wait upon thee; and thou givest them their meat in due season" (see Psalm 145:15).
What would Jesus say next? Would he announce a military project by which the Romans would be overthrown? Would he suggest doubling down on rigid external obedience like the Pharisees in order to, as it were, strengthen the walls and the temple? It probably seemed that whatever point he had to make would be one about what change was needed going forward, that could finally break with the cycles of oppression in the history of the Jewish people. And if that was the expectation, what he actually said must have been all the more surprising.
He said to them,
“Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.”
The people knew that if the left that synagogue they would find the nation was still under the sway of Roman occupation. In what sense were the captives at liberty or the oppressed set free? It could only be in a deeper and internal way that, just as for those who heard Ezra's proclamation, would only have its true power from the inside out. The word itself, by virtue of its own power, could give the strength to rejoice by setting free hearts and minds that were captive to something deeper and more pernicious than the Romans.
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
This anointing was demonstrated when Jesus was baptized when he came out of the water and "immediately he saw the heavens being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove" (see Mark 1:9).
to bring glad tidings to the poor.
For Jesus said, "Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God" (see Luke 6:20).
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives
For Jesus said, "if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed" (see John 8:36).
and recovery of sight to the blind
Not just because he healed the blind (see Luke 18:35-43), but because he himself said, "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life" (see John 8:12).
to let the oppressed go free,
This was what Peter would later describe, saying, "He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him" (see Acts 10:38).
and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.
The year acceptable to the Lord because one had come who would finally live a life as an acceptable offering that entirely pleasing to the Father. This was now the year of Jubilee and what remained to do was to receive Jesus himself, just as Zacchaeus did, with joy (see Luke 19:6).
Let us not fixate on the obstacles that seem insurmountable, the way that plague and politics and all of the rest have made us all feel in some way like exiles, even though we may mostly now return to our churches. Those walls won't be strong unless we first allow the word of God to give new life to our hearts. We must do more than bemoan missed opportunities or impose programmatic external solutions. Rather, we must begin from within, allowing ourselves to receive the joy of the Lord, the joy of experiencing a word that fulfills itself as we hear it.
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