Luke 4: 14-21 The Beginning of Preaching

Luke 4: 14-21 The Beginning of Preaching

Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news of him spread throughout the whole region. He taught in their synagogues and was praised by all. He came to Nazareth, where he had grown up, and went according to his custom into the synagogue on the Sabbath day. He stood up to read and was handed a scroll of the prophet Isaiah. 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 the Lord."

Rolling up the scroll, he handed it back to the attendant and sat down, and the eyes of all in the synagogue looked intently at him.
He said to them, "Today this scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing."

After spending forty days in the desert preparing himself, Jesus returned to Galilee “in the power of the Spirit” In that power he amazed all around him by the wisdom and authority of his teaching. Then he returned home to Nazareth, went in to the local synagogue and read that fateful passage from Isaiah 61:1-2 – in my mind, I have always called that Jesus’ mission statement. Again he begins by grounding himself in the Spirit. He says, “the Spirit of the Lord is upon me” and “He has sent me.” He mentions the poor, the captives, the blind, the prisoners – all the downtrodden and abused - as his constituency. To them he promises “glad tidings” “liberty” “sight” “release”. There is no mention of Israel or Zion, although his message could be taken politically, if you wanted to. To me it is more radical that Jesus doesn’t distinguish by people but by position. This is the first sign of the radical-ness of his message, a message that will cut across the usual categories and ask us to see ourselves as a new people with a new mission.