The first of Jesus' sermons in the Gospel of Luke

Is this Perhaps the First Rule of Gospel Preaching?

“This is the year of the Lord’s Favor.”

Written by Dan McDonald

 

            St. Luke chose a very brief message Jesus gave to his hometown synagogue as his first example of Jesus’ preaching ministry.  Luke makes clear that it wasn’t the first time Jesus spoke, but this is Luke’s choice for the first message Jesus speaks that he looks at in his presentation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  Perhaps he thought what Jesus had to say to his hometown synagogue in Nazareth was of such importance to list it as the first Jesus sermon he brings to our attention.

            Luke sets the context for Jesus’ speaking to his hometown synagogue.  Jesus had been baptized, had gone into the wilderness to fast, pray, and face Satan's temptations, and had returned to Galilee.  Once in Galilee he began preaching at a number of synagogues.  He began attracting notice, and followers.  He comes home to Nazareth a bit of a home-town sensation.  He attends synagogue and is given opportunity to read.

            Jesus stood up to read the scriptures.  There was given to him a scroll of the scriptures from Isaiah.  Jesus opened the scroll and began to read, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor, he hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, and to preach the acceptable year of the Lord.”  (St. Luke 4:17-19).  Having finished the reading of the scriptures, Jesus “closed the book, and gave it again to the minister, and sat down.  And the eyes of all that were in the synagogue were fastened on him.”  (St. Luke 4:20)

            Luke wants us to picture the scene, especially he wants to put our reading on pause between the words of scripture which Jesus read and the explanation of the scripture words he was about to give.  Luke interrupts between the flow of Jesus reading the Scriptures and Jesus explaining the scriptures that we might ready ourselves to do what the people at the synagogue did on that day long ago.  Luke wants us likewise to have our eyes fixed upon Jesus waiting for what he is about to say.  We can almost imagine the setting.  Sometimes someone reads the scriptures and a congregation is tempted to think "this is boring."  But other times someone stands to read and the word read seems to come with an undeniable energy and life and we are carried into a world we never knew existed but now it seems as if it is the only real world to be thought about.  I suspect that is the sort of thing that astonished Jesus' hometown audience in the synagogue at Nazareth.   All eyes were now upon Jesus.  They probably began anticipating what he would say about this passage.  This passage spoke of Israel being called to celebrate the year of Jubilee.  Jubilee was that year when all debts in Israel were to be forgiven.  The slate would be wiped clean.  Every household in Israel would be given the chance to live as if life were new; no transgressions, no debts, an end to years of slavery or indentured servitude.  This would be freedom whether physical, economic, political, or spiritual.  But alas it would not be now, for now the Romans were in the land.  The jubilee couldn't take place until the Romans were gone and Israel had its own nation.  Still, they and we wondered what wonderful spiritual application would their hometown celebrity rabbi express to this congregation assembled within the synagogue?

            Do you sit now with your eyes focused on Jesus yearning to hear what he has to say about these words of Jubilee?  He speaks as if twittering his whole sermon into a single tweet.  He says “This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.”  These verses about the year of jubilee are fulfilled in his reading of the words.  Did we miss something?  Are the Romans gone?  Have the tax collectors, loan sharks, soldiers, corrupt officials, our blindness, and all our physical woes suddenly become healed?  When did this fulfillment of these words take place?  How did we miss it?

            We didn’t miss anything, but perhaps we understood almost nothing.  The year of the jubilee is not fulfilled in a calendar year any more than the day of salvation is expressed in a day on a calendar.  Our jubilee is a person.  He is the presence of God standing before us reading the word of the scriptures.  He sits in our midst, God having become flesh.  He has come to proclaim the release of the captives, to give sight to the blind, to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord.  He is the jubilee; yes he is the jubilee.  It is he who will bring about the restoration of creation, the forgiveness of sins, debts, and transgressions.  It is he who will bring healing to the broken-hearted and reverse the world's trajectory from one descending into brokenness, sin, injustice to one of mercy, healing, redemption, righteousness, and justice.

            This is such an important message that a bit of it should be in every Christian sermon, in every Christian’s blog, in every believer’s actions, in every Christian’s argument about some point of understanding that distinguishes the perspective of one brother or sister with another.  This seems to me to be very important no matter what my calling is in the Christian life.  If I were an ordained minister, it would be important for me that even if I were preaching on a doctrine like election or on a grievous sin, that somewhere not tacked on to the end of the sermon, but somewhere right in the middle of this message it would be clear that God means for this doctrine, this description of sin, this Bible story to tell you the hearer one thing, that as Christ has come into our midst he has come to let you know that this is the year of the Lord’s favor.  If that doesn’t seem to flow from your text you are preaching, then perhaps you are not ready to preach that text.  If the one struggling with a sin, or with a doctrine, or finding a Bible story hard to believe isn’t able to get from your message that Christ has come into our midst to let you know this is the year of the Lord’s favor then be cautious about proclaiming that text.  That does not mean you are not to warn people.  Jesus warned the people of Nazareth that they failed to take Jesus’ words seriously because he was a hometown boy, a boy they seemed to think they possessed, rather than the God who had become flesh, with whom we have to do.

            But this also speaks to those of us who represent Christ as we say mere laypersons.  We perhaps write our blogs, or merely talk about the faith with neighbors, co-workers, friends, and family members.  We can sometimes want more to be right than loving.  We can be sarcastic, witty, clever, and destructive in our treatment of those who differ with us.  A tweet this past week got it and reminded me that wisdom speaks not as much in cleverness but in love.  When you or I enter a spiritual discussion and an argument with another person, do you or I seek to encourage and strengthen, to set the captive free, or to merely win an argument.  Do we turn around and speak of an opponent's perspective with contempt?  So often we divide ourselves into our little Christian camps of “I am of Paul” or “I am of Peter” so that we can find those we agree with and belittle those with whom we disagree.  But we shall all one day give an account for every careless word we speak.  Meanwhile our Lord has taken his stand.  He addresses the progressive and the conservative, the member of whatever denomination, whatever theological tradition, whatever view of inspiration, infallibility, church tradition, and any number of doctrinal positions and he comes into our midst and says “This is the year of the Lord’s favor.”

            So let us recognize that either we will live by the provisions of this jubilee recognized and realized in the person of Jesus Christ, or we will stand in the way of others who are yearning to be set free by the declaration of the one who is our jubilee.  Let us join those who are yearning to be set free, to be healed from their blindness, to be given a release from their captivity to sin, to their debts, and to all the things that sin and a fallen world has helped to turn into our oppression and enslavement.  Then once we have been set free and see next to us a downcast neighbor; then we can say “Do you know what year this is?  When they wonder what kind of question we are asking them we may say to them:  It is the year of the Lord’s favor?”  Now maybe these words won’t be in every sermon or every word we speak, but their sentiment should be lurking just beneath every word we speak and every action we do.  I need to think about this, and hope you will find it also worthy of your attention.