Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10 Psalm 19 1 Corinthians 12:12-31a Luke 4:14-21
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good [men] to do nothing.
Edmund Burke (1729–1797)
On February 6th this year, Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, will celebrate her platinum jubilee, marking 70 years of service to the people of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth. I know that the main celebrations will be held later in the year, nevertheless, it is an historic moment. In the year following her accession to the throne, Her Majesty was anointed with oil at her coronation – ancient symbolism stretching back to the days of the kings of Israel.
In Luke’s gospel, we find Jesus in the synagogue at Nazareth reading the ancient text from Isaiah 61, and then declaring that this text has now come true. He too has been anointed for his mission at his baptism – not with oil, but with the spirit of the Lord God.
It sounds as if Luke cannot emphasise this enough:
Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’ 3:21-22
Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. 4:1-2
Then Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee, and a report about him spread through all the surrounding country. 4:14
This emphasis continues in the careful placing of Christ’s preaching in the synagogue on the Sabbath; it is of course, highly symbolic to set this right at the beginning of his ministry. Unlike the other synoptics, Luke places Jesus preaching in his home town of Nazareth at the beginning of his account, straight after the baptism and temptations. It is to let the readers/hearers know who Jesus is. (Compare Luke 4:14-21 with Matthew 13:54-58 and Mark 6:1-6a)
But Luke differs in another way from Matthew and that is in the way the genealogy is set out. Is this important? Yes, because Luke is making a theological point, for whilst the genealogy of Matthew begins with Abraham and moves forwards in traditional way, the genealogy of Luke works backwards from Jesus to Adam (3:38), where Adam is described as son of God. Jesus the beloved son is empowered by the Spirit for the mission ahead. So, when we reach the letters attributed to Paul, reflection on Jesus the second Adam is well-developed (see 1 Corinthians 15:45-48 and Romans 5). Unlike the first humans in the garden, Jesus did not give in to temptation (Luke 4:1-13) because the Holy Spirit had come upon him in power. Newman’s great hymn powerfully and effectively encapsulates so much of the good news in Luke and in the letters.
Praise to the Holiest in the height, and in the depth be praise; in all his words most wonderful, most sure in all his ways! O loving wisdom of our God! when all was sin and shame, a second Adam to the fight and to the rescue came. O wisest love! that flesh and blood, which did in Adam fail, should strive afresh against the foe, should strive, and should prevail; And that the highest gift of grace should flesh and blood refine: God's presence and his very self, and essence all-divine. O generous love! that he who smote in man for man the foe. The double agony for us as man should undergo: And in the garden secretly, and on the cross on high, should teach his brethren, and inspire to suffer and to die. Praise to the Holiest in the height, and in the depth be praise; in all his words most wonderful, most sure in all his ways! John Henry Newman (1801-90)
At this part in Luke’s gospel, things seem to be going well for Jesus, news had travelled fast, people enjoyed his ministry, so Jesus returned home to Nazareth, and requested the scroll containing Isaiah 61. Yet if you look carefully at Luke 4:18-19, you might want to place Isaiah 61:1-3 and Isaiah 58:6 alongside. And I would suggest a fourth text as well – that of the Magnificat (Luke 2:46-55). These great passages begin to outline the manifesto that will mark out the ministry of Christ. And his family and friends were obviously troubled by what they are hearing, to the extent that Jesus is expelled from the synagogue in his home village. They were troubled because this description of task of the expected messiah, has been very clearly appropriated by Jesus: this day in your presence, this text has come true. His ministry will be the jubilee.
In this, the seventieth year of Queen Elizabeth’s reign, we celebrate her Majesty’s jubilee. But shouldn’t we also be celebrating the year of the Lord’s favour – a time of jubilee when the grace of God should touch hearts and lives. I rather like this quote from Karoline Lewis:
Jesus’ sermon in his hometown of Nazareth is not only a life-changing sermon, it is a life-changing act. God has now entered the world as flesh so that no human can be overlooked. No one can be left in a place of oppression. No one is unworthy of God’s good news.
https://www.workingpreacher.org/dear-working-preacher/a-life-changing-epiphany
Luke is very much the gospel of mission. It begins with the announcement by angels that God is about to do something new; and it is the declaration by Jesus in synagogue at Nazareth that explains what this new thing is to be. As a recognised teacher, Jesus is invited to preach and chose Isaiah (61:1-2a + 58:6) as the basis of his message.
The prophet Isaiah announced the dawning of a long-awaited day, the arrival of the Jubilee year (see Leviticus 25:10) – “the acceptable year of the Lord”, a time when debts would be cancelled and Jews returned to their ancestral lands. And Jesus takes up the theme as God’s anointed: ‘Today’ – in other words throughout his life and ministry, teaching and healing, death and resurrection – there is fulfilment of an age-old hope. And the passage details the career of the one anointed by the Spirit: Jesus will preach principally to the poor and oppressed, not only announcing release, he himself will set free those in captivity to Satan, as well as those bound by illness.
All through Luke’s narrative, this emerges again and again: Jesus sent a message to John the Baptist in prison:
Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the good news preached to them. And blessed is he who takes no offence at me. (Luke 7:22-23)
And it is a message for us today as we seek to live our lives as God’s people, and if we take seriously the words of this manifesto, it will indeed be life-changing, because the option to do nothing and say ‘this doesn’t concern me’ is not available. The hallmark of the life of the one we follow was not laissez-faire, but lived in positive action: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the good news preached to them. So what would be the defining mark for your life and mine? I pray that we will preach the good news and be the good news wherever we find ourselves.
Worship at home 