There is a strange feeling when you go back to the place where you grew up. There is the nostalgia, there is the, “how things have changed” feeling. I went back to the Church where I grew up. It was the 50th Anniversary of the Church and I was in my 20s. I was with my Mum and a woman came up to me and said, “Well you’ve grown, you look so different.” to which my Mum replied, “She is a married woman now, I think you last saw her when she was a child.”
Another woman told me that I had changed a lot, the last time she had seen me was at her wedding, which I don’t remember, as I was a baby.
There is something strange about seeing people who saw you as a child. It is nice to catch up but imagine if you went back somewhere and everyone was expecting a child and suddenly they saw a fully grown adult. Not just that but people who had seen you grow up now had to listen to what you were saying as you took a place of authority over them.
This is what Jesus would have experienced when He went to the synagogue inNazareth, as we heard in the gospel reading this morning. (Luke 4:14-21). Jesus stood and did what would have been expected of Him as He went to the synagogue, read and gave an address. This wasn’t an unusual thing at all. He read though from the book of Isaiah the promise of the Messiah, the one who would come and release people.
Can you imagine the scene ? Everyone was there in the synagogue and Joseph’s boy (as we might say it) stood up and read from the scriptures. We might think, oh, hasn’t he grown, or, doesn’t he read well, or so and so’s son reads better than Him. Then you may have thought, I love this passage it speaks of hope and how life is going to be better for us once we get rid of these Romans, or maybe,I am waiting and praying for this to happen.
Then right at the end of the reading Jesus said, “Today this has been fulfilled in your hearing.” Now you might think, how ? I can’t see anyone being released. Or maybe, you might think that Jesus is such an upstart, or perhaps you might wonder how will this happen and if it is happening now then what does this mean ? Or maybe even, is Jesus the Messiah then ?
When you think of it like that it really is an incredible thought. Jesus broke convention by saying that this great promise of release and a new world where everyone matters had been fulfilled and He had done this.
Jesus was starting His ministry and He did this with a great speech. Now speech writers for politicians would surely want a speech as great as this one.
As you know I have just got back from New York, sorry, shall I say that again ?? Anyway it made me think of how various presidents had started their time in office and the words they said which would map out their presidency for the people of the United States.
John F Kennedy in his inaugural address famously said, ‘ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.’ Barack Obama opened his inaugural address with the words, ‘I stand here today humbled by the task before us, grateful for the trust you have bestowed, mindful of the sacrifices borne by our ancestors’.
Jesus went to give the address in Nazareth and using the words of the prophet Isaiah He gave the shortest address which showed how He would change the world. Jesus said, ”Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”
There were three points that this passage makes which Jesus fulfilled and which He asks us as His followers today to fulfill.
Firstly he said, ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me’ God has given to each of us the opportunity to receive the incredible gift of the Holy Spirit – it is the gift of God’s guidance, his wisdom, his strength and protection for us, his peace, and with that gift he asks us to go and be like Him in the world today.
Johann Sebastian Bach headed all of his compositions, ‘J J’, standing for ‘Jesus juva’ meaning ‘Jesus help me’, and he ended every composition ‘S D G’, standing for ‘soli Dei gratia’, which means ‘To God alone be praise’. These two phrases can help us everyday reminding us that we live in God’s world, and we do so with his protection, his care and his love, and we do so in need of the strengthening power of the Holy Spirit.
It would be great if we could all start every day by saying, “Jesus help me” and end every day saying, “To God alone be praise.”
The second part of the message that Jesus read showed that He had come to bring good news to the poor, to proclaim release to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.
The ministry of Jesus was to be a campaign for justice, it was to be a ministry that made no divisions on race or gender, or wealth or power. This is what He calls us to do today as we seek to live more and more like Him.
When we are filled with the Holy Spirit, then we will know that we need to care for those in need, those who are rejected. It means being like Jesus and loving, and accepting people.
The third part of the reading is that Jesus said that He had fulfilled the promises. This means that with Him in our lives we need to make all these promises of releasing people from captivity and sharing the good news of Jesus true. We as followers, filled with the power of God, have a job to do and it is to continually turn to God in prayer, asking to be more like Him, standing up for those who can’t stand up for themselves and loving.
So that at the end of each day and at the end of it all, we can say, “To God be all praise and glory.” AMEN
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