Luke 4:14-21
14 Then Jesus, filled with the
power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee, and a report about him spread through
all the surrounding country. 15 He began to teach in their synagogues and was
praised by everyone. 16 When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up,
he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to
read, 17 and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the
scroll and found the place where it was written: 18 "The Spirit of the
Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He
has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the
blind, to let the oppressed go free, 19 to proclaim the year of the Lord's
favor." 20 And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and
sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. 21 Then he began
to say to them, "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your
hearing."
If I were to ask you, “What does it take to be a ‘good Christian’?” I
wonder what you might say. Perhaps you’d say something about church attendance,
Bible reading, and prayer, or maybe you’d say something about tithing and
volunteering your time to the church. Perhaps the more theologically inclined
among us might respond with something about believing in the deity and humanity
of Jesus, the Trinity, or some dogmatic expression regarding the nature of Holy
Scripture.
Well, nearly two years ago, I remember reading an article in the paper
about what it took to be a so-called “good Christian.” The article was titled
“Fundamentally Christian,” and in it the author made this claim: “The Bible is
the infallible word of God…God created heaven and earth in six literal days,
and on the seventh day he rested. The Son of God was born of a virgin…. Heaven
is attainable by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone to the glory
of God alone. Every man has sinned against God, and there is but one escape
from the just sentence of hell, and that is in the person of Jesus Christ” (and
many of God’s people said, “Amen!”). Then the author wrote these words: “Those are the fundamentals. It’s impossible
to be a good Christian without them.”[1]
It’s impossible to be a good Christian
without them. I couldn’t help but
notice that absent from this list of “fundamentals” is the greatest of all the
commandments (or, if you will, fundamentals), to love God and each other.
Of course, if we start down the road of making lists of what it means to
be a “good Christian” we might find that our lists are surprisingly longer than
we might expect. If you were to ask a fellow Baptist what it takes to be a
“good Christian” you’re likely to get a different response, even more so if you
were to ask a brother or sister from a different Christian tradition. So, how
do we answer the question? What does it really
take to be a “good Christian”?
Maybe I should ask a different, less personal, question. “What does it
take to be a good church?” Ah, now there’s a good question, and one with a more
definite answer, right? Some will respond right away with comments about music
style (a good church has good music). Others may comment about programs,
service hours, social opportunities, or even comments about location. A good
church, one might say, is comfortable and filled with people who like each
other and enjoy spending time together. Then, of course, there are those who
want to be more serious and may answer such a question by pointing to the
missional activity of the church and the ways in which the church does
evangelism in its surrounding community. At the end of the day, the truth is
you’d likely receive just as many opinions about what it takes to be a good
church as you would when it comes to being a “good Christian.”
Is there a definite answer to either of these questions? Is there some
expression, some phrase or confession, one can point to and say, “this is what
it means to be a good Christian; this is what it means to be a good church”?
Perhaps there is, but it may be below the surface, behind the answer to yet
another question, a more perplexing question, a question that may seem to have
an easy answer, that is until we really seek the answer: “who is Jesus?”
Who is Jesus? Well there’s a question with as many answers as one can
imagine! For nearly two thousand years people have pondered, discussed, and
fought over the answer to that very question—who is Jesus? Is he simply a figure
from ancient history, a great moral teacher who inspired a movement that has
reshaped the world? Is Jesus the imagined hero of a people who so desperately
needed one? Is Jesus the conservative, Western figure who preaches of
prosperity and self-reliance? Is Jesus the poster boy for social rebellion and
political uprising in the face of tyranny? Is he the prototype hippie with long
hair and sandaled feet, preaching love and tolerance, or is he the stern judge
who seeks to weigh every person in the balance of sin and righteousness? Who is
Jesus? The answer, it seems, depends on who you ask, and I wager that if you
were able to ask the gathered crowd in the synagogue in Nazareth on that day
when Jesus sat in on a service, you might get a surprisingly plain answer.
You see, to them, Jesus was simply Mary and Joseph’s oldest son, one who
had been gaining a reputation for teaching in the synagogues of Galilee after
making an impressive scene at the Jordan River with his cousin John. He was the
same carpenter’s son who had come with his family to the synagogue to recite
the Shema, offer prayers, sing
psalms, and listen to the Scriptures and the homily that followed.[2]
If they saw him as anything more, it was with the same vision they saw the
countless other so-called prophets that sprang up and gathered a following in
Judea. Maybe even his ascension to the podium to read the scriptures that day
wasn’t all that unusual. Perhaps this synagogue was like the childhood church
of Fred Craddock, who would talk about that church, saying that it was almost
like they’d ask any stranger who stopped at the filling station if they’d like
to come preach one Sunday. “Who is Jesus?,” one might ask them. The gathering
in the Nazareth synagogue would tell you he was simply Mary’s boy…that is until
the day he came in and read from the scroll of Isaiah.
Now, it’s unclear whether Jesus chose to read from Isaiah or if it just
happened to be the reading for the day, but either way Luke tells us in verse 16 and following: “He stood up to read, and the scroll of the
prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place
where it was written: ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has
anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to
the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.’" The passage Jesus read
was from the sixty-first chapter of Isaiah (with a verse thrown in from chapter
fifty-eight); it was a passage that used the familiar language of the year of
Jubilee.
Now, the year of Jubilee is mentioned in the book of Leviticus and was to
be observed every fiftieth year. It was a time when the land was to rest, debts
were to be forgiven, people were to return home, and slaves were to be set
free.[3]
It was meant to be the Sabbath of all Sabbaths, a time when the people of God
and their land would rest. It was a time one might think the people would look
forward to—but there is no recorded account of the year of Jubilee ever being
observed. Maybe it was too much to ask of an agrarian people to leave their
fields alone for an entire year. Perhaps it was too idealistic to think that
one’s debts could be forgiven simply because it was the fiftieth year. Maybe
(likely) people are just too greedy, and the idea of returning land, freeing
slaves, and canceling debts just didn’t sit well with them. Whatever the case
may be, the year of Jubilee became less of a reality called for in Scripture
and more of a hoped-for, spiritualized time when God would bring his own sort
of Jubilee to his people, freeing them from their captivity under foreign
authorities.
The passage from the scroll of Isaiah captured this sort of language
about the year of Jubilee and the liberation of captives and the freedom of the
oppressed. I can imagine it was the sort of passage that stirred up feelings of
hope in the hearts of those who heard it in the synagogue there in
Nazareth…that is until what happens next. Luke tells us in verse 20: “And he rolled up the
scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the
synagogue were fixed on him.” You get the feeling that they are all
expecting Jesus—who remember has gained a reputation for teaching in the
synagogues—to blow their minds with some mazing word about how the Jubilee was
this spiritual existence, or maybe they were waiting for him to say something
that would only buttress their feelings about how the Romans were holding them
back from this promise of Jubilee. You get the feeling that since the
eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him that they were eager to
hear his words about what he had just read, some stirring oration that would
propel them towards feelings of hope, comfort, and possibly peace, and in some
ways he doesn’t disappoint.
In verse 21 we’re told: Then
he began to say to them, "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your
hearing." No parable. No beatitudes. No breaking bread or turning
water into wine. Just, “Today
this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing." At first I get
the feeling that they were confused. Perhaps they had the same feeling as those
audience members when Oprah told them they were all getting a new car—somewhere
between confusion, excitement, and doubt. But it doesn’t take long for them to
catch on to what Jesus meant when he said, "Today this scripture has been
fulfilled in your hearing." They knew he was making a statement
about himself. They realized he was claiming to be the fulfillment of their
expectations. They heard his words as a claim to be the one of whom the prophet
spoke—the Messiah.
They didn’t catch it all, however, for Luke continues to tell us that
they were amazed and in awe of what Jesus was teaching, but when he continued
to speak of the examples of Elijah and Elisha, they became angry. As Jesus
revealed in his teaching that the words of Jubilee were for more than just the
ethnic people of God, they became angry and sought to throw him off a cliff!
Isn’t it strange how the real words of Christ tend to create that reaction in
some folks! I imagine if you were to ask the people in that synagogue in
Nazareth “who is Jesus?,” after he
read from the scroll of Isaiah, after
he spoke those words, they might have a different answer. “Who is Jesus? He’s
that troublemaker who thinks Gentiles are even a part of God’s coming
Jubilee…he’s that one who thinks he’s the Messiah, but he wants to offer
salvation even to those people
outside of our kind!”
“Who is Jesus?” Well the truth is Jesus is the one who brings
good news to the poor, who proclaims release to the captives and
recovery of sight to the blind, who lets the oppressed go free, who
proclaims
the year of the Lord's favor. He proclaims release to those who are
held captive by sin; he gives sight to those who are blind, those who are
blinded by selfishness and the sins that distract us from the needs of others;
he frees those who are oppressed by the ways of a fallen world, those who are
oppressed by their past, oppressed by the hand life has dealt them; he
proclaims the year of the Lord’s favor to those who have been told God does not
care, that God is too high, too holy, and too far to hear their cries. Who is
Jesus? He is the one who brings the God’s Jubilee, and he is the one who calls
us to do the same.
How do I know? Because Jesus read
it, right there, in the book of Isaiah. How do I know? Because it’s all right
there, in the book. And if I’m going to be one who gives this book and it’s
words any meaning whatsoever, then those words have to mean something, they
have to serve some greater purpose than buttressing my preconceived notions of
God and myself. They are words that call me to action, the actions modeled in
Christ, actions cited right there, in the book. Amen.
[2]
Mark L. Strauss. Zondervan Illustrated
Bible Background Commentary: Luke. Zondervan: Grand Rapids, MI. (2002),
361.
[3]
Linda McKinnish Bridges. Feasting on the
Word: Year C, Volume 1. Westminster John Knox: Louisville, KY. (2009), 289.
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