Advent Day 15. Year of the Lord

Music:
Oh Holy Night, Performed by Salt of the Sound
Encounter, Performed by Simon Wester


In this poem, Isaiah speaks in the voice of the Anointed One—the Messiah.
The spirit of Yahweh is upon Messiah to bring good news (gospel) to the oppressed, the broken-hearted, the captives, the prisoners. These are the Jewish exiles who are brokenhearted over the loss of Jerusalem and their temple and have become oppressed captive prisoners in Babylon. By the spirit of Yahweh, Messiah announces the good news of healing, liberation, and restoration.
In the first message Jesus ever preached, he proclaimed this passage to announce the Kingdom of Heaven.

Jesus did literally renew sight to the blind and set the spiritually oppressed free in his real-time interactions with the people he walked the earth with.
However, his good news was meant to be so much more. To extend well past his time here on earth.
Jesus, our God, and saviour, is one who cares for the poor, brokenhearted, the captives, and those who grieve and mourn.
That is not who the people were waiting for. They were still in the mindset that their saviour needed to be like the kings of old.

When Jesus came to us two thousand and twenty years ago, he came to show us not what we wanted but what we needed.
And what we needed was to be set free from the oppression of the religious zealots and from oppressive teachers.
The oppressed in that day wanted a savour that would come and overpower their enemies with violence and to exact revenge from their time in slavery.

But Jesus was coming to break the cycle of violence and retribution and replace it with forgiveness and grace.
Now, as we listen again, I want us to hear Jesus proclaim this to the people in Jerusalem as he announced his ministry. You will notice a slight change. He omits “the day of vengeance of our God,”
Imagine yourself seated in the Synagog with all the religious leaders.
What is their reaction?
Jesus has just announced that he is the one Isaiah had been predicting all this time.

This entire time that we have spent in Isaiah has been leading us to this moment in Lukes Gospel.

16 He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. He stood up to read, 17 and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:
18 “The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
 because he has anointed me
 to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
 and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
19  to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.”[f]
20 Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. 21 He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”
Lord Jesus, we have known your message of grace and forgiveness, but we confess that we have not always been careful to live out this important message daily.
Jesus, help us to be likeminded in your message of good news and to be quick to forgive and even quicker to be gracious with those around us.

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