Isaiah 61:1-6 (New International Version)
1 The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me,
because the Lord has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the broken hearted,
to proclaim freedom for the captives
and release from darkness for the prisoners,[a]
2 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour
and the day of vengeance of our God,
to comfort all who mourn,
3 and provide for those who grieve in Zion--
to bestow on them a crown of beauty
instead of ashes,
the oil of joy
instead of mourning,
and a garment of praise
instead of a spirit of despair.
They will be called oaks of righteousness,
a planting of the Lord
for the display of his splendour.
4 They will rebuild the ancient ruins
and restore the places long devastated;
they will renew the ruined cities
that have been devastated for generations.
5 Strangers will shepherd your flocks;
foreigners will work your fields and vineyards.
6 And you will be called priests of the Lord,
you will be named ministers of our God.
You will feed on the wealth of nations,
and in their riches you will boast.
Luke 4:16-21 (New International Version)
16 Jesus 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.”[a]
20 Then Jesus 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.”
1 The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me,
because the Lord has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the broken hearted,
to proclaim freedom for the captives
and release from darkness for the prisoners,[a]
2 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour
and the day of vengeance of our God,
to comfort all who mourn,
3 and provide for those who grieve in Zion--
to bestow on them a crown of beauty
instead of ashes,
the oil of joy
instead of mourning,
and a garment of praise
instead of a spirit of despair.
They will be called oaks of righteousness,
a planting of the Lord
for the display of his splendour.
4 They will rebuild the ancient ruins
and restore the places long devastated;
they will renew the ruined cities
that have been devastated for generations.
5 Strangers will shepherd your flocks;
foreigners will work your fields and vineyards.
6 And you will be called priests of the Lord,
you will be named ministers of our God.
You will feed on the wealth of nations,
and in their riches you will boast.
Luke 4:16-21 (New International Version)
16 Jesus 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.”[a]
20 Then Jesus 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.”
Reflection
Advent is an exciting time because it is a time of possibility. You know anything is possible; this year you could get just the right Christmas present; the one you have always longed for; the one that will make your heart jump with joy, the one that will feel so good, and whatever “it” is- it’s just right; in fact, perfect!
The sweet realm of possibility – that’s Advent!
In these past weeks we have heard from the prophet Isaiah and his vision of the Kingdom of God in the future, the Kingdom of God that was coming, the Kingdom of God that Israel longed and hoped for: A kingdom that beckoned to all nations, a Jerusalem as the city of peace that towered above a peaceable kingdom ordered by Yahweh.
This week we also get to hear Jesus in that prophetic tradition announcing not a peaceable kingdom in the future, in fact not a kingdom in the traditional sense at all.
Jesus never declared himself a King, nor a Messiah for that matter, to rule by power and might and bring Israel back to it’s former and then forever sought after glory. Jesus is all about the Good News, available to all who have eyes to see and ears to hear. Jesus is issuing an invitation, just like the Advent invitation to us, to enter into the Kingdom of God here and now.
OK, maybe we have to back up just a little, because we keep talking about the Kingdom of God here and now – not quite the superpower envisioned by Isaiah, maybe the one announced as imminent by John the Baptist, and certainly the one proclaimed to the crowds of Jews by Jesus. It’s the Good News preached by the disciples and Paul after Jesus’ death and resurrection. The Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of heaven, eternal life, life in all its fullness testified to and lived out in the New Testament – that Kingdom – that Good News that has somehow beckoned to people throughout the ages.
The Kingdom that you can’t buy your way into, you can’t think your way into, that you can’t coerce your way into because there is not enough money, enough right thinking, enough power; although all have been tried over and over again.
It seems to me that the kingdom of God “is”, like God, it is being itself. When Moses encounters God and asks “Who shall I say sent me?”
And God in the burning bush, who has commanded Moses to remove his shoes because he is standing on Holy Ground and who has incidentally told Moses that he should free the Hebrews from Egypt, says:
“I am who I am. (also translated as “I will be who I will be”) This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I am has sent me to you.’”
15 God also said to Moses, “Say to the Israelites, ‘Yahweh, the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob—has sent me to you.’
“This is my name forever,
the name you shall call me
from generation to generation.”
"Yahweh", the Hebrew word for the self-revealed name of the God of the Old Testament. comes from the Hebrew verb "To be.". At its core, "Yahweh" means "To be." I am who I will be” Whatever will be and was – is; all contained in that “I am”, that kind of present, that kind of eternal, that is Yahweh. God has that power to be: whatever, where ever, however.
So, the Kingdom of God is full of that being itself, it is the fullness of life despite circumstances, it is the openness that embraces life, and spills the past into the future and makes it all present – here and now - it is renewed life, rebirthed life that beckons to us and welcomes us us just as we are and all that we will become.
We begin to see a glimpse of the Kingdom that was present for Jesus and availabe to us today. Jesus’ invitation still stands and we are invited to live in and into the Kingdom. And we begin to get a sense of the faith, hope love and joy that Advent announces as it calls our attention to the birth of a tiny babe.
The gospels of Matthew and Luke herald the Kingdom with all kinds of announcements, and genealogical trees and signs with shepherds and angels and magi; with shining stars and angry kings, and journeys near and far. Because the God who was and is and shall be is present in a vulnerable baby; “Immanuel: God with us” baby.
This is very different from what Isaiah prophesied with his images of lions and lambs, resurrected cities of splendour and what was it we read this morning? Oh yes, Isaiah 61:5-6 sounds like this in the Good news version:
My people, foreigners will serve you.
They will take care of your flocks
And farm your land and tend your vineyards.
6 And you will be known as the priests of the Lord,
The servants of our God.
You will enjoy the wealth of the nations
And be proud that it is yours.
Isaiah’s vision over and over again sounds like, well, heaven on earth and there is peace and plenty for Israel and judgment and plunder and servitude for the others. It is a rising up of Israel to take the place of Babylon, Persia and Assyria and Egypt and Rome. It’s only a change in the name of the empire not a change in the empire itself.
Do you think the name change makes a difference? Will the name change the top-bottom, ruler-ruled, rich-poor dynamic? Did Jesus think it would?
Jesus’ vision or version of the Kingdom of God stops as we heard this morning at proclaiming the year of the Lord’s favour, the year of Jubilee, the year when equilibrium and balance is restored through the forgiveness of debts: Isaiah 61:1-2. And when he announces this is happening now, that this has the possibility of being, of “is”ness here and now, the consequence is that he is run out of his hometown. Immediately Jesus sets off on a journey of healing and preaching, he sets off making the Kingdom of God present, giving it substance and reality. The end of Luke 4:42-44 after a day of casting out demons etc. says:
42 At daybreak, Jesus went out to a solitary place.
The people were looking for him and when they came
to where he was, they tried to keep him from leaving them.
43 But he said, “I must proclaim the good news
of the kingdom of God to the other towns also, because
that is why I was sent.”
44 And he kept on preaching in the synagogues of Judea.
I don’t know if Jesus’ idea of the Kingdom of God was really different from the one Isaiah envisioned, he lived about 700 years after Isaiah, but I think it was.
Jesus, Immanuel, the Messiah, the Christos, the beloved of God, the Light, the Way, the Good Shepherd, born of lowly parents in a nondescript town, trained to be a carpenter, becomes a preacher and healer extrordinaire – wanders up and down Samaria, Galilee and Judea bringing the Kingdom of God into being.
Jesus birthed the Kingdom of God into the world, he and his disciples and followers lived the Good News, and it has continued to live in congregations of people gathered in his name and in the hearts of people who dare to live into the Hope, Peace, Joy and Love of Advent as they wait every year for a tiny baby to be born.
May it be so Amen
Advent is an exciting time because it is a time of possibility. You know anything is possible; this year you could get just the right Christmas present; the one you have always longed for; the one that will make your heart jump with joy, the one that will feel so good, and whatever “it” is- it’s just right; in fact, perfect!
The sweet realm of possibility – that’s Advent!
In these past weeks we have heard from the prophet Isaiah and his vision of the Kingdom of God in the future, the Kingdom of God that was coming, the Kingdom of God that Israel longed and hoped for: A kingdom that beckoned to all nations, a Jerusalem as the city of peace that towered above a peaceable kingdom ordered by Yahweh.
This week we also get to hear Jesus in that prophetic tradition announcing not a peaceable kingdom in the future, in fact not a kingdom in the traditional sense at all.
Jesus never declared himself a King, nor a Messiah for that matter, to rule by power and might and bring Israel back to it’s former and then forever sought after glory. Jesus is all about the Good News, available to all who have eyes to see and ears to hear. Jesus is issuing an invitation, just like the Advent invitation to us, to enter into the Kingdom of God here and now.
OK, maybe we have to back up just a little, because we keep talking about the Kingdom of God here and now – not quite the superpower envisioned by Isaiah, maybe the one announced as imminent by John the Baptist, and certainly the one proclaimed to the crowds of Jews by Jesus. It’s the Good News preached by the disciples and Paul after Jesus’ death and resurrection. The Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of heaven, eternal life, life in all its fullness testified to and lived out in the New Testament – that Kingdom – that Good News that has somehow beckoned to people throughout the ages.
The Kingdom that you can’t buy your way into, you can’t think your way into, that you can’t coerce your way into because there is not enough money, enough right thinking, enough power; although all have been tried over and over again.
It seems to me that the kingdom of God “is”, like God, it is being itself. When Moses encounters God and asks “Who shall I say sent me?”
And God in the burning bush, who has commanded Moses to remove his shoes because he is standing on Holy Ground and who has incidentally told Moses that he should free the Hebrews from Egypt, says:
“I am who I am. (also translated as “I will be who I will be”) This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I am has sent me to you.’”
15 God also said to Moses, “Say to the Israelites, ‘Yahweh, the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob—has sent me to you.’
“This is my name forever,
the name you shall call me
from generation to generation.”
"Yahweh", the Hebrew word for the self-revealed name of the God of the Old Testament. comes from the Hebrew verb "To be.". At its core, "Yahweh" means "To be." I am who I will be” Whatever will be and was – is; all contained in that “I am”, that kind of present, that kind of eternal, that is Yahweh. God has that power to be: whatever, where ever, however.
So, the Kingdom of God is full of that being itself, it is the fullness of life despite circumstances, it is the openness that embraces life, and spills the past into the future and makes it all present – here and now - it is renewed life, rebirthed life that beckons to us and welcomes us us just as we are and all that we will become.
We begin to see a glimpse of the Kingdom that was present for Jesus and availabe to us today. Jesus’ invitation still stands and we are invited to live in and into the Kingdom. And we begin to get a sense of the faith, hope love and joy that Advent announces as it calls our attention to the birth of a tiny babe.
The gospels of Matthew and Luke herald the Kingdom with all kinds of announcements, and genealogical trees and signs with shepherds and angels and magi; with shining stars and angry kings, and journeys near and far. Because the God who was and is and shall be is present in a vulnerable baby; “Immanuel: God with us” baby.
This is very different from what Isaiah prophesied with his images of lions and lambs, resurrected cities of splendour and what was it we read this morning? Oh yes, Isaiah 61:5-6 sounds like this in the Good news version:
My people, foreigners will serve you.
They will take care of your flocks
And farm your land and tend your vineyards.
6 And you will be known as the priests of the Lord,
The servants of our God.
You will enjoy the wealth of the nations
And be proud that it is yours.
Isaiah’s vision over and over again sounds like, well, heaven on earth and there is peace and plenty for Israel and judgment and plunder and servitude for the others. It is a rising up of Israel to take the place of Babylon, Persia and Assyria and Egypt and Rome. It’s only a change in the name of the empire not a change in the empire itself.
Do you think the name change makes a difference? Will the name change the top-bottom, ruler-ruled, rich-poor dynamic? Did Jesus think it would?
Jesus’ vision or version of the Kingdom of God stops as we heard this morning at proclaiming the year of the Lord’s favour, the year of Jubilee, the year when equilibrium and balance is restored through the forgiveness of debts: Isaiah 61:1-2. And when he announces this is happening now, that this has the possibility of being, of “is”ness here and now, the consequence is that he is run out of his hometown. Immediately Jesus sets off on a journey of healing and preaching, he sets off making the Kingdom of God present, giving it substance and reality. The end of Luke 4:42-44 after a day of casting out demons etc. says:
42 At daybreak, Jesus went out to a solitary place.
The people were looking for him and when they came
to where he was, they tried to keep him from leaving them.
43 But he said, “I must proclaim the good news
of the kingdom of God to the other towns also, because
that is why I was sent.”
44 And he kept on preaching in the synagogues of Judea.
I don’t know if Jesus’ idea of the Kingdom of God was really different from the one Isaiah envisioned, he lived about 700 years after Isaiah, but I think it was.
Jesus, Immanuel, the Messiah, the Christos, the beloved of God, the Light, the Way, the Good Shepherd, born of lowly parents in a nondescript town, trained to be a carpenter, becomes a preacher and healer extrordinaire – wanders up and down Samaria, Galilee and Judea bringing the Kingdom of God into being.
Jesus birthed the Kingdom of God into the world, he and his disciples and followers lived the Good News, and it has continued to live in congregations of people gathered in his name and in the hearts of people who dare to live into the Hope, Peace, Joy and Love of Advent as they wait every year for a tiny baby to be born.
May it be so Amen
