Imagine and visualize with me...
The setting is a Shabbat gathering at the community synagogue in Nazareth, Galilee. There are at least 10 men, age 20 and up, waiting to hear a reading from the Law and the Prophets. The attendant hands a scroll to a young man. He looks familiar but we can't quite connect the face with a name. He slowly and reverently handles the scroll, unrolling it until he finds a particular passage. He reads:
"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, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour." (vv 18-19, NIVUK)
He sits down, possibly using the same posture other teachers assume when dictating their commentary on a text. As he speaks, "words of grace... proceeded from his mouth" (v 22). That's the moment people start asking each other,
--wait a minute, hold up... ain't that Joe's kid? You know, the carpenter's son?
-- sure is! What's his name? Jesse? Um... Jed? Josiah? JESUS!!!!
--yup, that's right.
All of a sudden, we realize Jesus is in "da house", back in "da hood". But wait, what did he just read?!? Isaiah 61. And, what did he just say? That this scripture had been fulfilled today, in our ears! Oh, no, he didn't!!! Yup, he sure did.
Picture once again, Jesus in the middle of a community gathering, on the day we set aside for the Lord. Put that day in the context of Luke's narrative. About a month and a half ago, Jesus had been baptized by his own cousin, the weirdo who lives outside the city, dresses like a wild man, eats bugs, and is always yelling "REPENT!" Some people are saying that when Jesus came out of the water, there was some kind of loud voice that said something important about him, and John just "lost his mind", talking about some lamb who will pardon the sins of the world.
THEN, that same Jesus goes out in the wilderness without food for like... a long time. AND THEN, he has three different conversations with the dude from the other side of the battle line. By the way, Jesus won that debate and he went back home. BUT,
"... Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee: and a fame went out concerning him through all the region round about." (v14, ASV)
Jesus, the son of Joseph, goes to the synagogue in the Spirit! Opens the scroll, in the Spirit! Looks for a specific passage, in the Spirit! Reads, in the Spirit! And declares a word of GRACE, in their ears, in the Spirit!!!! That word is a challenge to put religion into action. It is a declaration of his intention to hear the plight of the poor, the convict, the sick, the marginalized, the disenfranchised, and do something about it.
Everything he did that day was intentional. Everything He said that day was done in the Spirit. And what about us? Today, are we in the Spirit? Are we being intentional? Are we challenging the status quo? The ball is in our court. God is waiting on us.
