Anointed
Sermon
PREVIEWS OF COMING ATTRACTIONS
Sermons for Advent, Christmas and Epiphany
Isaiah 61 is a dangerous text! Jesus used this text to launch his ministry in his home town of Nazareth and it caused him to be thrown out of the synagogue and taken to the edge of a cliff. Jesus' life was threatened as a result of his reading, interpretation and application of this text. "Today, this Scripture is being fulfilled in your hearing," Jesus said. But we are getting ahead of our story. Let's go back to the original context of Isaiah 61 before we return to Jesus' use of the text.
Isaiah's Anointed Ministry
This portion of Scripture was apparently written in the context of the Babylonian captivity of the Jewish people from 587 to about 517 B.C. The liberation of the afflicted captives and the freedom of the prisoners mentioned in verse one apparently refers to the return of the Jews from Babylon to Jerusalem after 70 years of exile in Babylon. This text has to do with restoration and renewal through healing ministries of binding the brokenhearted and comforting the afflicted by God's anointed prophet. God's anointed servant calls the people to be healed and receive favor from Yahweh. To be anointed means to be called and chosen by God.
"The year of the Lord's favor" may have two meanings. First of all, it is a clear reference to the fact that the time of punishment for sins has passed, that through repentance, the people have now come back into favor with God who has punished them for their disobedience. The second meaning is drawn from Leviticus 25. The second meaning is that the "year of favor" is the jubilee.
You shall ... consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim a release through the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you, and each of you shall return to his own property, and each of you shall return to his family.
You shall have the fiftieth year as a jubilee; you shall not sow, nor reap its aftergrowth, nor gather in from its untrimmed vines.
For it is a jubilee, it shall be holy to you. You shall eat its crops out of the field...
If you make a sale, moreover, to your friend, or buy from afriend, or buy from your friend's hand, you shall not wrong one another...
So you shall not wrong one another, but you shall fear your God; for I am the Lord your God.
- Leviticus 25:10-17, NAB
The jubilee was a time of restoration and refreshment for the land and for the people. It was a time to recall God's graciousness and for God's people to be gracious. The jubilee was a time of generosity and forgiveness because God is generous and forgiving. For Isaiah 61 to recall the jubilee described in Leviticus while the people were in exile was to remind them of God's gracious generosity and to invite them to minister to one another with the same spirit. This type of gracious generosity is also the theme of Jesus' use of this text at the inaugural address of his ministry in Nazareth.
Jesus' Anointed Ministry
In chapter three of Luke's gospel, we hear about the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan River. This baptism is the anointing of Jesus and the beginning of his ministry. In chapter four of Luke we hear about the 40-day temptation of Jesus by demonic forces. This was his exile or time of aloneness. The desert temptations of Jesus show that the jubilee of Jesus' ministry is preceded by a dark period ... a valley of shadows to use the imagery of the 23rd Psalm, just as the exiled Jews had experienced forsakenness in the shadowy exile in Babylon.
When we go through the valley of shadows and temptations, we can be assured that Jesus is with us because we know he has been there. When we are tempted, we know that he was tempted, too. He got through. So can we. He got on with ministry. So can we. "He began his teaching in their synagogues and was praised by all (Luke 4:15)," until he came to Nazareth, the town in which he was raised by Mary and Joseph.
In Nazareth the initial reception was positive. "Hometown boy makes good" might have been a headline in the local Nazareth morning newspaper, if they had had newspapers back then. The whole town showed up for sabbath worship at the local synagogue because it was rumored that Jesus who was making a big hit all over Galilee would be there.
Sure enough, Jesus was there. Sure enough, he spoke. The atmosphere was electric with anticipation. You could have heard a pin drop when the ex-carpenter of Nazareth got up to interpret the Word. The intensity of the moment grew dramatically when the young preacher read Isaiah 61:1-2 as the beginning of his inaugural address.
"The spirit of the Lord is upon me," Jesus began, apparently recalling his baptism by John and the Word of the Lord God: "... Thou art my beloved Son... (Luke 3:22)." The mood of the assembly began to change as Jesus sat down and said with authority: "Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing." The fact that he sat down meant that he saw himself as the chairperson. The fact that he spoke with authority meant that he saw himself as the author.
In a recent visit to England, I saw the sitting Jesus over the altar in many cathedrals. I asked one of the tour guides about the sitting position. He explained, "In Jewish tradition, the one who sits is in charge. That's where we get our word 'chairperson'."
It's one thing for a hometown boy to come home and the people to celebrate his new-found celebrity status; it's quite another for this young preacher to refuse to go along with sentimental celebration of his status and insist that the people pay attention to and follow the Word.
With authority Jesus said, "Today this Word is fulfilled in your midst." The root of the word "authority" is "right, based on origin." It is the author who has authority. Jesus was claiming "author's rights." The author had entered the story as one of the characters. It's no wonder that we frequently read in the gospels, "Jesus spoke as one with authority."
Now things began to heat up and really get dangerous. Jesus was speaking with authority. He actually expected his friends and neighbors to change, to do something based on the Word, not just to smile and say how proud they were of him. Something clicked behind his eyes. The people sensed it. The tense atmosphere got more tense as Jesus read what was in the hearts of his former neighbors, rejection of the Word. He reminded them that both Elijah and Elisha were rejected by the multitudes and were able to minister only to a few people because the hearts of most were hard against the Word (Luke 4:25-27). Jesus added fuel to the fire as he said, "A prophet is not without honor, except in his own town (Luke 4:24)."
Restlessness now turned to anger and hatred. The Word has a way of cutting through illusions. We don't like to have our preconceptions punctured. We don't like to have our apparent acceptance called rejection and our apparent cheers called jeers especially when the person speaking is right on target and speaks with authority.
Thus we move from the synagogue of friends and neighbors to the edge of the cliff where enemies try to rid themselves permanently of this bad-news dispenser who claimed he fulfilled the Isaiah prophecy of good news. His neighbors tried to murder Jesus by throwing him over a cliff. But as they tried to get rid of their problems by murder, suddenly something startling happened which made this strange day even stranger. We pick up the story in verse 29 of chapter 4 of Luke:
...and they rose up and cast him out of the city, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their city had been built, in order to throw him down the cliff. But passing through their midst, he went on his way.
Imagine it: mob violence, murder on their minds, rage feeding rage, the blasphemer who was pushed out the door of the synagogue out to the edge of the cliff suddenly turned and looked at the neighbors - turned gang - and then he walked through the midst of them. That's authority. He was truly the anointed one, the author with rights based on origin.
A Jubilee For You And Me?
This is a dangerous text because Jesus made it his own. Favor, comfort, gladness, building, repair - these are Jesus' ways of ministry, a ministry he expects all who follow him to use as a pattern. In other words, all the baptized are anointed and called to minister by: proclaiming good news to the afflicted, freeing people who are captives to a variety of addictions; bindingup the brokenhearted by solidarity with them; helping people see reality instead of living in illusions; and celebrating the jubilee of God's generous ministry by ministering generously.
Jubilee means ministry. The baptism of Jesus and the inaugural address which follows it are models for ministry. It is simply not enough to be admirers in the grandstand. God anoints us in baptism and invites us to leave the grandstand and get into the action of real ministry. Will there be a jubilee for you and me? That depends on whether we recognize that we have been anointed in baptism for ministry. Ministry means genuine and generous servanthood (ministry).
Jubilee means generosity. Instead of just getting by, God wants us to give of ourselves generously. "God loves a cheerful (literally 'hilarious') giver" since God himself is generous - always more willing to give and forgive than we are to ask and repent, always giving grace to the sinner who repents, always restoring lost children to full family status.
Is this jubilee for you and me? Of course, but first we've got to see it God's way: the new way, the way of generosity and ministry. Giving our time and talents and treasures for
God's ministry is the challenge of this text. Giving generously is the invitation to jubilee living. Why do most of us have more than we need for food, clothes and housing? That's a good question for each of us to consider. I can think of only one good reason: to give it back to God and people with generosity.
Is the jubilee for you and me? Are we tithing with gladness? Are we giving offerings beyond the biblical tithe? That's a good question in relation to this Word of God.
Is this jubilee for you and me? Are we waiting with hope for the second coming of Christ? "Stay on the alert," Jesus says, "for you do not know which day the Lord is coming
(Matthew 24:42)." Staying alert is a way to get set to go for God with generosity.
Is this jubilee for you and for me? That depends on our answer to an even more important question: Is this Scripture being fulfilled in us today?
Isaiah's Anointed Ministry
This portion of Scripture was apparently written in the context of the Babylonian captivity of the Jewish people from 587 to about 517 B.C. The liberation of the afflicted captives and the freedom of the prisoners mentioned in verse one apparently refers to the return of the Jews from Babylon to Jerusalem after 70 years of exile in Babylon. This text has to do with restoration and renewal through healing ministries of binding the brokenhearted and comforting the afflicted by God's anointed prophet. God's anointed servant calls the people to be healed and receive favor from Yahweh. To be anointed means to be called and chosen by God.
"The year of the Lord's favor" may have two meanings. First of all, it is a clear reference to the fact that the time of punishment for sins has passed, that through repentance, the people have now come back into favor with God who has punished them for their disobedience. The second meaning is drawn from Leviticus 25. The second meaning is that the "year of favor" is the jubilee.
You shall ... consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim a release through the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you, and each of you shall return to his own property, and each of you shall return to his family.
You shall have the fiftieth year as a jubilee; you shall not sow, nor reap its aftergrowth, nor gather in from its untrimmed vines.
For it is a jubilee, it shall be holy to you. You shall eat its crops out of the field...
If you make a sale, moreover, to your friend, or buy from afriend, or buy from your friend's hand, you shall not wrong one another...
So you shall not wrong one another, but you shall fear your God; for I am the Lord your God.
- Leviticus 25:10-17, NAB
The jubilee was a time of restoration and refreshment for the land and for the people. It was a time to recall God's graciousness and for God's people to be gracious. The jubilee was a time of generosity and forgiveness because God is generous and forgiving. For Isaiah 61 to recall the jubilee described in Leviticus while the people were in exile was to remind them of God's gracious generosity and to invite them to minister to one another with the same spirit. This type of gracious generosity is also the theme of Jesus' use of this text at the inaugural address of his ministry in Nazareth.
Jesus' Anointed Ministry
In chapter three of Luke's gospel, we hear about the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan River. This baptism is the anointing of Jesus and the beginning of his ministry. In chapter four of Luke we hear about the 40-day temptation of Jesus by demonic forces. This was his exile or time of aloneness. The desert temptations of Jesus show that the jubilee of Jesus' ministry is preceded by a dark period ... a valley of shadows to use the imagery of the 23rd Psalm, just as the exiled Jews had experienced forsakenness in the shadowy exile in Babylon.
When we go through the valley of shadows and temptations, we can be assured that Jesus is with us because we know he has been there. When we are tempted, we know that he was tempted, too. He got through. So can we. He got on with ministry. So can we. "He began his teaching in their synagogues and was praised by all (Luke 4:15)," until he came to Nazareth, the town in which he was raised by Mary and Joseph.
In Nazareth the initial reception was positive. "Hometown boy makes good" might have been a headline in the local Nazareth morning newspaper, if they had had newspapers back then. The whole town showed up for sabbath worship at the local synagogue because it was rumored that Jesus who was making a big hit all over Galilee would be there.
Sure enough, Jesus was there. Sure enough, he spoke. The atmosphere was electric with anticipation. You could have heard a pin drop when the ex-carpenter of Nazareth got up to interpret the Word. The intensity of the moment grew dramatically when the young preacher read Isaiah 61:1-2 as the beginning of his inaugural address.
"The spirit of the Lord is upon me," Jesus began, apparently recalling his baptism by John and the Word of the Lord God: "... Thou art my beloved Son... (Luke 3:22)." The mood of the assembly began to change as Jesus sat down and said with authority: "Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing." The fact that he sat down meant that he saw himself as the chairperson. The fact that he spoke with authority meant that he saw himself as the author.
In a recent visit to England, I saw the sitting Jesus over the altar in many cathedrals. I asked one of the tour guides about the sitting position. He explained, "In Jewish tradition, the one who sits is in charge. That's where we get our word 'chairperson'."
It's one thing for a hometown boy to come home and the people to celebrate his new-found celebrity status; it's quite another for this young preacher to refuse to go along with sentimental celebration of his status and insist that the people pay attention to and follow the Word.
With authority Jesus said, "Today this Word is fulfilled in your midst." The root of the word "authority" is "right, based on origin." It is the author who has authority. Jesus was claiming "author's rights." The author had entered the story as one of the characters. It's no wonder that we frequently read in the gospels, "Jesus spoke as one with authority."
Now things began to heat up and really get dangerous. Jesus was speaking with authority. He actually expected his friends and neighbors to change, to do something based on the Word, not just to smile and say how proud they were of him. Something clicked behind his eyes. The people sensed it. The tense atmosphere got more tense as Jesus read what was in the hearts of his former neighbors, rejection of the Word. He reminded them that both Elijah and Elisha were rejected by the multitudes and were able to minister only to a few people because the hearts of most were hard against the Word (Luke 4:25-27). Jesus added fuel to the fire as he said, "A prophet is not without honor, except in his own town (Luke 4:24)."
Restlessness now turned to anger and hatred. The Word has a way of cutting through illusions. We don't like to have our preconceptions punctured. We don't like to have our apparent acceptance called rejection and our apparent cheers called jeers especially when the person speaking is right on target and speaks with authority.
Thus we move from the synagogue of friends and neighbors to the edge of the cliff where enemies try to rid themselves permanently of this bad-news dispenser who claimed he fulfilled the Isaiah prophecy of good news. His neighbors tried to murder Jesus by throwing him over a cliff. But as they tried to get rid of their problems by murder, suddenly something startling happened which made this strange day even stranger. We pick up the story in verse 29 of chapter 4 of Luke:
...and they rose up and cast him out of the city, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their city had been built, in order to throw him down the cliff. But passing through their midst, he went on his way.
Imagine it: mob violence, murder on their minds, rage feeding rage, the blasphemer who was pushed out the door of the synagogue out to the edge of the cliff suddenly turned and looked at the neighbors - turned gang - and then he walked through the midst of them. That's authority. He was truly the anointed one, the author with rights based on origin.
A Jubilee For You And Me?
This is a dangerous text because Jesus made it his own. Favor, comfort, gladness, building, repair - these are Jesus' ways of ministry, a ministry he expects all who follow him to use as a pattern. In other words, all the baptized are anointed and called to minister by: proclaiming good news to the afflicted, freeing people who are captives to a variety of addictions; bindingup the brokenhearted by solidarity with them; helping people see reality instead of living in illusions; and celebrating the jubilee of God's generous ministry by ministering generously.
Jubilee means ministry. The baptism of Jesus and the inaugural address which follows it are models for ministry. It is simply not enough to be admirers in the grandstand. God anoints us in baptism and invites us to leave the grandstand and get into the action of real ministry. Will there be a jubilee for you and me? That depends on whether we recognize that we have been anointed in baptism for ministry. Ministry means genuine and generous servanthood (ministry).
Jubilee means generosity. Instead of just getting by, God wants us to give of ourselves generously. "God loves a cheerful (literally 'hilarious') giver" since God himself is generous - always more willing to give and forgive than we are to ask and repent, always giving grace to the sinner who repents, always restoring lost children to full family status.
Is this jubilee for you and me? Of course, but first we've got to see it God's way: the new way, the way of generosity and ministry. Giving our time and talents and treasures for
God's ministry is the challenge of this text. Giving generously is the invitation to jubilee living. Why do most of us have more than we need for food, clothes and housing? That's a good question for each of us to consider. I can think of only one good reason: to give it back to God and people with generosity.
Is the jubilee for you and me? Are we tithing with gladness? Are we giving offerings beyond the biblical tithe? That's a good question in relation to this Word of God.
Is this jubilee for you and me? Are we waiting with hope for the second coming of Christ? "Stay on the alert," Jesus says, "for you do not know which day the Lord is coming
(Matthew 24:42)." Staying alert is a way to get set to go for God with generosity.
Is this jubilee for you and for me? That depends on our answer to an even more important question: Is this Scripture being fulfilled in us today?
