Jesus Unrolls the Book in the Synagogue by James Tissot
(1886-1894)

Epiphany 3 2025
Rev. Doug Floyd
Luke 4:14-21

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives
and recovering of sight to the blind,
to set at liberty those who are oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. And he began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”^[1]

There’s an excitement in the crowd. The hometown boy has come home. “Did you hear how beautifully he read?” “He’s become quite a young man!” “That’s Joseph’s son. Don’t you recognize him?”

Even as they admire his speech, they fail to hear him. They fail to hear that, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in their hearing.” Even as we listen to these words, I would suggest that “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in our hearing.” The kingdom of God is here, is now. The rule of King Jesus is here, is now, is Today.

Today is The Day of Salvation.

Isaiah penned these words over 700 hundred years before by the inspiration of the Spirit. These words address the people of God, returning home from exile. Isaiah 61 speaks of restoring God’s people as a nation of priests, as the Beloved of God, as a people who will proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor, as a people who will rebuild the ancient places.

Jesus declares, “Today these words are fulfilled in your midst.”

Let’s consider briefly these words. Our text opens with an image of the Triune God as work. Our passage opens with the phrase

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me”

I hear a Triune resonance in these words. The Lord God points to Israel’s covenant God, YHWH. He addresses his people by His Holy Spirit in the person of His Son, the anointed one that is the Messiah, the King. Jesus is the true king of Israel, but to the listeners in Nazareth, he is Jospeh’s son.

In my History of Western Thought class, the students are reading “The Confessions” by St, Augustine. His conversion is a long, slow process. Though dedicated to God from birth he spends his youth in unholy escapades. As he becomes a respected teacher of rhetoric, he is well studied in ancient philosophy and is a rising star in the culture. He continues to struggle with sinful desires and actions while also exploring sects and ideas outside of the church.

The Bible disappoints his aesthetic sensibility, and he finds the story of God becoming man in Christ as vulgar and unattractive. He wants to ascent philosophically and God comes down to our earthiness in Christ. He says, “To possess my God, the humble Jesus, I was not yet humble enough.”[2]

God condescends to our human frailty, our human weakness. To follow this Christ, this one true King, we do not ascend a throne, we kneel, we humble ourselves, we embrace Him in His utter humiliation, the way of the cross.

With this in mind, consider this anointed King who has come to save: the poor, the captive, the blind, the oppressed. His hearers do not actually hear what Jesus is saying. And I fear we can easily miss His words as well. This people who praise His eloquence, who delight in His return to the hometown, who speak of His father Joseph, fail to realize these words are being fulfilled as Jesus speaks. They are the poor, the captive, the blind, the oppressed.

Think back to Isaiah’s prophecies. He is speaking to a people who are prospering under Uzziah’s reign. They are blessed. I can see them hanging little signs in their home, “Blessed.” Isaiah looks at Israel’s prosperity and says,

The whole head is sick,
and the whole heart faint.
From the sole of the foot even to the head,
there is no soundness in it,
but bruises and sores
and raw wounds;
they are not pressed out or bound up
or softened with oil.
Your country lies desolate;
your cities are burned with fire;
in your very presence
foreigners devour your land;
it is desolate, as overthrown by foreigners. ^[3]

He sees their true condition. They are keeping the Temple rituals, but their hearts are unfaithful. They are mixing idolatry with their obligations to the Temple. They are corrupt. They are blind to their condition and to one another. Therefore, they mistreat one another especially those on the margins: the poor, the oppressed. Though they left Egypt a long time ago, they are still enslaved and they are still enslaving others.

Isaiah and other prophets will speak of caring for the poor, the captive, the oppressed and so on. He is literally emphasizing the responsibility of God’s people to take care of those on the margins, but at the same time his words ultimately expose the people who think they are fine as poor, oppressed, and enslaved.

We are part of this story. When we come to worship, we might do well to remember Augustine’s words, “To possess my God, the humble Jesus, I was not yet humble enough.”[4]

We come in desperate need of His provision, His healing, His deliverance, His love and restoration. In fact, when we come, we bring our successes as well as our failures. In our weekly and daily confession, we recognize that we fail to do what we should, and we often do what we shouldn’t. The Lord can heal our blind eyes and help us to see areas where we live and act far from His love.

We also must come to terms with our successes. Some of our successes reveal how God’s gifts are taking shape in our lives. Other successes may reveal areas where we have grown strong to compensate for other weaknesses. The thing is, we can’t always sort this out. We offer it all back to God. And oddly enough, He may reveal His glory through us in the strangest ways.

I have sometimes thought that my primary vocation was to serve as God’s fool. Back in 1989, I was counselling a police officer who was in deep depression. As he talked, I was paying intense attention while I also rubbed my eyes and forehead. Somehow, I didn’t realize that ink was on my hand, so I was covering my face in ink. In the middle of his sad story, the officer burst out laughing. He said that absurd picture of me was what he needed. In a weird way, my foolish display was a grace to him. My wise words were trumped by my gentle humiliation.

We lay our wise words, our accomplishments, our financial blessing, our struggles, our sadness and grief, our failures, our forgetfulness, our blindness to God and our neighbor: we bring all that we are to God.

And Jesus declares, “Today these words are fulfilled in your midst.” It is not my knowledge of this truth that rescues me. It is Jesus Himself. I read Luke 4 and Isaiah 61, realizing Jesus is addressing me, is addressing us. He says to all of us,

The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me,
because the Lord has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor;
he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the ...