Luke wants to keep us mindful of the presence of the Holy Spirit.  Things are happening, developing, maturing, bearing fruit through the power and presence of the Spirit—that has huge consequences for us, and in us!  Jesus doesn’t return to Galilee as the man who left; something has happened in the meantime.  People think it’s a strange change—Christianity will do that to you.  Word is trickling back to people in Nazareth that things are happening wherever Jesus goes, wherever he is, but they have yet to see it for themselves.  They’re curious.  It’s good to be curious about Jesus.  It’s good at least to give Jesus a hearing.  We did.  Let’s encourage others to, also.  It’s not so terrible to give Jesus a real try!

“Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about him spread through the whole countryside.  He was teaching in their synagogues, and everyone praised him” (4:14-15).  Not a bad start!  Luke knows, and we faithful know, that Jesus comes in the power of the Spirit.  What do those people in Galilee know?  Wherever Jesus is, something happens.  Things happen when Jesus is present.  Good things.  People praise good things; they like good things and want more of them.  Another piece of cake?  I couldn’t possibly—but alright!  Why are these good things happening, though?  What does it all mean?

Jesus returns to Nazareth.  He knows Nazareth and is known there.  Nazareth isn’t just a dusty little hamlet in the dry, scrubby hills; it’s like a microcosm of the world.  The ways of the world, you’ll find in Nazareth.  The attitudes and thinking of the world are in Nazareth.  Worldly habits, habits of the flesh, well-rooted in those with minds of flesh.  What’s a mind of flesh?  Sounds wiggly!  A mind of flesh relies upon the senses, relies upon feelings, relies upon reason and logic.  The little gods.  A life and a religion of the senses, my senses.  A life and a religion of emotions, my emotions.  A life and a religion of reasoning, my reasoning and my reasons.  A mind of flesh.  The mind of flesh does not rely upon revelation.  The opposite of flesh?  God’s Word.  The Spirit.  A life and a religion of the Spirit, from the Spirit, for the Spirit, by the Word.  Not Me but Thee.

Jesus who left so familiar returns with a strange change.  He has become a little unfamiliar, although some things about him remain familiar: he goes to the synagogue—to church—because it’s the Sabbath.  Have you noticed how religious Jesus is, not just spiritual but religious?  Here’s a man who just hates not being in church!  Jesus wants to be with his own.  People do, too.

“He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him” (4:16-17).  This feels suspenseful; maybe for them, too, considering what they had been hearing about Jesus.  What have they heard?  Have you ever asked a neighbor, a friend, a fellow student, a co-worker what they have heard about Jesus?  Do we just assume everyone knows about Jesus, that he’s familiar to everyone?

Jesus knows just what he wants to read from God’s Word, what he wants the people to hear.  May you hear the Word that God has for you, this day, isn’t a rote formula I recite mechanically each Sunday, but a prayer, an invitation.  What is Jesus saying?  “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 favor” (4:18-19).

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me”: oh yes!  Luke has already told us that Jesus comes in the Spirit of the Lord (4:14).  But what is this arriving in the Spirit of the Lord for?  What is God up to?  Why?  For announcing good news, good news of great joy, for all people, all who will listen and receive.  How do we know if God’s favor is upon us?  We’re listening.  We’re receiving.  We’re praising; we’re growing.  None of that happens apart from God and God’s favor.

Through Isaiah, Jesus says he has come “to proclaim good news to the poor.”  We may hear that and think of those who have just barely enough to live on, scraping by day by day.  A hard life!  Yes.  Jesus came especially for those who know, so well, so well, that they just don’t have enough, barely enough, to get by, day by day.  Their daily bread is meager, but God’s daily bread is abundance!  Jesus has news for them: abundance, fulfilment, riches, resources, not lack, an end to deprivation.  Now does he mean economically, materially, or spiritually?  If spiritually, is it really good news?  Salvation helps, but so would a few thousand!  Yet the money, it goes.  And salvation?  It remains.  Abide with me isn’t just our prayer to God: it is the invitation of Jesus.  Jesus comes to fill a lack, certainly, but it might not be the lack people think they want filled.

“Blessed are the poor in spirit,” Jesus teaches (Mt 5:5).  Poor in spirit?  That doesn’t sound good, yet Jesus says something very good about them; he calls them blessed.  The poor in spirit are those who have no excess of spirit.  We aren’t talking about the Holy Spirit, here, nor of someone in high spirits.  We’re talking about the spirit of the flesh, flesh-mindedness: life in bond service to the senses, the emotions, reason and logic: God-given faculties that people make into little gods.  Truth is not discovered, beloved; it’s not our discovery.  Truth is revealed; it is a gift of God.  Jesus reveals truth to those who hunger above all for truth.  Jesus gives life above all to those who long for life, with him.  Jesus comes to fill a lack, certainly, but it might not be the lack people think they want filled.  God must awaken us to our true lack.  We don’t see it, don’t know it, barely feel it, until He shows us, causes us to know, makes us feel that lack.

          “He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind.”  Poor, chained, and blind—a perfect prison of woe!  As we read through the Gospel accounts, Jesus encounters many who are blind; he offers the cure for them all.  Some are cured.  Some gain or regain eyesight, but all whom Jesus heals regain spiritual sight: Jesus opens the eyes of their life.  Several who are blind come and beg Jesus to let them see.  He says Yes! every time.  Jesus never says No!  He never says, I will not heal you.

We have no instance of a blind person asking Jesus for wealth or power, prestige or popularity.  How strange it would be for a blind man to come to Jesus asking for any of that!  Surely what the blind want above all is to see?  Jesus encounters many blind people who do not ask for sight.  Sight isn’t what they want most.  What do they want most?

Poor, chained, and blind!  God help us!  Help them!  Jesus says he has come, been sent “to set the oppressed free” (4:18).  We say Amen!  Only, who are the oppressed?  Oppressed by what?  People come up with various answers, depending upon our senses, our emotions, and our capacity for reason: our innate, and corrupted, broken, capacities for drawing conclusions and making decisions.  Our senses can misinform us.  Our emotions can lead us astray.  Have you ever discovered that what you thought about someone or something was wrong?  People argue about the answers they’ve come up with regarding the true nature of our true oppression; people proclaim allegiances and oppositions, depending upon their answers; they start disagreeing, arguing, disliking, avoiding, depending upon their answers.  People seem so quick to divide and so slow to unite.

And what is God’s answer to this question of what oppresses us?  What is the answer of Scripture?  I can tell you, and I believe it’s the answer Jesus gives, but only God can reveal the truth of it.  God has to awaken us to our true situation.  Jesus comes to set free from sin.  This is why Jesus comes “to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” (4:19).  That’s the Jubilee year, the fiftieth year, the fulfilment of the seven of seven years: a complete fulfillment, nothing lacking!  The jubilee was the year of liberation, restoration, and return, the year of forgiveness of debts.  For most, the jubilee also came along but once in a lifetime, possibly twice.  Not to be missed.  Not to be passed by, dismissed, ignored.  Next time doesn’t come.

Well, Jesus has their attention, now.  “He began by saying to them, ‘Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing’” (4:21).  He does not then speak of what they do not have: absence, lack, impossibility.  He begins by speaking of what they do have, through him: fulfillment, possibility.  He begins with fulfillment and his time here ends with fulfillment because it is fulfilled; already fulfilled!  Truth of the Spirit.  The broken desires of the chained, blinded heart work against us as we set ourselves to realize the spiritual truth of what already is, what we already have in Christ Jesus.  The broken, chained, blinded heart insists upon lack.  Feelings all too often insist upon what is absent—what we miss, who we miss, what we don’t have.  If I only had . . . If I were only . . . If I could only . . .  We’re not happy!  The Spirit always calls to what we already have—fulfilment in Jesus.  “I came that they might have life, and have it . . .”

And to Jesus Christ, who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood, and made us to be a kingdom, priests of his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever.