It is one of those passages that is filled with so much reverence that after reading it you may need a couple minutes to let the glory of it sink in. The passage is from Isaiah but Jesus reads and fulfills it in Luke 4: 16-21.
Luke records that Jesus stood up in the synagogue in Nazareth to read it...but I don't how anyone in that synagogue....hearing Jesus read this....could remain on their feet....if any were indeed on their feet. The passage is too momentous for me to simply put it in one of my insignificant posts....and this post is focusing on something else anyway....but I have to record it here....with a little synopsis. The words that begin the 61st chapter of Isaiah....are here as Jesus read them:
"The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me,
Because He has anointed Me
To preach the gospel to the poor;
He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted,
To proclaim liberty to the captives
And recovery of sight to the blind,
To set at liberty those who are oppressed;
To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord."
Jesus closed the book He was reading from....and continued....”Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing”….and after he finished....where He in as much as warned the Jews who were listening that the grace of God might be found upon the Gentiles instead of them....they took Him out with the intent of throwing Him off the cliff. We all remember this....and how Jesus seemed to miraculously just walk through them!
My point in this....hopefully short post....is in a question. Is not the pastor to do today....from the pulpit....what Jesus proclaimed that He had just fulfilled? He is to bring Christ to us....is he not....to preach the good tidings to the poor....to heal the brokenhearted....to proclaim liberty to the captives....and the acceptable day of the Lord?
Isaiah records a few more words of the LORD....but they are....according to some commentators....referring to the Lord's Second Coming....so Jesus did not continue with them in the synagogue in Nazareth....but they are for us today....that He might proclaim....
"And the day of vengeance of our God
to comfort all who mourn,
to console those who mourn in Zion,
To give them beauty for ashes,
The oil of joy for mourning,
the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness;
That they may be called trees of righteousness,
The planting of the LORD......That He May Be glorified."
Everything....is that Christ may be glorified! May our pulpits preach both the healing and the vengeance....the law and the gospel....the comfort and the warnings....and all that we in all of our frailties may become...."trees of righteousness....that He may be glorified."
