On a particular Sabbath day about 2,000 years ago, a young Jewish man stood in a synagogue and read from the scroll of Isaiah. The record of this event in Luke’s gospel says, “And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him.” (Luke 4:20) The young man, of course, was Jesus.
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release 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.
It is fascinating, for me, that when handed the scroll of Isaiah, Jesus chose this passage. He could have read the oracle of Isaiah 9:6, which describes the messianic king. He could have read Isaiah 11, which refers to the descendant of David with the Spirit of the Lord resting upon him. He could have read from one of the servant songs in chapter 52–53. Instead of any of these eminently appropriate texts, he chose Isaiah 61:1–2 and stopped reading with the judgment, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” (Luke 4:21)
If anyone in Jesus’ day or any other day miss this clear choice of Jesus, they miss Him altogether. The ministry of Jesus is bound tightly to his love for the poor about whom Mark once remarked, “He had compassion for them because they were like sheep without a shepherd.” (Mark 6:34)
Karen Mains once told of a social worker whose job was to place children in foster care and a young man we will call “Tommy.” Despite her regular frustration with the system and the poor families she works with, she said it is worthwhile because of opportunities like his.
It seems as though Tommy had spent the major portion of his eight-year-old life chained by his grandmother to a radiator in his room. Food was brought to him, and he was allowed to defecate and urinate in newspapers. There were other children in his family who were not treated similarly. For some warped reason, Tommy had been singled out.
When Tommy’s condition finally reached the attention of officials, it fell to our social worker to find a home for him. Would you be able to share your home with a child who had existed like an animal most of his life? Someone could. A pastor with 11 children—some natural, some adopted, some under foster care—amazingly found room in his heart for this oppressed boy.
“Do you know,” marveled our friend. “We are discovering that Tommy has a gifted IQ. The only fortunate thing about his story is that, although confined, he could see and hear the television set, which was on constantly.”
Over all the other promising verses in Isaiah, Jesus choose to read the one that describes the Kingdom of God and his ministry as preaching the good news to the poor, proclaiming release to the captives and restoring sight to the blind. We should take note of Jesus’ choice. It should shake us. This we should hear: Jesus thought the bringing of good news to the poor, those multitudes of desperate Palestinians who outnumbered the Pharisees, Sadducees, Zealots, and Essenes combined, was central to his ministry and to the unfolding of God’s kingdom. His embrace of the social outcasts of his day stood out as paramount in this crucial moment. His eye and his heart were with the broken and downcast.
“Come and follow me.” (Matthew 4:19)