Holy Spirit Jesus
This is the sermon I preached on Sunday, January 26, 2025 at St. Timothy Lutheran Church. The gospel was Luke 4:14-21.
Jesus is in his hometown. They’ve heard about his teaching and were anxious to hear him on that day as they gathered in the synagogue. The people were thrilled with the message, until Jesus uttered these words, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”
What was Jesus claiming to be? These are the things looked for when the Messiah came. Was he saying he was the Messiah? The reading from Isaiah was fine, but to claim that it was fulfilled in their hearing! Preposterous!
It’s not in today’s, but in next week’s gospel, where we see the people’s reaction to those words. For now, we’ll leave it at that. If you don’t know and want to find out what happens, it’s ok to read ahead.
Everything Jesus did was through the power of the Holy Spirit. This power referenced in our first verse is from the Greek word dunamis, from which we get “dynamic” and “dynamite.” Now that’s some power!
For what? God has made promises to the needy: the blind, poor, downtrodden. Today, Jesus claims that they are fulfilled. These are promises of good news, release of captives, recovery of sight, setting free the oppressed and to proclaim the year of the Lord.
The final promise in this portion of Isaiah is to “proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” That would be equivalent to the year of jubilee referenced in the Old Testament. If the people observed this every 50 years, then the land and people would have rest. Captives or prisoners would be set free. Slaves, too, would be freed. But as far as we can tell, this special year was never observed.
Jesus says, “No problem!” He is the fulfillment of the year of jubilee. Jesus is the jubilee. This is what happens when Jesus is in town to bring the good news, meaning to encourage.
Who are these captives? The downtrodden! The Greek word for this means “spear.” Literally, those who are speared. In the Old Testament it is used often along with those who were forced into the Babylonian exile (Rob Myallis, lectionarygreek.blogspot.com).
Isaiah mentions the oppressed, which literally means “shattered.” I wonder who of us here today feels speared and shattered? All of these blessings Jesus intends to bestow focus on the downtrodden. Also, all the blessings have an obvious material/physical aspect (Rob Myallis).
The phrase “to let the oppressed go free” literally reads, “to send those shattered, in forgiveness; to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.”
The basic point remains: The Spirit of the Lord on Jesus is also the Spirit of the Lord on the church! If that was not the case, there would be no church. Faith would not have spread so virally without the Holy Spirit working through the people of God.
The believers were Jesus’ feet. How are we Jesus’ feet? How can the faith spread today? I’d like to lift up one huge way, through the Promise Children work in Honduras. There has been tremendous fruit from that mission. Later in the service, we will be praying for and commissioning our own missionaries, Gale and Sarah, as they prepare to leave for their time there.
Not all of us can go, but we can pray for them. Having been a missionary myself, I know just how important those prayers are. They lift missionaries as they represent not only our Lord, but all of us here. When they return, we can look forward to hearing about their time there.
We can also give to support the children to whom Gale and Sarah minister. I know that many of us already do so.
God works through each and every one of us. As the Apostle Paul wrote to the churches in Philippi, “for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Phil. 2:13). Let us give our Father pleasure this week! Amen!
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