Fulfilled in Your Hearing

Luke 4:14-21

Then Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee, and reports about him spread throughout the surrounding country. He began to preach in their synagogues and he was praised by everyone. When he came to Nazareth, the town where he had been brought up, he entered the synagogue on the Sabbath, as was his custom. When he stood up to read, the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written,

“The spirit of the Lord is upon me, for he has

anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has

sent me to proclaim release to the captives and

recovery of sight to the blind; to let the oppressed go

free, and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fixed on him. Then Jesus began to say to them, “Today, this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

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Spoiler alert: This morning’s Gospel reading ends right where next week’s Gospel reading will begin. Luke, Chapter 4, Verse 21, is the start of what we’ll hear next Sunday: “Today, this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” And the spoiler is that what Jesus says next gets him kicked out of his own hometown. What’s coming makes his old friends and neighbors want to hurl him over a cliff on the outskirts of Nazareth. And we’ll get to that … next week.

For now, I want to simply sit with what we’ve been given to wonder about this morning. Today’s good trouble is enough for today, you might say.

See, I’m excited for Jesus this morning. If you look back at what precedes this morning’s Gospel, you’ll see that Jesus is fresh from the waters of his baptism in the Jordan. Maybe you remember. He was washed in the river by John the Baptist, the heaven’s opened, the Holy Spirit descended like a dove, and he was declared – by a voice from the clouds and before everybody there – to be God’s beloved son.

And then that same Holy Spirit drove Jesus into the wilderness where he spent some time duking it out with the Devil. For forty days he was tempted to turn stones to bread while he was starving; he was tempted to forsake God’s authority for the Devil’s kind of power; and he was tempted to see if God loved him enough to save him from a swan dive off the top of Jerusalem’s temple. Of course, Jesus faithfully resisted each of these tests and temptations, to win the day.

So, by the time we meet up with him this morning, he has celebrated that baptism and he has survived that time in the wilderness, and he has been preaching and teaching his way around Galilee to rave reviews and with great approval – he was being “praised by everyone,” so we’re told. He is on a roll and riding high, living his best life.

So, when he stands up to read in worship, back home in Nazareth … when he gets his hands on the scroll of the prophet Isaiah, he very deliberately finds the thing he wants to share with his people – all that stuff about good news for the poor; that bit about release for the captives; that promise of sight for the blind; a dose of freedom for the oppressed; and a gracious reminder of the Lord’s good favor.

And after he reads it, he just rolls up the scroll, hands it back to the usher, and takes a seat. There is no preaching. No teaching. No clever illustrations. No scriptural exegesis. He just sits down and they all stare at him. They probably make eyes at each other and whisper amongst themselves and, maybe, wonder what’s coming next.

And Jesus breaks what must have been a very awkward silence to make his point … to say what he came to say … to drop the mic, as it were. He says, simply: “Today