Read the following passages: Isaiah 61:1–2 and Luke 4:16–21.
These describe the scene of Jesus, returned home to Nazareth after teaching and healing in the Galilee.
His mother, Mary, and His six siblings were likely all there. Certainly, some of those present in the
synagogue would have heard—or even witnessed—the miracles He had performed.
When the worship service turned to the reading of the Scriptures, a passage would have been read from
the Law, and then Jesus stood up to read the preselected, prescribed passage from the prophets. He
was handed the scroll of Isaiah … imagine what He felt as God-Man in that moment.
He unrolled it and began reading at Isaiah 61:1–2.
He stopped and read no more. He rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the synagogue attendant. As
was the practice of rabbis, He sat down before He began to teach from the text. No doubt all eyes were
fixed on Him. And He simply said, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”
PAUSE.
Consider this claim.
What would the first hearers of this claim have understood that to mean?
What did it mean for a “Scripture to be fulfilled”?
What would it have meant for that particular Scripture to be fulfilled in their hearing?
What was Jesus claiming to fulfill?
How did the people respond?
Why were His words considered scandalous?
What does it mean that Jesus fulfilled the prophecy to proclaim “the year of the Lord’s favor”?
What is “the year of the Lord’s favor”? Leviticus 25 gives us context.
What does it mean for Jesus to be the fulfillment of Jubilee?
- Everything belonging to God, deliverance, restoration, rest
- Atonement
- Lamb’s blood sprinkled on the mercy seat above the ark of the covenant
- Inheritance of the saints
- Deliverance and rest
- Experiential grace for all
Read on … why did Jesus stop short of reading the end of Isaiah 61:2?
The line that follows “to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” is “and to proclaim the day of vengeance
of our God.”
The day of vengeance is yet to come.
We live in the reality of the year of the Lord’s favor and in view of the coming wrath.
What we do in THIS year of the Lord’s favor matters!
See 1 Peter 1:3–5.