The Inaugural Address – Part V

Luke 4:18

The passage in Isaiah that Jesus quotes on this momentous occasion, the inaugural address launching his ministry, contains a lot more information than is recorded in Luke. Whether Jesus only said as much as Luke records, we can only conjecture. But the unrecorded part carries the same theme.

What is recorded is that Jesus says he has come to bring good news to the poor. What follows is a brief elaboration of what it means to bring “good news to the poor. Jesus is saying he has been sent to proclaim freedom for the prisoners, recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.

When we read the words “prisoners”, “blind” and “oppressed”, we can take them as figuratively or literally, as spiritual or in a variety of other metaphors, such as material, physical, and social. I sense that with Jesus, he is talking about every way that blocks people from knowing and trusting and experiencing the goodness of God the Father. That is the ultimate purpose for which Jesus has come, after all.

We can argue all day long about what exactly this means. Like the Pharisees who chose to discuss whether a certain sickness was caused by a man’s sins or his parents. Jesus’ response was to say, Just deal with it whatever the cause. Every bit of it is curse and Jesus has come to wipe out all curse. Each situation requires the unique creativity of the Spirit to know how to deal with it. No two circumstances are alike. Thus the need for the Spirit’s anointing. But beyond that, why draw lines and limits of human understanding on the work of the Spirit? Jesus certainly doesn’t.

If a man is spiritually blind, Jesus wants to open his eyes to see things as God sees them. If a woman is blind physically, he wants to heal that physical blindness and it is all God’s work whether it comes through touching her eyes and bringing miraculous healing or through the healing works of medicine and science – all are blessings from God. If a person is blind emotionally due to much pain and abuse, God wants to heal that emotional blindness so that the person is truly free.

We all come at God from our own angles and in doing so we tend to limit what God can do because we are hesitant to accept what our brother or sister understands of God. And they do the same with us. God is much bigger than any of us – than all of us put together. The Pharisees did not deny the miracle-working power of God to heal; they just said it could not be applied on one day of the week. Others were uncomfortable with the idea of miracle-working altogether and preferred to believe that God would operate through the known medical methods of the day. Still others said that it was unspiritual to go to a doctor, that to do so was a sign of a lack of faith.

There is a saying that “All truth is God’s truth.” In other words, if it is truth, then it has to have its source in God. To take that further, “All true goodness is of God.” There is no goodness apart from God. It doesn’t matter who does the good thing or who blesses. No one does good or blesses except that God works through him or her to do that goodness and blessing.

This is a new day, Jesus is saying, when the poor will receive the good news for which they have been waiting so long, when the prisoners will be freed, the blind will see and the oppressed will be released.