The Inaugural Address – Part VI

Luke 4:19

What exactly do Isaiah, Jesus and Luke mean by the phrase, “the year of the Lord’s favor”? Jesus, in quoting Isaiah, says he has come to proclaim this year of the Lord’s favor.

Long before this day in Galilee where Jesus is preaching his inaugural address, the nation of Israel had been taught by God to observe what was called the Year of Jubilee. Basically it was a year that came every 50 years in which all debts were cancelled, the agricultural fields and farm animals rested, slaves were set free and economic and social wrongs were righted. Sadly for the people of Israel, they didn’t do a very good job of observing this Jubilee year. And in fact the exile into Babylon was in part to give the land its long overdue rest because the Jubilee year wasn’t observed, nor was the injunction to give the land rest every seven years.

The Year of the Lord’s favor is even bigger than the Year of Jubilee. Jesus is not talking about a calendar year only, he is talking about a new age in which people really do operate in the spirit of Jubilee. With the advent of Jesus, it becomes the Age of the Spirit, first as expressed in Jesus, then after that famous day of Pentecost, as expressed in his Body of Believers. The Year of the Lord’s favor means just that, the time when God’s favor or blessing or grace is showered down on the people of this earth. The listeners of Jesus would have balked that this blessing would also be extended to the Gentiles, but both Isaiah and Jesus make it clear that the blessings of God are to be extended to the entire human race. Regardless.

For these blessings to be so extended, a whole new way of operating among people has to unfold. The way we view each other. The way we relate to each other. The way we forgive each other. Jesus doesn’t go into all this detail at this time, but as his teachings unfold over the next three years, it becomes evident that Jesus is taking a radically new approach that, if lived out, will revolutionize the way things are done in this fallen world.

The fact that God’s favor comes so freely is radical enough. The Year of the Lord’s favor means that grace comes completely to all of us. This is not favor that has to be earned. This is being favored by God, treated as special, just because He loves us. Such a concept is impossible to understand unless we can see it modeled for us.

So Jesus proceeds to model it. He touches the untouchables, embraces the misfits, includes those who have been excluded. He is always turning social convention on its head, always acting outside of social norm, always thinking outside of the box. Precisely because he is not captive to our human boxes. As much as he lived among us as fully human, he is from another realm and that realm is the antithesis of our prisons and our bondages and our oppressions.

Such radical news! Jesus came to proclaim the age of the Spirit, the year of God’s favor. The poor would receive that news gladly, but for too many people, it was too good to be true. And they choked on it, like a starving man overwhelmed by a banquet.

Still Jesus extends God’s favor to all who will accept the offer. No one will be denied for any reason whatsoever. No one is beyond the reach of God’s grace. That is the message Jesus came to give us. Good news indeed!