Reading… and Thinking

He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. And he stood up to read. The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:
  “The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
    because he has anointed me
    to preach good news to the poor.
  He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
    and recovery of sight for the blind,
  to release the oppressed,
    to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.”

– Luke 4:16-19 (NIV)

Immediately following his baptism, Jesus spent 40 days in the wilderness, wrestling with the temptations to misuse the power he now had. He returned from that trial victorious over temptation, and spent some time among John the Baptist's disciples. John proclaimed him “the Lamb of God who will take away the sin of the world”, and some of the disciples understood that Jesus was the coming one John had been talking about. They began to follow Jesus, and when he left for Galilee, they went with him.

Beginning in Cana, Jesus made a tour of the Galilee area, launching his ministry by preaching the same simple message that John had preached: “Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand!” And, he healed! He was an immediate sensation.

So, when he came to his home town, and entered the synagogue where he had grown up, there were a lot of questions on the minds of his neighbors and relatives. Everyone wanted to know what in the world he was up to! So, he told them.

But he did it in a way that would give the glory to his Father. Apparently it was his custom to read in the synagogue. Jesus' mastery of the Scriptures would have been well known. He wasn't the official rabbi, but he apparently regularly filled the rabbi's role of standing to read from the Scripture and then sitting down and explaining the passage. And so he did on this occasion.

It has been debated whether Isaiah 61 was the designated reading that Sabbath, or whether he ignored the schedule and chose his own passage to read. It doesn't really matter. The point is that his reading answered the questions on everyone's mind: “Who do you think you are, and what are you doing?”

Most organizations these days produce a “mission statement”, a short description of why they exist, what their purpose is. Many consultants, counselors, and teachers encourage people to develop a personal mission statement. What is your purpose? What is your life about? It's good advice. These are things you should know! And if you never stop to think about them, you're likely to just coast along not really knowing what your purpose in life is.

Jesus' mission was given to him by the Father. His purpose was to preach good news, to open the eyes of those who didn't accurately perceive God or themselves, to set free those in slavery to sin.

Having a mission statement is worthless unless it is the guiding light for everything an organization or a person does. In Jesus' case, we can see that he devoted himself to this mission. He never did anything outside of his mission.

There is another, more subtle point to derive from this passage. Later on, some people became exasperated with Jesus, and said to him, “Why keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly!” But he had already done so. Anyone could claim to be the Messiah. (Quite a few did.) Jesus cited the mission of the Messiah, and invited anyone to measure him against that. And, the concept of “Messiah” or “Christ” is right here in the first sentence of the Isaiah quote: “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me…” Messiah and Christ both mean “anointed”. When Jesus sat down, he said, “This day this passage has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

It really was completely plain, for anyone who was truly listening. He told his neighbors, relatives, friends, enemies, disciples – and us: “I am the one anointed. This is my mission.”