Prophetic words for today

It’s the 5 September 2022. You are standing outside the front door of 10 Downing Street. You wait for that famous door to open. A lectern appeared ten minutes ago. There’s an air of expectation and curiosity what words might be about to be shared. Then comes the moment. Here’s our new Prime Minister. What’s she about to say? There will be words of intention, direction, new beginnings, it can’t be like it was (even though you were in the cabinet that did it like it was) and those words will be the summary of her task and responsibility in the early days of a new chapter of British political life. Or… it could be him! What’s he about to say? Unless there’s a member of the Conservative party reading this, we have no say in whether it’s a she or a he at all. 

 

There are times in the human story, when words spoken announce a new era, a new positivity, a new hope. Remember when Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister in 1979, she referred to herself as we and used the prayer of St Francis of Assisi as her charge: where there is hatred, may we sow love etc. When Tony Blair swept to power in 1997, there was a party somewhere in London where the D Ream song blasted out: things can only get better were the words. 

Joe Biden, a practising Roman Catholic at his inauguration as President of the United States in 2021 talked about living through tough times, like Covid and he said "And I promise you this, as the Bible said, weeping may endure for a night but joy cometh in the morning. We will get through this together, together.”

Sometimes, after a tough time we need a word of promise, a word in season, a leader who will guide us into a secure future. We’ve been looking at different parts of Isaiah this month. We’ve had the threat of the enemy and divine judgment in the first bit, we’ve had words of comfort and assurance in time of exile in the second bit, and now we are in the final part of the prophecy, which is chapters 55 to 66. We often call this section ‘Third Isaiah’ because scholars set these particular prophecies in the post-exilic period after the return from exile in Babylon around 540 - 520BC.  Many of the prophecies of Third Isaiah are positive in tone, looking forward to a time of blessing and prosperity.

            The spirit of the Lord God is upon me:
            because the Lord has anointed me.
 
Remember that priests and kings were anointed – oil was poured on their heads as a sign of God’s choice; as a sign that the priest and the king were set apart, consecrated to God’s service in a special and particular way.  We still anoint our Sovereign at the Coronation. Moreover, the prophet Elisha was anointed by Elijah as his successor, inheriting a double-portion of his prophetic spirit.  When King David was anointed to be king, we are told that ‘the spirit of the Lord came mightily’ upon him.  So here in Isaiah 61, we have a prophet, who is full of God’s spirit because he has been anointed. Of course, this is a metaphorical not a physical anointing, but the metaphor carries the same meaning as the ceremony.
 
We have to remember that in the post-exilic period there was no king.  So here in Isaiah, it is the prophet who becomes a kind of new David, in whom God’s power or spirit dwells. And what does this spirit-filled ministry bring? Well, he comes to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the broken-hearted, to bring liberty to captives, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour – the ancient year of Jubilee when debts were remitted and burdens lifted. 

He comes to comfort those who mourn, to bring a garland in place of ashes, the oil of gladness – yet another anointing - instead of mourning, the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit. 
 
You see, the post-exilic Jerusalem community was a shattered and impoverished people. To return home had been their fervent dream and hope and prayer for generations.

However, once they finally made it back to Israel, it was not exactly the sort of Utopia they had imagined. The people who were back home had never really seen home before. They had just heard tales of it passed down from their grandparents and great-grandparents who had once lived there. Tales of it being wonderful, remembering Zion.

The Temple and city lay in ruins; there was severe economic hardship; there was an unbelievable mountain to climb, challenges of monumental proportion in order to make things right again, in order to make home feel like home.

 

Just where do you begin when almost everything has been lost? The prophet brings a message of hope; there will be a future. And in time, prophecies like this one became the basis of the hope that one day God would raise up a new David, a new Anointed One, full of the Spirit. And the Hebrew word ‘anointed one’ is Messiah.

 

Fast-forward to the New Testament. Jesus is baptised, and the Spirit descended on him as a dove. He is led into the wilderness to begin to fulfil the story of Israel – 40 days in the desert to match the 40 years of the wilderness wanderings. Now, full of the Spirit, he comes to Nazareth to begin his public ministry. In the synagogue, he finds Isaiah 61; he reads it, and his sermon begins with dynamite – ‘Today this passage has been fulfilled in your hearing’.
  
When the Messiah comes, the promises of Third Isaiah are fulfilled.  

The poor, which includes the spiritually poor as well as the materially poor, hear good news – God will enrich them. Those who are captives – to sin, to demonic forces, to legalism, to social stigma – are set free. Those who are blind – blind to the truth, to God’s love, to God’s favour - are enabled to see; and the year of Jubilee is no longer simply a fifty  year, once in a life-time, remission, but is the perpetual Jubilee of a God who declares for all the forgiveness of sins.
 

Here is the Messiah, the Anointed One – and translate that into Greek – here is the Christ. So when we say, Lord Jesus Christ – we are speaking in a profoundly theological way. As Lord, he shares the divine nature, as Jesus, Joshua – he comes to save us, as Christ, he is Messiah, the Anointed One.
 
And we are called Christians. Of course, the word Christ became a kind of title in its own right. The word Christian denotes a follower of Christ. But we need to remember the root of the word. For ‘Christian’ could also be translated as ‘anointed one’. It reminds us, that like priests and kings, we have been chosen by God to be his own possession. Like priests and kings, we have been consecrated, set apart, called out by our baptism, to share the royal priesthood of Jesus. That like prophet, priest and king, we have received the gift of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of the Lord is upon us. 

 

Imagine being in the synagogue in Nazareth that Sabbath morning. Jesus stands up, reads from the Torah, and sits down to interpret it. The text he reads is itself dramatic: “The spirit of the Lord is upon me, 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. To proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.”

Luke puts this story at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry to tell us something very important about Jesus. It’s a summary of the key themes of Jesus ministry. We can see how important it is for Luke by recognising how he has changed the story from the versions in Mark and Matthew. In both of those gospels, the visit to the synagogue in Nazareth comes after a significant portion of Jesus’ ministry. Both gospels put it after big chunks of Jesus’ teaching and a number of his healings. For them, it is only a story about Jesus’ rejection in his hometown. They don’t tell us anything about what Jesus said. By placing it here, by putting these words in Jesus’ mouth, Luke is telling us to pay attention—this is what Jesus is all about.

So Jesus reads these verses, then he sits down and tells the congregation words I’ve already quoted, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” The people are amazed by the power of his words. There are several fascinating things about this text. In the first place, we see Jesus behaving like he’s supposed to do. He’s a good Jewish boy, he goes to the synagogue on the Sabbath, he knows his scripture. But then, when he begins to speak, he blows away people’s expectations. 

Perhaps the congregation was expecting to hear how all this might happen when the Messiah comes. Instead, Jesus tells them, it’s happening right now!

To put it into contemporary language—this is Jesus’ mission statement according to Luke. 

He makes this clear later in the gospel when the John the Baptist, now in prison, has heard of Jesus’ activity. He sends two of his disciples to Jesus to ask him if he is the Messiah or if they are to wait for another. Jesus response to them, and to John is “Go tell John what you have seen, the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the poor have good news preached to them.”

Jesus’ mission statement, but is it ours? 

As followers of Jesus, we are called to share with him in his ministry and in his proclamation of good news. We are called to do great things. And the standard by which we should judge ourselves and our work is the Gospel. Is this the year of the Lord’s favour? How are we going to bring good news to the poor? Help the blind to see, the lame to walk, the oppressed go free? Do our ministries match up to that job description? If not, why not?

Jesus’ reading from Isaiah 61 sets out a vision of restoration, one which cuts through politics and Empires, powers and wars, and puts the intention of God in the driving seat of world affairs. It points to a church full of confidence and hope which knows its mission. Like the new Prime Minister on 5 September will persuade us of hope in her or his words to us, we need to be sure of what we are saying and whose we are trying to transform. 

 

I was leading a service at Long Meadow care home just along from Harrogate Road church on Wednesday afternoon. It was so hot in there the staff weren’t functioning. Did you find this week even when the temperature outside cooled down it took your homes inside  three days to catch up? They’d forgotten to copy out my hymns and there was no music. So I asked the assembled congregation – do you know any favourite hymns by heart? They not only knew one verse of some old hymns they knew all the verses, word perfect so they sang them with joy and with confidence because the words were inside them. Despite me nearly keeling over with heat especially with PPE on, I found it deeply moving. 

 

These words of third Isaiah heralding a new age, words which Jesus used to describe his ministry are words we need to come back to again and again if we’ve lost focus. What is the spirit of the Lord leading us to do and be? For Isaiah the words were about rebuilding shattered lives. 

The community returning from years of hardship needed to have a direction and a purpose and to be confident in that direction and purpose. And we can all contribute to that direction and purpose despite what we think. 

 

We do it when we care for others pastorally.

We live it when we worship enthusiastically. 

We share it when we offer good news to one person at a time or we pray for change in the world by standing up for those God values when the world is going mad. 

We can live it despite who we are. You know I had a Church Council recently and they told me they are too old to do anything. I get that. John Wesley beat himself up you know in later life. At the age of 83, he was annoyed his eyesight wouldn’t let him write for more than 15 hours a day, and at 86 he was annoyed he wouldn’t preach more than twice a Sunday. I’m 55 and I’ve got three services this Sunday and I’ll be done in by 7.30! I’m not sure I’ll be doing three on a plan in 2053! He complained in his diary that there was an increasing tendency to lie in bed until 5.30 in the morning! We do what we can do, but together our reading of these words and keeping them at our heart will make a difference. 

 

What do the words of Isaiah 61 mean to you? 

The spirit of the Lord is upon me because  he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captive and  recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour. 

Go back to that synagogue in Nazareth. Jesus closes the book and sits down.  And everyone is looking at him.  And then he says to them, "Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing."

And in that moment, we get it. We get what it’s all about. We get recommissioned. We rejoice, we laugh, even in the midst of pain and loss and devastation, because in Jesus we hear the deep resonant laughter of God. 

 

There is good news – and today we are anointed to share it. I’ll leave you with a mighty bit of Matthew Henry’s commentary to chew:

 

“An unsanctified soul is like a city that is broken down and has no walls, like a house in ruins; but by the power of Christ's gospel and grace it is repaired, it is put in order again, and fitted to be a habitation of God through the Spirit. And they shall do this, those that are released out of captivity; for we are brought out of the house of bondage that we may serve God, both in building up ourselves to his glory and in helping to build up his church on earth.” 

 

On 5 September then I’ll be listening carefully as this country’s direction is shared in words of a new leader. Today I’m asking us to listen to the words of the prophet. There is good news – and today we are anointed to share it.