Fulfilled in your Hearing
This sermon was preached by Pastor Ted Carnahan on the Third Sunday after Epiphany, January 26, 2025.
Transcript
Grace, mercy, and peace be with all of you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Can you imagine the scene that day in the synagogue in Nazareth? As Jesus comes in and he asks for the scroll of the prophet Isaiah. He's known as a rabbi, traveling around as an itinerant rabbi. He doesn't have a particular synagogue that he spends all of his time. He goes to the synagogue, and they honor him as a guest. Not only that, but he's from Nazareth, so the people kind of know who he is.
He asks for the scroll of the prophet Isaiah, and they unroll it for him to what today we would call chapter 61. He reads for them, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me." It's worth knowing that the word anointed there means anointed one. "To bring good news to the poor, to proclaim release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."
That is a very important text. It was very important to the Jewish people gathered in the synagogue that day because that is one of the core texts of the prophecy that he was going to send his anointed one, his Messiah, his, in Greek we say Christ, and that he would come and fulfill all of the things that Isaiah was saying was coming for the people of Israel in the future as God remembers his promises to the people of Israel.
Jesus's Authority
Then this traveling rabbi, who we call Jesus, sits down in a chair because that's what — you know, we're used to if the pastor's preaching or teaching, then he's standing up — But there in the synagogue, everybody would have been sitting. The people serving at the altar, so like acolytes and such, they'd be standing the whole time. There'd be a chair, almost like a throne. The rabbi would come and sit in that chair. When he was sitting there, he was teaching with the authority of the synagogue.
He sat down in that chair, and the first words out of Jesus's mouth are this, "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing." Oh, wow. What a statement. He comes with authority as a rabbi, but a traveling rabbi, to a town where he had grown up in. He reads one of the most important prophecies of the coming Messiah. Then he says, "Hey, everybody, Isaiah was talking about me."
The Reaction and Further Prophecy
Can you imagine the confusion on the faces of the people? I honestly think that section, he probably read the rest of chapter 61. If he didn't, he at least was referring to it in a way that everybody would have known. The rest of that same chapter makes really clear what exactly Jesus is claiming in this passage. I'll read some of it for you. This is incredible stuff. He's saying that Isaiah now is saying, "I am clothed with the garments of salvation. I am no longer subject to the failures of my own sin, but I have been saved. And I am a passive recipient of this. This is not that I have saved myself, but that God has remembered me and he has come to save me." This is not just a good thing happening to me, not just worldly success, but this is salvation in the cosmic sense. I am being saved from my sin. And I am being given righteousness. I am being saved from my sin. I am glad in the wedding feast as an image of Christ, the bridegroom, being united with his rejoicing, exalting church. Now we have bride and bridegroom imagery again here in Isaiah 61. "He has covered me with a robe of righteousness."
The Robe of Righteousness
Imagine that your own dirty rags of your sin and the dirt that you accumulate in your everyday living now are covered up, surrounded, and cut off from views. Your shame has been covered by a robe of righteousness. That when God looks upon you, he doesn't see any longer your sin, but he chooses instead to see the robe of Jesus Christ wrapped around you. This adorns you in a beautiful way like jewels on a bride or a garland on a groom. More wedding imagery. More pictures of God being united between Christ and the church. Then he says, "The Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to spring up." That when people are receiving this salvation, putting on this robe of righteousness, when good news is being proclaimed, we know then that that one is the Messiah, the anointed one. It won't just be the people of Israel who are praising, but that righteousness and praise will spring up before all. All the nations. This is a messianic text. Jesus is saying very clearly that he is the Messiah. He is the Son of God.
Exultation in God
Why exult in God? Because here we have not only Jesus declaring who he is, but also we have Jesus declaring who he is in such a way that you can see that his actions are validating who he is. What does he say? "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me. He has messiahed me." And what is he doing? He's bringing good news to the poor. That power no longer defines your relationship with the world. He sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind. As God sends Jesus to do miracles to free people from possession by demons and to liberate them from their sin. To let the oppressed go free and to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor, the Jubilee.
The Purpose of Miracles
Jesus going and doing these miracles is not just because doing miracles and helping people and healing people is nice. It is. It's good. But because it validates who Jesus is. The purpose of the miracles is not to fix every problem in the ancient Near East or even in our lives today. But to show that Jesus has the power to be the one whom Isaiah prophesies in chapter 61 would be the one who is the Savior of the world. He is not just their Savior or one who is coming in some point in the future, but he is your Savior now and today. And so we exult.
The Meaning of Exultation
That's not a word we use a lot. Exult is not just like, you know, slow clap. You know, yay. Exult is jumping. Jumping for joy. Exult is saying, "My God, hallelujah, I am saved." I had a sin problem that I could not solve and that was terminal. But I have been released from that terminal illness of sin and I've been covered over and my shame has been blotted out and I am now one of your people and no one can take that away from me. I trust in your word. I believe you.
The Reality of Sin and Oppression
Yes, sin has come into the world. Yes, I am infected and corrupted by it. Yes, this world is opposed to God and his prerogatives. Yes, the poor are oppressed by the rich. Yes, the weak are oppressed by the strong. Yes, spiritual blindness is on the land, not just in our time, but also in ancient time. We know that people aren't looking for God anymore in the way that they used to, but we can still rejoice. This is the year of the Lord's favor. This is the exultation of our God because this Messiah has come to reconnect us to himself.
The Church as a Community
I say "we" very intentionally here because this is not just an individual thing. You know, a lot of people want to make their religion a private thing and I understand that and it's kind of true sometimes, but I think people get, in our country especially, in the Western culture, we make this very individual. It's really between me and God, pastor. Well, it is and it isn't. Yes, it is because your sins are your own. I'm not responsible for your sins and you're not responsible for mine. The thing that you contribute to your salvation is the sin that made it necessary and your sin is individual and your faith is something that is accounted to you and to no one else. You can't believe for somebody else. But to say that it's just between you and God, excuse God, ignores the fact that throughout the Old Testament and the New, we're always talking about this gathering of people, who are faithful people. We talk about this in the Mass all the time. Your salvation comes together with the whole church.
The Body of Christ
With the whole church, we are the body of Christ. The body of Christ united with its different members and parts that do different things. You're not all pastors and that's good because if we were all pastors, we'd all want to preach and we'd be here all day. And we're not all council members because then we wouldn't have very, it would take us forever to decide on anything. And we're not all teachers and nobody would be listening. We all have different roles to play. We all have different gifts to share. But we are together one body and the body matters. As Eric said to us today, we need you to step up and use your gifts to contribute to the body of the whole.
The People of Israel and the Law
The people of Israel together are disconnected from God. In this time when the scroll of the prophet Isaiah is being read before the people, Nehemiah in our first reading, they are disconnected from God as a people. They have, they are trying to rebuild, but Nehemiah, the governor and Ezra, the high priest, are trying to help the people remember that God has not forgotten them. So he, they rediscovered the law. They had forgotten the scriptures. They literally had lost them. They didn't have them with them for their entire time in captivity in Babylon. Now that they've returned from three generations, 70 years, they're back in Jerusalem and they finally, they've uncovered the book of the law and they open it up and they're like, "Here is our God's word to us." They begin to read. The scribes and the priests are reading and teaching the people and they hear this law being read for them, that the law that they had forgotten, that they'd never been taught. They weep and they cry because they realize they have forgotten. They have not kept this law. And yet Nehemiah and Ezra can say to them, "Do not mourn or weep. Yes, you have not kept this law. Yes, you did not even, you didn't take it with you and you don't know what it says. Yes, you are being exposed to it and now you are exposed, expected to keep it, but do not mourn or weep."
The Law and God's Grace
Yes, there is a law. Yes, you have transgressed this law. Yes, that is very serious, but God has not kept this law. God has not abandoned you. And I say to you who are gathered here today, yes, there is a law and that law demands that we follow God and his prerogatives, that we put God's purposes ahead of our own, that we put God's morality ahead of our own decisions. And yes, that is very serious, but you are not forsaken by God. He has not just given you a law that you cannot keep, but he has also given you the fulfillment of it. There in that day, by beginning to follow the law, the people of Israel could step up and say, "We are again God's people. We have been reunited to God through this word." And you and I can return to the Lord, our God, and be reunited to him as a bride is united to her bridegroom in Jesus Christ.
Reconnection with God
There in that day, in the fullness of time, in Jesus Christ, we are reconnected with God. And he gives us his own righteousness and he covers over our sin and our shame. And in that way, we are a new creation and we can live in a different way and we can follow our Lord. So that we are not just saved individually by our own actions or choices, but we are also saved together as an assembly, as a church, the church reunited to Christ. We are united to Christ as a church. And we honor God as a church together, not as individualistic atoms separated from each other, but as a body of believers.
The World's Message vs. God's Provision
This world will tell you that you are alone, that you're an individual and it's up to you. And worse yet, it'll tell you that's a good thing. But God has provided for you a church. He's shown you, yes, what he demands of you, but then he has fulfilled all of it for you. In Christ. And he has given you his law so that you might go and strive for righteousness, confident that you are already covered, that you are already saved by God's grace.
May you know the peace that comes from trusting this Lord and his word, this God who keeps promises, though it's been many years, has not forgotten us. And may the peace of Christ, which surpasses all understanding, bless Jesus our Lord to life everlasting. Amen.
