Bringing good news

 by Margaret Killingray (Word for the Week 09-06-2008) 

The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and to release the prisoners.  Isaiah 61:1

Isaiah’s final chapters ring with the certainty that the Lord will come, bringing the vindication of his sovereignty before all nations, and blessing and salvation for his people.   However bad the present oppression, whether by Assyria or Rome, Israel longed for the day when they would be acknowledged as ‘a people whom the Lord has blessed’ (61:9).  The Lord would sweep in and put all things right.  

We can perhaps imagine the shock in the synagogue at Nazareth when Jesus read these verses and then said, ‘Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing’ (Luke 4:18-21).  Isaiah’s words had rung with the promise of spectacular events – not just liberty for captives, but ruined cities rebuilt, and Israel enjoying the wealth of nations.  On this ordinary day in the synagogue, a young man, whom they had known from childhood, read from the scroll, as was the custom.  Suddenly the mood changed to a shocking moment of outrage at his effrontery.  Jesus did not fit their understanding of the powerful rescuer who would defeat their enemies and bring them blessing.  

As we look round the world this morning, we may well long to see good news brought to the oppressed, the broken-hearted bound up, the prisoners freed.  And for ourselves, healing for those we love, damage we have done forgiven and put right.  But we would like someone else to sweep in and do it - politicians, world leaders, economists, or on a more homely level, the pastor, the counsellor, a friend.  Or, better still, as Isaiah prophesied, the Lord to come again in glory and bring all things under his reign.

Did anyone in that synagogue look at him as Jesus claimed this role of carer, rescuer and saviour, and remember Isaiah’s words in chapter 53?  Was there, perhaps, another kind of rescue?  The Lord would lay on him the iniquity of us all, and through that self-giving anyone was welcome into the glory of the new earth and new heaven.  Meanwhile, we are the ones who do his work, proclaiming the good news, binding up the broken-hearted, proclaiming liberty...