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Morning Devotion for the Season of Easter

April 24, 2023

Invitatory

On this day the Lord has acted; we will rejoice and be glad in it.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son: and to the Holy Ghost;

As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be: world without end. Amen.

Reading: Luke 4:16-21

When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:

“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 captives

   and recovery of sight to the blind,

       to set free those who are oppressed,

to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. And he began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

Meditation – Peter Vanderveen

Jesus quoted Isaiah; but to what effect? It’s an impressive agenda to set for oneself. And who could oppose such broad deliverance? It’s dazzling in its ambition, and it arouses the same kind of dreaming about which Martin Luther King Jr. spoke so eloquently in our own time. But did it come about then? And how, in fact, did Jesus fulfill Isaiah’s prophecy?

According to Luke, Jesus immediately told those around him in Nazareth that, whatever Isaiah meant by these words, they didn’t apply to anyone there. Jesus claimed that his mission was directed elsewhere and to others, which raised a lot of ire. Even so, across the span of Jesus’ wandering and preaching, how was Isaiah’s vision accomplished? None of the Gospels give any account of Jesus beginning movements for wholesale social change. Jesus never insisted that the covenant with YHWH had clear and certain political ramifications. There was no DEI officer among the disciples, serving as an advocate for the least or the oppressed or the forgotten. Unlike what so many preachers today like to promise (which contributes to their own great success), Jesus never found a way to bestow sudden and great riches on the poor; he never seemed to look for this or to consider it a solution. Nor did he gather forces to charge the prisons. Rome had no lack of enemies who were locked away. They might have wondered why Jesus seemed not to care about them.

Luke’s narrative makes clear that Jesus understood and declared himself to be the fulfillment of Isaiah’s dream. But this had little or nothing to do with what he did or asked others to do. His task wasn’t something objective and quantifiable, with deliverables that could be measured against goals. By his very being he was the fulfillment for which Isaiah longed, and his only message to his disciples after his resurrection was to tell others about him. It wasn’t to do all sorts of admittedly good things in his name. And in this way, Jesus provided a fulfillment that was wholly unexpected. Poverty was not eliminated. Prisons were not emptied. These continue even now in spite of all our efforts. And the blindness that Jesus lifted wasn’t physical. It was our inability to see just what the year of the Lord’s favor is.

For what God revealed in Jesus is that all the divisions by which we separate ourselves from one another (devise a list if you like, it would be incalculably longer than those few that Isaiah mentioned) – all these are as nothing to God. Even the division of good and evil. Even the division of the sinful and the righteousness. All that comes from God is peace, experienced in communion as companions. We just seem unable to get to the point where this is acceptable. Most would consider it scandalous and deeply offensive.

But this is to miss the true freedom that God has granted us in Jesus’ fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy. For if, by God’s assessment, there are no longer any legitimate divisions that hold between us, then – and only then – will we be able to tend to one another with love and generosity, not counting differences but delighting in increasing the welfare of one another, without exception. It’s this freedom that we need.

Prayer

You come to us, O Christ.

You are the Alpha and the Omega

The beginning and the end. All times

And seasons are yours, and in you

All things hold together and are brought to completion.

Draw us by your Spirit into communion

With you and one another and make us and all things

Whole and free in the full force

Of your deathless love.

The Most Rev. Frank T. Griswold