“The Good News”
I wonder. If there had been such a thing as a daily scroll sold in the market square and known as the Nazareth Journal, and if its news department hadn't been consolidated with the Nazareth Rising Sun — I wonder if the headlines come that Sunday morning, the day after the Sabbath, if they might not have read, "Local Boy Makes Good," or "Carpenter's Son Builds a Reputation." From our reading of Luke 4 it’s clear that Jesus' fame and popularity had preceded Him. In the Gospels this might appear to be the first recorded sermon of Jesus, and on first hearing, His hometown folk were quite impressed, after all, He was one of their own. Some likely remembered Him as a little boy covered in sawdust in His father's workshop. Maybe He had played with their boys. Maybe some of His old street hockey teammates were there that morning. After all He was putting Nazareth on the map. Why, they just might have to name a street after Him. Well - at least to a point, that's how it seemed to be going.
Jesus spoke and they were all ears. But knowing what was in their hearts, as He continued on, they were less and less impressed, to the point of being furious, even to where they were prepared to throw Him off the brow of the hill. That thought should give any preacher pause. Makes me grateful the hill across the street is a fairly gentle slope.
Well Jesus had come bringing good news but not good news in a general sense, rather specific good news - good news for the poor, the blind, the captive, and oppressed. He came to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour — more an ongoing state than a fixed number of days. Pulling from possibly a couple of Old Testament texts in Isaiah, and recalling His baptism, Jesus said He had been anointed by the Spirit of the Lord to proclaim such good news to people in dire straits. He didn't simply go around handing out cash to the poor. He didn't march into prisons and bend iron bars like some comic book superhero. Yes, He did give healing sight to some who were physically blind, and in doing so demonstrated His divine power over our physical limits. And He did uplift the oppressed and outcast of society, talking with and caring for lepers, prostitutes, and tax collectors – showing all those who so carefully watched His every move that absolutely no one was beneath or beyond His caring.
But such good news is only good news to those who know how much they need it. The folks who heard Jesus that day didn’t think they needed what He came to bring. Unless we recognize our condition before God under His perfect law - Jesus' good news has no real meaning or value for us either. His primary purpose in coming to Nazareth that day was not to entertain —not to bring glory to Himself nor to His home town, rather to do the will of His Father and accomplish for us what we are just not able to do for ourselves. He came to share the good news – to be the good news of deliverance from our dead end way of living.
We live in a day and a society where it sometimes appears that the only goal is to have it all together — to be on top of everything — to be successful — to raise near perfect children, well educated - gifted in sports and the arts, and all while staying, young, beautiful and healthy as if we will live forever. Considering ourselves poor, blind to reality, captive or oppressed just doesn't resonate with the way we live, and therein lies the problem - indeed the bad news. Twenty-first century Canadians are not eager to acknowledge the truth about their situation before God, if they’ll even admit that He exists. Even the word “poor” we hear as a pejorative term, a put down. Our pride gets in the way. We may be rich in things but too often we’re poor in soul and as such, lacking what is needed most to know lasting peace and meaning in life.
Sadly, spiritual poverty isn’t restricted to only those who have never heard the Gospel. It’s just as much a threat among us who have heard it, know it and even profess it. It can be the case when in worship our mouths say or sing all the right words but our hearts and minds are not engaged. It can be there in our daily relationships when putting ourselves and our feelings first we fail to consider others and what they may be experiencing. Forgetting that in Christ we are all part of the same body, we may be hurting others. It’s a symptom of spiritual poverty that finds us thinking of ourselves first. The truth is that there is nothing we can bring in our hands to pay our debt under God’s law. On our own we are broke, but in Jesus we are rich.
In Jesus the good news is that our blindness to our spiritual poverty is healed and we can realize our brokenness before God. We can recognize our shortcomings, our failures and disappointing lives of broken promises and self-centered, "It's all about me,” living. We can recognize them for the sin that they are. But the good news doesn’t stop there. It goes on to help us recognize the One who has come to set us free from any notion that we can somehow earn our way into God’s favour. The good news is that He offered Himself and His life in full payment for our debt. In Nazareth the good news for all people, us included no matter who we are, how old we are, how educated, or what we have done or not done – that good news was revealed in Jesus. By our own nature and effort we’d remain captive, trapped by our sinful impulses and desires, chained to our old, comfortable ways, to gossip and bitterness, to lust and pornography, to greed and selfishness – to addicting habits and judgmental living, but Jesus came to set us free.
Jesus came to set at liberty those who are oppressed, including you and me though we need to acknowledge that truth. Yes, we are often weighed down by our guilt – nagged by our consciences – reminded continually by satan of our failures. Jesus came to set us free from all of that. He came to proclaim a time – indeed an eternity of the Lord’s favour – a favour offered by His grace alone at Calvary’s cross and sealed by His open and empty tomb.
Now is that time. In Jesus we receive all the help and comfort we need if we’ll only turn to Him, listen to Him, and seek His help to try again today, tomorrow and all the days after that, to love each other, be patient with each other, and to truly care for those not as blessed as we whether they be our neighbours, refugees, friends or coworkers. In this time of the Lord’s favour we are freed from the weight of our sin, freed to share with others the overflowing wealth of His grace and mercy. We are freed from all that would hold us back or tie us down. And we are invited not just to hear that good news, receive it and celebrate our freedom, but to be that very good news in the lives of others - to live and share Jesus in the course of each day, to be His ambassadors of love and truth while continuing to earnestly desire the higher gifts as we faithfully worship Him, reflect on His word, and eat at His table.
That is our freedom and our goal as His people, to live in such a way so that those around us come to know us as real people – not artificial people, do-gooders who pretend to be perfect and not in need of good news, but real people whose lives are authentic with all our hurts, our failures, joys and tears, not phony or arrogant, but humble and caring, eager and giving so that the lives of others can be made richer in Jesus each day. That’s what that day in Nazareth was all about – that we recognize Jesus as the one who came to save us just as was promised – the One who has set us free to truly live in Him. Amen.