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Gospel: Luke 1: 1-4, 4:1 4-21
Since many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the events
that have been fulfilled among us,
just as those who were eyewitnesses from the beginning
and ministers of the word have handed them down to us,
I too have decided,
after investigating everything accurately anew,
to write it down in an orderly sequence for you,
most excellent Theophilus,
so that you may realize the certainty of the teachings
you have received.
Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit,
and news of him spread throughout the whole region.
He taught in their synagogues and was praised by all.
He came to Nazareth, where he had grown up,
and went according to his custom
into the synagogue on the sabbath day.
He stood up to read and was handed a scroll of the prophet Isaiah.
He unrolled the scroll and found the passage where it was written:
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring glad tidings to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.
Rolling up the scroll, he handed it back to the attendant and sat down,
and the eyes of all in the synagogue looked intently at him.
He said to them,
“Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.”
The Gospel of the Lord.
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Saint Luke was a physician. Anyone who’s a doctor understands a special part of Luke’s heart and history.
They understand the pressure he felt – how much people depended upon him, as well as the joy he’d experience from saving a life one day, or the sorrow of losing a life the next.
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We who are baptized can share a deeper dimension of Luke’s heart by empathizing with Luke the believer, the disciple, the physician of souls. His love for medicine was transformed by his passion for the Good News of Jesus Christ.
Jesus taught Luke that, no matter how bleak life may seem, it can never be lost again. Even in the face of death, the resurrection dawns.
While Luke may have continued practicing medicine after Pentecost, we can be sure that part of his “in-take” was asking each patient if he or she had heard the Good News and was baptized.
His desire to heal people never changed; it deepened. Instead of just recommending herbs, spices, or hot compresses, Luke would also quote the words of the Lord while ministering to the sick and suffering:
“Do not be afraid. I have overcome the world.”
“Why are you weeping?”
“Rise and sin no more.”
Luke’s medicine became Gospel medicine, often applied through the power of words. Beneath those words was the Person of Jesus Christ, who did the deeper healing.
This is how the ministry of our Lord continues to this day, through the power of speech. Whenever we speak the words of scripture, Christ comes to life. For example, it’s Christ who says through the priest:
“This is my Body… This is my Blood.”
“I baptize you.”
“I absolve you.”
Not me, but him.
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Jesus inaugurates his public ministry the same way in Luke’s Gospel, using the power of speech.
Immediately after being baptized by John in the Jordan, the Spirit drives the Lord into the desert, where he’s tempted by Satan for forty days and forty nights.
After overcoming each of these initial temptations, the Lord is ready to begin his ministry. So, he returns home to the synagogue in Nazareth, where he studied the scriptures as a boy.
Asking the attendant to hand him the scroll of the prophet Isaiah, Jesus unrolls it and locates the passage where Isaiah foresaw a Jubilee Year, an appointed time when:
Debts would be forgiven; captives would be set free; the blind would see; and the lame would walk.
Then Jesus makes a bombshell announcement. Speaking publicly for the first time in Luke’s Gospel, Jesus says, “TODAY this scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.”
With one word, an 800-year-old prophecy comes to life. Everything Isaiah foresees, Christ will do in his ministry, revealing his identity as the Messiah.
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Ironically, Christ’s listeners take offense at the idea that the anticipation is over; that God’s Word is fulfilled in their hearing; that the scriptures have come to life in their presence.
They are not offended by the well-worn words of hope from Isaiah. They’re upset by the idea that the time for healing and repentance is now.
And God’s appointed servant sent to inaugurate this age of peace and reconciliation is Jesus, the familiar, bone-and-flesh son of Mary and Joseph, a nobody carpenter from Nazareth.
How could it be, they wonder, that in the Old Testament no one could see the face of God and live…yet, somehow, this man claims to be filled with God’s Spirit! How can Jesus be the Messiah, the Son of God?
To the locals who know him well, it sounds preposterous. But the rejection Jesus experiences in the synagogue is a small taste of the larger rejection to come.
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Like the locals from Nazareth, how often are we reluctant to embrace the idea of Jesus coming to us through his Word, the Sacraments, or a friend, saying to us what he said to them, “today”?
We all want to be healed, to grow in faith and holiness, to leave poor or destructive habits behind, and to follow the path of love, but somehow real change often sounds better tomorrow than it does today.
Yet the Psalmist proclaims, “If today you hear his voice, harden not your heart.”
What might the Lord be saying to us? Is God inviting us to leave something behind? To try something new? To take a leap of faith? Or to change in some way?
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Saint Luke uses one word to set the Lord’s ministry in motion: today.
It might be the same word God is saying to us:
Do whatever he tells you.
Not tomorrow.
Today.
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Image credits: (1) The Fight of Faith (2) FreePik (3) Prodos Games