So Great a Salvation (Luke 4:14 - 21; Eph. 2:8 - 10)

 In my sermon last week from John 2:1-11 where Jesus attends a wedding in Cana of Galilee and changes water into wine, we saw how John invests statements, questions, images, as well as words, phrases, and concepts with multiple meanings. (This sermon can be accessed at the Immanuel Baptist Church, Frankfort, KY Facebook page – worship service for Jan 16, sermon starts at about 17.15). A statement or phrase or image may mean one thing on the conversational level, but have deeper spiritual or moral or theological meanings. Now, while this is most obvious in John, this is actually true of all the Gospels. This is most certainly true of our text today. 

All three of the Synoptic Gospels include an account of Jesus teaching in the synagogue in his hometown of Nazareth where he grew up, and they all speak of his rejection by the people in Nazareth, but only Luke tells us what Jesus actually taught. Mark and Matthew’s account are very similar. Not word for word, but Matthew closely follows Mark. Luke, on the other hand, goes his own way. Luke changes the chronology, so that Jesus’ Nazareth visit occurs at the beginning of his ministry, rather than later in his ministry as in Mark and Matthew. When Jesus reads from Isaiah in the synagogue, Luke actually draws from two passages in Isaiah. The dominate passage is Isaiah 61:1-2 and the other is Isaiah 58:6. Luke uses this reading to give us his perspective on what the mission of Jesus was about. 

It was quite popular some years ago for church leaders in large churches, seminaries, and denominations to push for ministers and local church leaders to come to some consensus on what their purpose involved. So many denominational consultants encouraged congregations to go through a process that would lead to some clear purpose or mission statement. In a sense what Jesus reads from Isaiah in our text is Luke’s purpose statement on the mission and ministry of Jesus. Luke is saying, “Here is what Jesus is about. This is Jesus’ agenda, This is his purpose and mission. 

Luke tells us that Jesus will “bring good news to the poor.” Who are the poor? Well, in Luke they are first and foremost the material poor, the economically poor, those who perhaps often go hungry because they have no money for food. How do we know that this is Luke’s primary meaning? Because later in this Gospel Jesus says, “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God” and after he pronounces blessing on the poor he follows with a woe upon the rich. He says, “Woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.” Clearly, he is not talking about those rich in spirit, he is talking about those rich materially. And correspondingly he is talking about those materially poor. 

However, these words in Luke have multiple meanings. There is no reason to make this exclusively about the material poor. It could also mean “poor in spirit,” a phrase that occurs in Matthew’s Gospel. This could refer to persons or communities who for whatever reason are downtrodden and impoverished in spirit, whether in material poverty or not. It could even have a more positive meaning as it does in Matthew’s first Beatitude, where it refers to a spirit of humility. It can mean any of these things, however, it’s clear from the way Luke uses the word in other contexts that Jesus’ acceptance of and compassion toward the material poor is Luke’s primary meaning. 

So what else is part of Jesus’ agenda? Luke says Jesus will “proclaim release to the captives” and that he was sent “to let the oppressed go free.” Again, Luke has in mind all those held captive and oppressed in various ways. Certainly he has in mind those imprisoned by authorities in Roman jails and those oppressed socially, physically, economically, and spiritually. The Jews were often used and abused by the Romans and sometimes by their fellow Jews, especially those who sided with Rome for their own personal gain, which is why Jewish tax collectors who worked for the Romans were so despised. 

Of course, Luke would not have intended the liberation that Jesus is talking about to be limited to those imprisoned in Roman jails or those oppressed by Rome or their fellow Jews. There are other forms of bondage and oppression. There are those under bondage to their greed and prejudice. There are those who are tethered to negative habits and patterns of thought and behavior. Others are beaten down and oppressed economically and socially by circumstances and forces beyond their control. Jesus is concerned with all these forms of confinement and oppression. 

This, too, would include those under demonic possession and oppression, a phenomena that we read about in the Synoptic Gospels. And though it may be hard for us to understand in our culture, in that day and time it was a phenomena that led to debilitating conditions that were life-diminishing and destructive to others as well as one’s self. In addition, the Greek word translated “release” is a word that Luke uses in his Gospel to refer to the forgiveness of sins, so that too would be a part of the purpose of Jesus, namely, to set free those burdened and weighed down by the guilt of their sins and the harm their sins and offenses have caused others. You see, there are different kinds of release and different kinds of captivity and oppression and different kinds of liberation and freedom. It’s not just one thing; it’s all of these things.  

What else is Jesus’ mission about? Jesus will also “bring recovery of sight to the blind.” Here, like the other Gospel writers, I suspect that Luke first of all has in mind what many spiritual teachers call “enlightenment.” On one level Jesus restores physical sight, but it is also quite clear that many of the healing stories in the Gospels function like parables of the gospel of Jesus. Few of us may be blind physically, but all of us stumble around in more to lesser degrees in moral, spiritual, and emotional blindness. But it doesn’t have to be so. Though Jesus’ healings and exorcisms, through his teachings and sayings, through his parables and riddles, through his confrontations with the religious authorities and sometimes through vivid shocking imagery Jesus can open the eyes of those who are spiritually and morally blind – that is, if we want him to. Many seem to be quite content in their blindness. 

Well, what else Luke? Luke caps it off with the announcement of the year of Jubilee, which Luke refers to as the year of the Lord’s favor. The year of Jubilee as outlined in Leviticus 25:8-12 was to occur every fiftieth year in Israel. It was a time of jubilation because it was a time when all financial debts were to be canceled, all prisoners and indentured servants were to be released, and all land in Israel was to revert back to their original owners. Of course, the religious leaders of the Jews at the time of Jesus had no power at all to actually enforce the year of Jubilee even if they wanted to, because they were under the oppressive hand of Rome. Jesus couldn’t enforce this, but he could proclaim the spirit of it. This legislation was intended to prevent monopolies and limit the consolidation of land and wealth in the hands of the few, so all would have an opportunity to thrive. The spirit of Jubilee is the spirit of equality and justice. 

So, all of this, says Luke, is what Jesus is about. From Luke’s view point this is God’s salvation that is fulfilled or realized through Jesus’ words and deeds. When Jesus says, “Today, this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing,” Luke is telling us that God’s salvation as announced by Isaiah is going to be realized, it’s going to come to fruition, it’s going to be embodied in the life and teachings and actions of Jesus. All of this is part of God’s salvation. It’s like a diamond – it is multi-faceted. 

Rick Warren, the pastor of huge megachurch in Orange County, California, wrote two highly popular books, The Purpose-Driven Church and The Purpose-Driven Life. The latter may be the best selling religious book of all-time. It has sold millions of copies. Warren references hundreds of Bible verses, however, Luke 4:14-21 is never mentioned. Isn’t it ironic that a Christian minister writing to Christians about God’s purpose, a book that quotes numerous scriptures, would not quote the most articulate and complete statement of Jesus’ purpose and mission in the New Testament? 

How did so many of us miss this when it is so obvious in the Gospel of Luke, and for that matter, in the rest of the New Testament as well? The reason so many of us missed it is because we were not taught how to see it. We were taught to see something else. We were taught to see salvation only in terms of one’s individual relationship with God – the focus being on the remitting of the penalty of sin and deliverance from God’s judgment. I don’t know what your past experience has been, but I was taught that sin separates us from God and puts us under God’s condemnation, and unless we experience God’s salvation we are doomed and will be separated from God forever. Luke, however, doesn’t say a word about being separated from God or being saved from God’s judgment. 

As I pointed out Luke draws from Isaiah 61:1-2 in describing the mission and agenda of Jesus. But do you know what Luke omits from the description in Isaiah 61? The last phrase mentioned in Isaiah 61:2 is “the day of vengeance of our God.” Luke omits this phrase. It’s not in Luke 4. Why? It should be obvious. Luke does not see that as part of Jesus’ agenda.

One day not too long ago I was looking for the bread in the pantry. I looked and looked and couldn’t find it. So, I did what most husbands do. “Hey honey, do you know where the bread is?” Melissa walks over, reaches inside, picks it up, and looks at me like, “What is wrong with you? Are you blind?” Well, in my defense let me say that it was in a different place. I had been programmed to find the bread in this place, but it was in that place, and I looked right over it. Why did I not see what now seems so obvious in Luke’s Gospel, and, for that matter, in the rest of the New Testament? I didn’t see it because I was not programmed to see it, so I looked right over it. I was programmed to see salvation as the remission of sin’s penalty and as deliverance from God’s judgment. And yet Luke not only does not mention this, Luke purposefully omits the phrase from Isaiah 61 that speaks of God’s judgment.   

I was also programmed to see salvation as a single, solitary, one time experience. But clearly, what Luke is talking about would involve multiple experiences. I have shared before the story that the late Fred Craddock tells about going home to West Tennessee to visit, where an old high school friend named Buck owned a restaurant. Fred went in for some pie and coffee and Buck said, “Do you see the curtain?” This was in the days of Jim Crow, the days of segregation. And Fred said, “Yea, I see the curtain.” Buck told Fred, “The curtain has to come down.” Fred said, “Good, take it down.” But then Buck paused and confessed the struggle he was undergoing. He said to Fred, “If I take the curtain down, I lose a lot of customers, maybe even my business.” But then he said, “If I leave that curtain up, I lose my soul.” 

Buck understood that this was a matter of salvation. It was about the losing or saving of his soul. Buck understood that this was about the health and growth, or the diminishment and regression of his soul. Salvation is about our soul and how our soul relates to other souls. As Luke will make clear later in his gospel, we can’t love God without loving our neighbor, because our relationship with God is directly impacted by our relationship to others. 

When Fred told Buck to take the curtain down he was calling on Buck to be faithful to the gospel of Jesus, because the gospel of Jesus is about liberating the oppressed. Paul tells the church at Ephesus that we are “saved by grace” (Eph. 2:8), and grace can come to us in a multitude of ways. God’s grace was speaking to Buck through his conscience, through his spirit. And that Voice was reinforced through the word of his friend, Fred, who served as a messenger of God’s salvation saying to Buck, “Take that curtain down.” Fred was saying, “Set free the oppressed.” To employ the language of evangelicals, which I know from experience very well, we could say that Buck was dealing with the conviction of the Holy Spirit, and he had to decide whether or not he was going to be born again and make a profession of faith. You don’t have to be in church to be born again and make a profession of faith. 

Buck’s profession of faith called for nothing less that ripping down that curtain. A new birth is just one of the many images that describe salvation in scripture. Buck needed to die to his racism, or to his conformity to a racist culture, and be raised anew to do the “good works” of mercy and justice that he was created in Christ Jesus and chose in Christ Jesus to do before the foundation of the world (Eph. 2:9-10). Buck needed a new birth, and maybe some of us right now, today, need a new birth. Maybe there is something we need to release, to die to, to let go of so we can walk in the love of Christ. Salvation is an ongoing process of becoming more Christ-like, of growing in God’s love, and we must consciously and intentionally participate in this process. 

This is why Paul tells the church at Ephesus that “by grace you have been saved through faith.” The kind of faith Paul is talking about is “trust in and faithfulness to” the gospel of Jesus. Buck had to decide whether or not he was going to trust and be faithful to the gospel of Jesus. And that is a decision we all face at many different times and occasions and in many different circumstances in our lives. If we think we get born again and it’s one-and-done, then we really have not given much thought to how the human soul develops. The human soul develops in stages over time through many experiences. 

So the question I need to ask today is this: What do I need to do today to experience some aspect, some facet of God’s salvation? It’s multi-faceted and it impacts all of life. Do I need to ask someone to forgive me for something I did or said? Or maybe I need to forgive someone for what he or she did or said and release the bitterness and resentment I have been holding onto. Maybe there is some prejudice or bias in my soul that I have been ignoring or denying or defending that I need to release, so that instead of being the cause of oppression, I can help be part of the solution. Perhaps I need to die to my fears and trust that God will give me whatever strength and inner courage I need in these days of lies and deceptions in order to live and speak the truth in love regardless of the consequences.   

Jesus says in this Gospel passage, “Today this scripture is fulfilled,” not someday but today. All we have is now. This is the day the Lord has given us. This is the day to awake from our sleep and let the light of Christ enlighten our hearts and illumine our path so the poor will discover good news, so the captives will be released, so the oppressed will go free, so the blind will receive their sight, because now, right now, is the day of Jubilee, now is the day of God’s favor, now is the acceptance and welcome of God who pours out upon all the riches of God’s grace.