God is merciful and long suffering not wanting anyone to live eternity without Him.
Isaiah 61:1-2
“The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me,
Because the Lord has anointed Me
To preach good tidings to the poor;
He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted,
To proclaim liberty to the captives,
And the opening of the prison to those who are bound;
2 To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord,
And the day of vengeance of our God;
To comfort all who mourn,
The whole of prophesy starting with Abraham will be fulfilled in Israel. Holy Spirit anointed Jesus to bring the Good News of salvation to the children of Abraham. Although He was God, He laid aside His deity. God, knowing that they would reject Him, offered His salvation to all who would accept Jesus. Jesus proclaimed the acceptable year of the Lord. Most of His own people were blinded to His deity and rejected Him. The judgment for their unbelief will be followed by the fulfilling of His return as King of the Jews and they will see Him in all His glory.
Luke 4:16-21 So He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up. And as His custom was, He went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up to read. 17 And He was handed the book of the prophet Isaiah. And when He had opened the book, He found the place where it was written: 18 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, Because He has anointed Me To preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to the captives And recovery of sight to the blind, To set at liberty those who are oppressed; 19 To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.” 20 Then He closed the book, and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all who were in the synagogue were fixed on Him. 21 And He began to say to them, “Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”
Jesus preached in the synagogue in His own town and read from Isaiah saying that Holy Spirit had anointed Him to preach the Gospel of the Good News to Israel. He came to heal them and set them free. In that day the acceptable year of the Lord was fulfilled.
Psalms 2:1-6
Why do the nations rage,
And the people plot a vain thing?
2 The kings of the earth set themselves,
And the rulers take counsel together,
Against the Lord and against
His Anointed, saying,
3 “Let us break Their bonds in pieces
And cast away Their cords from us.”
4 He who sits in the heavens shall laugh;
The Lord shall hold them in derision.
5 Then He shall speak to them in His wrath,
And distress them in His deep displeasure:
6 “Yet I have set My King On My holy hill of Zion.”
the flesh always puts its own best interest above the good of others. It is not God’s way. The kings of the earth took counsel together against the Messiah wanting to cast away God’s control over them. Our triune God laughs in derision at their foolishness. Carla
The following quotation of Isaiah 61:1–2 and 58:6 is a proclamation by Jesus that He is the anointed one of Yahweh. Within the context of Isaiah, this indicates that Jesus is claiming to be the Messiah and the Suffering Servant (Isaiah 42:1–9).
This section (Luke 4:17–21), which is unique to Luke, is a clear reflection of Isaiah’s theology. In its original context Isaiah 61:1–2 proclaimed comfort for God’s oppressed people. Jesus uses it in a similar fashion here, proclaiming Himself to be God’s Servant, the Messiah, arriving to deliver His suffering and oppressed people.
Jesus identifies Himself as the bearer of good news to the poor and evokes imagery reminiscent of the Year of Jubilee—an observance occurring every 50 years in which debt was forgiven and property restored (Leviticus 25). Jesus connects His ministry to not just salvation, but good news for all on the underside of power.
Jesus reads from Isaiah 61:1–2. Jesus assumes the usual position of a teacher; the reader stood while reading but sat to offer the explanation. They were waiting for Him to interpret the passage He had just read. Jesus explicitly declares that He is fulfilling the promise of consolation to Zion in a new way (Luke 2:25; 7:22). Through this declaration, He implies that He is Yahweh’s Messiah. Faithlife Study Bible
Most synagogue services had a reading from the Law and one from the Prophets, with an exposition that tied the texts together. Jesus expounded from Isaiah 61. The scroll was kept in the synagogue and handed to Jesus by an attendant.
By citing Isaiah 61, Jesus was claiming to be a royal figure and to have a prophetic mission. Jesus healed the brokenhearted, referring to those who were discouraged because of their plight in life. Jesus proclaimed liberty to the captives. In the Old Testament, captivity refers to Israel’s exile; here captivity refers to sin. Jesus gave sight to the blind, a reference to His miraculous works though not without spiritual overtones. Jesus set at liberty the oppressed. This was originally the call of Israel, but the nation had failed in its assignment Isaiah 58:6). What Israel had failed to do, Jesus does.
The image here addresses both physical and spiritual realities. Jesus proclaimed the acceptable year of the Lord, an allusion to Jubilee. This was every fiftieth year, in which all debt was forgiven, slaves were given their freedom, and ancestral lands were given back to its original family. The Year of Jubilee allowed for a new start (Leviticus 25:10).
Jesus offers a total cancellation of spiritual debt and a new beginning to those who respond to His message.
Jesus closed the book in the middle of the sentence. He did not continue because the next phrase—“the day of vengeance of our God”—was not being fulfilled then. Jesus proclaimed the fulfillment of God’s plan and promise in Himself, since He is the figure described in the passage. The NKJV Study Bible
Leviticus 25:8–17 ‘And you shall count seven sabbaths of years for yourself, seven times seven years; and the time of the seven sabbaths of years shall be to you forty-nine years. Then you shall cause the trumpet of the Jubilee to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month; on the Day of Atonement you shall make the trumpet to sound throughout all your land…
Mark 6:1–6 Then He went out from there and came to His own country, and His disciples followed Him. And when the Sabbath had come, He began to teach in the synagogue. And many hearing Him were astonished, saying, “Where did this Man get these things? And what wisdom is this which is given to Him, that such mighty works are performed by His hands…
“You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden" (Matthew 5:14). "You" here refers to the Church, the collective body of all believers in Jesus, shining as a city on a hill, with the responsibility to illuminate the world with the transformative message of Christ's love.
Jesus further instructs us not to hide our lamp (the hope of salvation) under a basket but instead to place it on a stand for all to see (Matthew 5:15-16).
Theologian Charles Spurgeon notes, "The object of our shining is not that men may see how good we are, nor even see us at all, but that they may see grace in us and God in us."
Jesus Himself is the ultimate Light of the world, and as His followers, we shine for Him.
As we display meekness, mercy, purity of heart and commitment to seek peace, we reflect the character of God and experience the internal hope and joy found in Christ despite external circumstances. Being a light for Christ includes displaying humility and security in knowing we are citizens of His Kingdom of heaven. First5
Making space to be gentle with this self. Space for reclaiming. And please know this: it is from this reclaimed self that compassion and kindness and tenderness and empathy and healing and reconciliation can flow to the world around us.
We spill light from those places in our life. Sabbath Moments
Dr. Lester Sumrall
For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given:
and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. (Isaiah 9:6)
We have a mighty God who has never lost a battle and who will win our battles for us; that from everlasting. He has remained the same and not changed; and that He is in truth the Prince of Peace.
He is our Savior, and our Healer, our Comforter, our Victor. We are in a wonderful position to live a glorious life for Him on this earth.
For the believer, there can be nothing else but glorious health, consoling victory, triumphant living with such a Savior given unto us by our Heavenly Father.
Therefore, unto us there is joy for sadness, there is hope for despair, there is light for darkness, there is gain for loss, and there is victory for defeat.
Unto us who accept Him, who believe, He is Wonderful! This could not be any more personal unless we use the words of the angels and say, “Unto you is born this day, in the city of David a savior which is Christ the Lord.”
The most important thing for us to know is that unto us, to you and to me, is given a Savior who is part of our very flesh and being, and that we have a Counselor who is a mediator between us and God.
(I Timothy 2:5) Save the Children
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