The Mission of the Three-in-one.: Isaiah 61 1-6

What is God like?  Answers on a postcard!  Israel knew the Lord as the everlasting God, YHWH, the great "I am" - who had revealed Himself to Moses in the burning bush and made a path for them through the Red Sea; who had gone before his people in a pillar of cloud and fire, who had given them a new land to live in... This God is strong and powerful and active; he is mighty and mysterious and holy and pure....

And this God has always had that habit of "hovering", creatively touching people, so that a mortal like Samuel or David or Isaiah could see visions and speak God's own word... when the "Holy Spirit of the Lord" came upon them.  This Holy Spirit is God-at-work, God on the move, God on a mission, in and through people he anoints...

There's a story of someone who was asked, "Do you believe in a god who can change the course of events on earth?"  And answered, "No, just the ordinary one."  But that doesn't make sense, for this God - the God of Exodus, the God of the Red Sea, the God who hovers creatively over his servants - to do nothing.  The idea of a God who doesn't do anything is a daft idea.

So what's this God 's agenda?  What is it he is about doing in his world? What's God's agenda, God's plan?  We find out in Isa 61. 1-6.  God's plan involved:  
* Good news to the poor;
* Bandages for the broken hearted (crippled inner-lives)
* Liberty to the captives
* Cutting loose for those who are tied up...
* A year of Jubilee!!!  Jubilee in Israel meant the time every 50 years when land that had been mortgaged returned to the people who originally owned it, people who had become bonded labourers to pay debts were set free and debts were cancelled.  But that "Year of Jubilee" becomes the "Day of the Lord" when God works out his plan for his world, Messiah comes and evil is judged.
* Comfort for those who mourn.
* Israel is blessed as the nations bring their wealth to her and becomes "A priestly community". As a priestly community, Israel is to do for the nations what the priests do for Israel: prayer, sacrifice, reconciliation.
* And all of this is worked out through a person Isaiah, over and over, calls "The Servant.  Look at Isa 42. 1-3  "Here is my servant! I have made him strong. He is my chosen one; I am pleased with him. I have given him my Spirit, and he will bring justice to the nations.   He won't shout or yell or call out in the streets. He won't break off a bent reed or put out a dying flame, but he will make sure that justice is done."  This servant suffers and dies to deal with sin and bring people back to God.  Isa 53:5  "He was wounded and crushed because of our sins; by taking our punishment, he made us completely well."
That is God's agenda... That is what Israel expected her God to do.

Then Jesus came... Born because of the Holy Spirit's power touching Mary; soaked in the Spirit when he was baptized, led by the Spirit in the desert, Jesus now came to the synagogue, was handed the scroll, and read these words.  Then he preached the kind of sermon you wish I would preach: it is only 9 words in both English and Greek: "Today, this scripture has been fulfilled, in your ears."    (Actually, Luke says "he began to say to them, so this was just the opening sentence!  But what an opening!}   Today this is fulfilled: Jesus is saying that he is  "The Servant", the anointed one.  He's the final piece of the jigsaw. As he takes away sin, his life and work are all about
* Good news to the poor;
* Bandages for the broken hearted (crippled inner-lives)
* Liberty to the captives
* Cutting loose for those who are tied up...
* Jesus' ministry actually began in an Israelite Jubilee year; and he brings in the Jubilee "Day of the Lord" when God works out his plan for his world.
* Comfort for those who mourn.
* Israel is blessed as the nations bring their wealth to her and becomes "A priestly community".

It's good to know Jesus as the Suffering Servant who takes our sin away, the lamb of God who takes away the Sin of the world (John 1. 29) .  It's essential that we know Jesus in that way, and that we know he has taken or sins away.  But it's also essential that we know Jesus as the Anointed Servant who comes proclaiming the Kingdom - good news to the poor, liberty for captives, healing for the broken, comfort for the grieving.  And it's essential that we know Jesus the Anointed Servant who calls his people to be a Priestly community bringing prayer, sacrifice and reconciliation to the nations.  

Today, this scripture is fulfilled in your ears. At a moment in time.  In a wee synagogue in a Northern town in Palestine, in front of a crowd who knew Jesus, had watched him grow up and had now fixed their eyes upon him...  And Jesus says "Right in your ears this word is fulfilled."  Never mind your eyes; use your ears.  Don't judge by what you think you know.  Judge by the world of God.


But that "today" goes on.  I H Marshall (in his commentary on Luke, New International greek text Commentaries) says, 'The "today" of Jesus is still addressed to all readers of the Gospel.'  Paul says, "Listen! This is the hour to receive God's favor; today is the day to be saved!" (2 Cor 6. 2) Today, God's agenda is still:-.
* Good news to the poor; how are we good news to the poor?  Not by preaching a prosperity Gospel. Not by saying, "Send us a cheque and God will make you rich!"  But by saying, "here, you are welcome. Here, you matter. Here you will be cared for. Here you will not be judged by your clothes or your hair-do.  Here, you don't have to pay to belong."
* Bandages for the broken hearted (crippled inner-lives)
* Liberty to the captives.  What holds people captive?  Addicitons, habits, debt, poverty (the poverty trap), abusive relationships, guilt, shame, illness, depression, loneliness, fear, superstition, and demonic forces.
* Cutting loose for those who are tied up...
* It's not just social action; it's the Jubilee "Day of the Lord" when God works out his plan for his world.
* Comfort for those who mourn.
* And we are "A priestly community" who do for the nations what the priests did for Israel: prayer, sacrifice, reconciliation...

So, on this Trinity Sunday, what is God like?  He's Father, Spirit, Son.  Mysterious and beyond our understanding.  The I am, the God who hovers over his people, the one who comes and brings Jubilee.  What's God like?  He's like Jesus; he's the Jubilee god...  Now is the day of salvation. Today, we want to fulfill our destiny as his priestly community.  We need to be able to say, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me..."  Never mind what you see. Hear God's word.


© Gilmour Lilly June 2012