The Spirit and his birth. See Luke 1. 35. At the point at which the "New Creation" began to impact the world, when Jesus the eternal son of God, became human, when Jesus who had always been there with the Father and the Spirit, became a growing embryo in Mary's womb, the Holy Spirit was at work. That's the fundamental background to everything. Jesus wasn't just an ordinary person who was made special because the Holy Spirit came to him... He was and is God... but...
The Spirit and his baptism. After he had been baptised, and was in prayer, (and Luke stresses both of these) the Holy Spirit descended on Jesus with a visible sign that looked like a dove. In a way that reminder of the language of Genesis 1. 2, the spirit hovers over the life of Jesus to equip him for the ministry that he had accepted. When Jesus came back to Galilee "in the power of the Spirit" it was the outworking of this experience at his baptism, when the Holy Spirit came in power upon him. But there's more.... Jesus wasn't coming straight from the Jordan, where the Spirit came in power. He was coming from the desert...The Spirit and his inner life. Verse 1 tells us, "The Spirit led Jesus in the desert", in the wild place, for forty days of fasting, prayer, discipline. In the desert - without going too deeply into the temptations and their significance (which would be another sermon) - Jesus faced questions about his identity (twice the enemy challenged him "if you are the Son of God") and his motivation (the enemy offered him the "kingdoms of the world") and dealt with these through God's word. He is clean and confident.
So now, Jesus has arrived back in his home region and is ready to begin his ministry, healing the sick and announcing Good news, at Capernaum... then turning up at his home town, Nazareth, and doing what he had always done, going to synagogue on the Sabbath. People have heard about him. He's recognised as a man and as a preacher, so he is given the scroll of Isaiah the prophet to read; he finds Isaiah 61 and reads it... (Luke being a Greek quotes from the Greek Old testament, which is slightly different. That's why Isaiah 61 doesn't quite match Luke 4. 18)
The Spirit and his mission. The Spirit who rests upon Jesus, anoints him "to preach Good News to the poor, to proclaim release to the captives, recovering of sight to the blind, to proclaim the acceptable year of he Lord"... (The year of Jubilee, when land was passed back to the people who originally owned it. ) What does that all mean? Isaiah was very much concerned with the coming into the world of someone he often called "God's Servant", the Messiah, who would bring "God's rule". A new age for god's people in all their suffering and struggles and anew age for the world... So when Jesus read these words, and then began to say, "These words are fulfilled here today..." he was announcing that the work of the Spirit in his life is about bringing the Kingdom. That was his mission. Two things about this Kingdom;
First, it would comfort the disturbed. It was going to bring healing to broken individuals; it was going to bring healing to broken relationships; it was going to bring healing to a broken world. The Kingdom, then, as to bring physical healing, material provision, freedom from spiritual and political oppression, and a restored relationship with God.
And it would disturb the comfortable... Initial reactions, it seems, were positive, to this new young preacher. (v. 22) People are nodding their heads - but they are also beginning to get a bit offended: "we know who he is. We ken his faither... these are big claims for the carpenter's lad" The people are surprised, impressed, rattled, all at the same time. Jesus goes on to challenge their comfortable assumptions about the Kingdom: it's not going too be quickly proved by a few miracles. And it's not going to be a cosy little club for a chosen few. It's for the nations. They are now so rattled that they want to run him out of town, to stone him as a heretic... but he slips away from them... It's almost a parable of Jesus and the gospel's relationship with the Jews - beginning at home in Judea and then going out to the far-off places.
So Luke, writing to the Church far away from Judea, brings the story of Jesus and their experience of the Spirit together. He is saying something about Jesus. They can understand Jesus in the light of what the Spirit has done in their lives. And he is saying something about the Spirit - they should expect of the Spirit in their own lives to do what he did in the life of Jesus...
A new Creation. The Spirit of God has to be at work whenever a man woman or child connects with God, trusts Jesus, commits to following him. HE speaks. He nudges us to realise we need to trust Jesus... He takes hold of us and loves inside us when we reach that point of trust.
Coming in power...If the Spirit could come and empower Jesus who was God the Son after all, how much more do we need to welcome the Spirit coming in power upon us. We need the Spirit - the breath of God - to hover over our lives to release his gifts in us. When we are ready to commit to serving God, and in a place of dependent prayer, we can ask God to send his Spirit into our lives, to fill us and to give us power.
Inner Cleansing. The Holy Spirit is concerned about your inner life. EH is not just concerned about producing dramatic powerful things: he is concerned about heart surgery. HE is concerned about your inner life. He is concerned about your identity. That's why Paul insists that he is the Spirit of Sonship. Do you know who you are in Christ? Do you have confidence that you are a child of God? What motivates you? What keeps you going and makes you want to serve Jesus? These are things the Holy Spirit wants to do in you. He works with god's word in your inner life to make you clean and confident. If you want the Holy Spirit in your life, if you want to be filled with the Spirit, if you want to grow in your gifts, you need to be prepared to let the Holy spirit work in that inner place: even if it means he's leading you in the desert.
The Kingdom The Holy Spirit is not just given so we can have nice feelings. He's not just given so we can have impressive gifts. He's not even just given so we can experience deep stuff from God. He is here to anoint us to preach good news to the poor... so we can take our part in bringing the Kingdom, the reign of God, to our society. That means to comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable. During the last week we have watched as a horrible drama unfolded on our TV screens just a few hours drive away. We may pride ourselves in saying "They were English riots not UK riots" but we all know our society is in a mess. We all know about young people getting legless in Rosyth on a Saturday evening. We all know about addictions, about suicide. We all know about sectarian violence, sexual abuse. We all know about prejudice, we all know about greed. We all know about unemployment, job insecurity, cutbacks, about bankers' bonuses. The answer to our world is the Kingdom of god. Not just "Hey, you're a sinner and Jesus died to save you!" but "How can we be good news to the poor? How can we proclaim Jubilee? How can we bring freedom to people who are tied up in webs of crime, addiction, and materialism? How can we challenge those who are comfortably coexisting with the brokenness in our world?" The spirit of God wants to take us out into our community, our broken society, to comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.© Gilmour Lilly August 2011
No comments:
Post a Comment