Isaiah 61:1-11
Lesson Focus
Our king comes to restore the broken and the hopeless so that they might become strong messengers of righteousness who then go, in the power of the Spirit, to work in his name.
Learning Outcomes
Through this lesson, students should:
Discover how Isaiah 61 message aligns with what Jesus came to do, digging into how both emphasize fixing and empowering folks who feel broken and lost.
Begin to understand the "year of the Lord's favor" in Isaiah 61, and how it fits with the mess Israel had made for itself and what it might mean for us now.
See the interconnectedness of divine empowerment and human responsibility, exploring the roles people play in effecting restoration and justice within their communities in alignment with God's intentions.
Catching up on the Story
Two weeks ago, we were invited to call out to God to intervene in our desperate situations as we sang alongside Israel and their communal lament.
If you'll remember, a lament is a song of sorrow, mourning, and longing. Caught in the bondage of exile, Israel began by testifying to the great and unexpected ways God had intervened for them in the past. Oh, how they long for God to come again with power and might to save them. They confessed their need to be saved, too.
You'll remember how they were incredibly honest about their sinfulness. They confessed that no one was clean, not one of them. Indeed, their sinfulness tainted even the good and righteous things they tried to do. They were like filthy rags, like dry and brittle leaves blown about by the wind, which soon dissolve into nothing.
You'll also remember that Israel's confession, their sinfulness, was not the end of the story. They hoped that God would intervene on their behalf because God is their father and their potter. God is the one who shaped them, and God will be the one who reshapes them, repairing the broken vessels of their lives.
Even though the passage itself was rather dark, we said that it was an appropriate way to begin the season of Advent, the time we prepare for the coming of God in Jesus Christ.
We decided that the pattern Isaiah presented for us invited us into Israel's story so that we could begin to prepare ourselves for God’s coming in Jesus by testifying to God’s good deeds, confessing our need for salvation, and then confessing that God is our father and our potter, the only one that could ever save us. We decided this was a good way to prepare ourselves for Jesus' coming.
The Text
The beginning portion of this week's text may seem familiar to us. It is familiar because Jesus quotes this section of Isaiah at the beginning of his public ministry in Luke 4. While Jesus certainly uses this message to say something very important about the nature of his earthly ministry, the passage should not be read primarily in a predictive manner. Jesus certainly "fulfills" this passage by accomplishing the things the text specifies. Still, the author of Isaiah does not necessarily have the Messiah in mind. Still, this passage, read as we approach Jesus' Advent at Christmas, depicts God's movement through us for the world in a powerful way.
Scholars agree that the speaker's voice changes several times within this text. As with other passages in Isaiah, we are not always sure who is saying what. In this passage, however, we can be fairly certain that verses 1-6 are spoken by an authorized person or group of persons, perhaps a group of Levitical priests or prophetic reformers (Achtemeier, 18). Those speaking have been commissioned and empowered to do God's transformative work in Israel. Verses 8-9, then, are the words of God. The final verses of the section, verses 10-11, are that of the human speaker again. As we move through the passage, we'll examine in greater depth who is speaking and why it matters for us as we move toward Christmas.
Back in Jerusalem, as the period of exile is ending, things are not as they should be. In reality, things are not as many had hoped upon returning home. The city is still a mess. However, hope is on the rise as God begins to work to restore Israel. As we have said, the voice in verses 1-4 is the voice of a collective of persons authorized and empowered by God. Their first declaration is that the "spirit of the Lord God is upon me…the Lord has anointed me."
Two things need to be noted here. First, any movement by the human actors in this passage toward restoration and wholeness is made possible because the Spirit of God is present. Here, the language of "the Spirit of God" is the same as that of Genesis 1. The same Spirit who settled the chaos and formed it into the good earth is now the Spirit that rests upon the speaker amid exile. Indeed, the same Spirit threw back the waters of the Red Sea so that Israel could escape the deathly power of Pharaoh's army (Exodus 14:21). The death-like chaos that Jerusalem has experienced is confronted with the life-shaping Spirit of God. However, notice that God's Spirit has rested on those who now speak. God will use them to help bring about restoration for Jerusalem and her people.
The second thing we notice is that "the Lord has anointed me." Not only has God's Spirit rested on these individuals, but also God has anointed them as a gesture of public authorization (Brueggemann, 213). To anoint someone in Israel was to pour oil over someone's head, marking them as special and authoritative servants of God. Looking back over the Old Testament, we find many examples of individuals being anointed for service to God. The most famous being found in 1 Samuel 16:13 as Samuel anoints David as king. The anointing of a person for the service of God always meant that God would use that individual to do something new in Israel. It always meant that salvation was coming from God for Israel through that person. The voice of verses 1-4 has been given power and authority to act on God's behalf to bring newness to a dead and broken Jerusalem and her people.
The first part of verse 1 gives the authorization for the voice. The second part of verse 1 describes what the voice is being empowered to do. We are met with a series of infinitive verbs, "to bring good news, to bind up…to proclaim liberty." The very first thing the voice will do is bring "good news." As we have discovered in previous weeks, this good news is nothing other than the gospel of the New Testament. The gospel or good news is always the proclamation that God is going to work on behalf of those who are in need to transform the situation from one of hopelessness and desperation to one filled with hope and new life.
The voice will bring good news to the oppressed, bind up the brokenhearted, proclaim liberty to the captives, and release the prisoners. This is the movement of God's transformation of Israel's situation. The very grammar of the passage indicates this movement. Those for whom God works will experience the transforming Spirit of God's power.
Verse 2 rounds out the first half of the human voices segment, announcing the beginning of the year of the Lord's favor. In the context of the previous series of transformative verbs, the voice likely refers to the year of Jubilee. Jubilee was a practice instituted for Israel in Leviticus 25. It was to take place every 49 years. All properties lost in economic dealings would be restored to their original ancestral owner. Jubilee was essentially a giant economic reset button for Israel that leveled the playing field, ensuring that perpetual cycles of debt and bondage did not go on indefinitely. If there was anything that God's people needed in this moment of history, it was Jubilee. The good news of Jubilee would mean that God's people could start again with a new and fresh slate (Brueggemann, 214).
As the passage continues, we encounter a series of “insteads.” God’s movement through the concrete actions of the Spirit-empowered and -anointed voice will replace hurt and suffering with hope and salvation. One scholar puts it like this, “The terse series of ‘insteads' is a radical transformation of communal attitude and condition, made possible by the proclamation and enactment of Jubilee: 'garland…ashes; gladness…mourning; praise…faith spirit.' The three are parallel moves from negating grief and powerless indebtedness to the restoration of dignity and viability" (Brueggemann, 214).
The final section of verses 1-4 moves from describing what will happen to describing what those who experience God's Jubilee will become. "They will be called oaks of righteousness…, They shall build up…, they shall rise up, they shall repair…" The result of God's restorative acts within Jerusalem is that they will be able to engage in the continued restoration of Jerusalem. As such, their stature as solid, sturdy, and dependable oak trees will bring glory to God. Jerusalem's restoration is never just for the sake of Jerusalem but for the sake of the continued restoration of God's people and the world, which will bring about glory to God.
Verses 5-7 once again speak to the changing fortunes of God’s people. A reversal will happen; no longer will Israel be the ones who serve in menial labor because they are a conquered and exiled people. Instead, the shame and poverty that Israel experienced will be replaced with economic prosperity. It’s important to note that this section of the passage is normally left out of the Lectionary reading for this Sunday. Israel understands itself to be God’s special people who are to bless the whole world. At this point and time, they understand that their special status as God's people entails economic prosperity. For us today, we cannot make those same assertions. As the church, we are God's called-out people, but this does not mean that we who have been rescued and restored to wholeness from brokenness are entitled to the same economic boon that verses 5-7 depict.
As we move toward the passage's conclusion, verse 8, we encounter a shift in voice. God's authorized and empowered speaker is no longer talking, but God himself now speaks. God begins by declaring that he loves justice and hates robbery and wrongdoing. Through the acts of restoration, we have just heard proclaimed that God will make an everlasting covenant with Israel. The entire world will now know Israel as the people who have been blessed by God.
The final section, verses 10 and 11, shifts back to the authorized and empowered human speaker. The speaker ends the section with a hymn of rejoicing because God has so thoroughly transformed the fate of the speaker.
So What?
The divine steadfast love and faithfulness will not allow us to return home, to whatever that might have been. In God’s love and faithfulness, we are ushered forward. Or, at least I think that’s what God would have of us, if only we’d quit longing for what once was.
Advent and the birth of Jesus can be nothing other then the anticipation of a bright and different future, one pregnant with the hope of newness. What tripped up Israel, when it came to Jesus, was that they were too busy looking back, longing to go home, to restore things to their former glory. In their looking back, in their longing for home, they completely missed the new thing that God was doing.
I wonder, are we stuck looking backward longing for home? Do we hope that things will go back to what they were before? Has that kept us from looking forward? Has that kept us from missing out on what Jesus is doing and the work he’s preparing us to do?
I’m fairly certain that the world is never going to go back to what it was, not to what it was 20 years ago, or four years ago, and not even to what it was last December.
As a church we have a choice to make. We can look back, longing for days past, using methods and means that once worked but no longer do, or we can turn and look forward into a wild and open future that God is inviting us into, a future though uncertain, is guaranteed by the everlasting covenant that God has made with us.
Discussion Questions
Read the text aloud. Then, read the text to yourself quietly. Read it slowly, as if you were very unfamiliar with the story.
Who is speaking in the opening verses of this passage? Who sends this person, and what has he or she been sent to do?
What is the "year of the Lord's favor?"
Why does Israel need to hear the message of verses 1-3?
Verses 1-3 tell of what this anointed messenger is to do. For whom is this messenger supposed to do those things? What will become of the ones who have had their broken hearts bound up?
In verse 8, God declares that he loves justice and hates robbery and wrongdoing. How is God's love of justice related to our work and mission as a church?T
he passage ends with a hymn of praise to God. Why is the speaker happy? What does it mean to be covered with the “robe of righteousness?”
Why does Jesus quote verses 1 and 2 in Luke 4:16-19? What does it look like for the body of Jesus, the church, to live out verses 1-2?
Works Cited
Elizabeth Achtemeier, Preaching and Reading the Old Testament Lessons With an Eye to the New: Cycle B, (Lima, OH: CSS Publishing Co., 2001).
Walter Brueggemann, Isaiah, Fourth Impression edition (Louisville, Ky: Westminster John Knox Press, 1998).