Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11

Echoes  of  Hope

The words of Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11 echo throughout history to announce the Lord’s favor to people in the midst of oppression. God does see. God does care. These words of Isaiah give hope of deliverance to us. Here, between the expectation of heaven’s peace and this world’s pain, these words of Isaiah proclaim that God is poised to do something about the strife of his people. Ashes will be turned to joy and mourning will be turned to praise as God’s Anointed One, the one upon whom his spirit rests, announces the year of the Lord’s favor.

For those original people to whom Isaiah spoke, those original people who were marked in history for their great distress, the prophet’s words intersected misery with hope promising deliverance, release from their strife, and complete restoration as God’s people. It is into this point in history, into this tortured space between the captivity of Israel’s northern kingdom and the coming exile of Judah, the southern kingdom, that God speaks. This exile called into question the very foundation of Israel’s existence as a people and it threatened their relationship with God. If the land defined their covenantal relationship to God, made through their forefather Abraham, then exile was a forfeiture of all of their inheritance and a forfeiture of the promise – the promise of land, the promise of wealth, the promise of identity, the promise of a future.

The prophet Isaiah speaks bold words that bind the misery and make it temporary. The prophet declares that the distress of God’s people will soon pass. The prophet announces that a change awaits because the anointed one is coming. Isaiah, the prophet, proclaims the coming year of the Lord’s favor and for the land and for the people, ashes will turn to joy and mourning will turn to praise.

Hope.

But history moves and the timeline lengthens and with the tides of time, the people of Israel found themselves once again in bondage. In bondage to Rome, enslaved by sin, and separated from God. It was there within that expanse of history that the echo of Isaiah the prophet skimmed and bounced and came to rest in Jesus of Nazareth. In the synagogue of his hometown, he picked up a scroll and he read the bold proclamations of the prophet Isaiah. The silence was broken as Jesus of Nazareth proclaimed, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” It was in this Jesus who was the Anointed One that the year of the Lord’s favor bridged the eternal space between heaven and earth and the people found the long awaited release from their oppression.

The prophet’s words of good news to the poor, his proclamation that there was healing for broken people and for broken places, that there was freedom for captives, that there was release from darkness formed and identified the life and the ministry of Jesus of Nazareth. His liberating teaching, his healing of the sick, the culmination of his life and his body crucified all were a deeper remedy for the sin of the world. All of creation was drawn into deafening silence as the words of Isaiah 61 were voiced in the life and the death of Jesus Christ.

Hope.

And now the echo of Isaiah 61 ripples on to the current day, and it comes to you and to me. Oppression and bondage again are the norm in our day. So what do the words of the prophet mean to us? What does this bold proclamation mean for the communities where we live?

We are the body of Christ. We are the Church. We are the incarnation of Christ to our world today. We are the anointed ones in our communities and, as such, it is upon us that His spirit rests. Will we dare to take up the mission of Christ?

It is a bold proclamation that the presence of the body of Christ in us is the announcement of the year of the Lord’s favor in our communities. We are now the anointed ones upon whom His Spirit rests. This proclamation of the year of the Lord’s favor is a release, a healing, a defeat of darkness, an end to misery, and it is made a practical reality as it spreads itself in every increasing rings of redemption to our families, to our neighborhoods, to our nations, and to our planet through us.

Hear the poetic words of Teresa of Avila (1515–1582);

“Christ has no body but yours, No hands, no feet on earth but yours, Yours are the eyes with which he looks Compassion on this world, Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good, Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world. Yours are the hands, yours are the feet, Yours are the eyes, you are his body. Christ has no body now but yours, No hands, no feet on earth but yours, Yours are the eyes with which he looks compassion on this world. Christ has no body now on earth but yours.” [1]

HOPE.

​ [1] Taken from www.goodreads.com