Jesus's Preaching (Luke 4:16-30)

Jesus Rejected at Nazareth by James Tissot

Luke begins his accounts of Jesus’s ministry in Galilee by giving some key examples. These do not seem to be arranged in a strictly chronological way but are placed here at the start to give us a sense of Jesus’s ministry. He begins with an account of Jesus’s teaching. Jesus is back home in Nazareth, and He continues the devoted habits that we saw Mary and Joseph had. He attends the synagogue on the sabbath. There, He is given a chance to read scripture and expound on it.

He chooses a couple texts from the second half of Isaiah. Texts about the Servant of the Lord, the Messiah. Luke likely does not give us all the content of His teaching, but what is clear here is that:

-Jesus knows He is the anointed one spoken of (the Messiah),

-He is fulfilling the scriptures by ushering in the Kingdom of God, and

-He is here with some specific tasks, namely…

To proclaim the good news (gospel) to the poor. Notice that He is not tasked with enriching the poor or changing their state. He is there to give them the good news of the Kingdom, that people can return to a relationship with God and escape their sinful rebellious state.

To proclaim liberty to the captives. Like the previous line, He is here to announce freedom to those who are captive. This will be seen in the way Jesus frees possessed people, but it is also a proclamation to all of us who are under the yoke of sin.

To bring recovery of sight to the blind. This will also be literally fulfilled on occasion in Jesus’s ministry. However, the bigger meaning here is that Jesus will open the eyes of people to the spiritual light that they cannot see in the darkness of sin.

To bring liberty to the oppressed. He will free people from the slavery to sin.

And to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. Referring to the year of Jubilee, Jesus is announcing more than just a reconciliation year that comes every half century. He is announcing the ultimate Jubilee, the Kingdom of God breaking into the fallen world.