Devotional 12-13-20

 “Do you hear what I hear?”  asks a famous Christmas carol, written in the autumn of 1962 as a plea for peace during the Cuban missile crisis by a husband and wife duo (Shayne and Regney). The song takes its imagery from the gospel accounts of Jesus’ birth, and asks people to listen and think and pray. The scripture I want to focus on today similarly invites us to hear again the old, old story in a new way: 

Scripture Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11

The Lord God’s spirit is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me. He has sent me to bring good news to the poor, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim release for captives, and liberation for prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor....

If this powerful affirmation of mission and ministry sounds familiar to you, it may be because you recognize it from the Gospel according to Luke, where it’s the text for Jesus’ first sermon in his hometown of Nazareth  (Luke 4:14-30).  Several centuries separate the first proclamation in the writings of the prophet Isaiah from its reading and interpretation by Jesus, but the message resounds across time. People in Isaiah’s day faced war, persecution, and troubles.  Those in first century Israel did, too.   Here and now, we still have war, poverty, brokenness, captivity, and bondage to all kinds of troubles, not to mention a global pandemic that threatens millions.  And yet, to everyone, from over two thousand years ago right up to the present,  this scripture shouts that God is at work in our world and in our lives. We aren’t alone!  God’s spirit empowers us.  God’s spirit calls us.  God sends us a Savior, and a model for the work that we can do in this world together. 

We are called to follow Jesus and care for the poor, the broken, the imprisoned, the suffering in our world.  “I, the Lord, love justice....” Isaiah 61:8 reminds us, and verse 11 promises “As the earth puts out its growth, and as a garden grows its seeds, so the Lord God will grow righteousness and praise before all the nations.”  Although these words are comforting, they are also challenging.  In first century Nazareth, the crowd at the synagogue didn’t appreciate Jesus’ reminder to them that God was at work among people in other nations---they were so angry with Jesus’ illustrations that they ran him out of town! Similarly, in our own time, we have to work at “hearing” other people, at really listening to them and their stories, especially when we perceive them as different from ourselves. It’s easy to put people in categories, but the challenge is to see and hear each person as someone of divine worth, for whom Jesus came to our world. This holy season, let’s prayerfully remember this scripture and what Jesus said about it.  Let’s work for peace, for righteousness, and for justice for all.  

Will you pray now for peace? 
Blessings,  
Rev. Terry Deane