Steven Sim

Luke must have wanted us to look into what was in Jesus’ head when he told the story of Jesus reading the Isaiah scroll in a synagogue in Nazareth.

When I was younger, I used to pick up the Bible, say a prayer, close my eyes, open up to a random page, point to a random passage and then happily meditate on those verses as god’s answers to whatever questions posed in my prayer earlier.

But Luke’s Jesus did it differently. He unrolled the scroll given to him, and

“…found the place where it is written” (Luke 4:17)

He was not random. He did not just close his eyes and point a finger. He was deliberate.

The way Luke placed this story, immediately after Jesus’ baptism and trial, and before launching into his career, we can almost be sure that Luke wanted us to believe that the reading was Jesus’ conscious deliberation to underscore his mission statements, his manifesto.

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
Because he has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind
to release the oppressed
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour” (Luke 4:18-19)

Jesus’ manifesto was a quote from Isaiah 61.

With mega dose of mega Christianity these days, we would have easily imagined Jesus Christ giving a prep talk which goes: “I am here to preach reforms in religion so that now people go to worship on Sundays in churches instead of Saturdays in synagogues, read the Bible, OT and NT, not just the former, listen to sermons, pray, pay tithes, live good moral lives, convert your family and friends and wait for me to come pick you up to heaven somewhere”

Jesus saw himself as reforming religion, no less, but may I suggest he was doing something more. Or should I say, I believe Luke suggested so.

Jesus saw his divinely-ordained mission as one with a bias towards the poor, marginalized, the sick, the oppressed, those at the fringe of social setups. Of course, we can easily “spiritualize” the Jesus’ manifesto and claim that it’s all about having this subjective stuff called faith, and then believing in some doctrines and doing some religious acts and converting friends and going to heaven somewhere.

But even if Luke allows us, Isaiah would not.

Because Isaiah 61 speaks of the hope of Israel through their ancient prophet Isaiah about the day when God finally act to make things right in this present chaotic world. It speaks of God correcting the wrongs of human existence, where poverty, socio-political oppressions and even physical illness robbed human beings off their dignity as made in God’s image.

Isaiah 61 speaks of God’s healing, comfort and rebuilding. It speaks of a wedding (v10). Most importantly, Isaiah 61 speaks of a garden where the seed sprouts and grows, a reversal of the Genesis curse, a picture of restoration (v11).

And make no mistake, all these God will do because, in his “own words”,

“I, the LORD, love justice…” (Isaiah 61:8)

Jesus’ manifesto then was not simply some religious creed, because if it was, I think those who heard it would take it less controversially. Rather it was a blueprint for the restoration of the human condition, no less drawn out of god’s love for justice.

One can almost imagine the crowd astounded, “Isn’t this the carpenter’s son? What’s he thinking? Trying to start a revolution against Rome eh?”

It is much much easier to start a religious group and discuss all day about angels in the clouds, but to talk about more tangible stuff such as reforming the socio-political system; that’s another story altogether. That was the story Luke told about Jesus; Jesus who proclaimed “the year of the Lord’s favour”, a Jubilee proclamation. The Jubilee, a politically-charged theme, is the Sabbath of Sabbaths, the golden year national celebration of Israel as free people, whose freedom, they were constantly reminded was brought with blood, whose liberator, they were constantly reminded was “the LORD, your god”. And the year long Jubilee observation was a national reminder that Israel was not freed only to be oppressor of others. The agenda of the Jubilee year was so that no one will remain poor forever while his neigbours got richer and richer. That’s revolutionary.

No wonder the crowd at the synagogue was astonished, “Isn’t this Joseph the carpenter’s son?” And then they tried to kill him.

Isaiah Scroll found in Qumran

Have a blessed and prosperous New Year 2010. May it be a year of Lord’s favour in and through your life.