“Surprise! The Good News is Jesus”
Pastor Jerry
Luke 4:14-21
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Have you seen some of the video clips where people do some of the craziest things? With Youtube, Tik-Tok, Facebook, and so many other social media platforms the things you can see people doing is only limited to the imagination.
I read about this embarrassing story that a business man encountered who was just stepping out of the shower when his wife called and asked him to run down to the basement and turn off the iron she had accidentally left on. Without bothering to grab a towel the man just as he reached the bottom stair, the lights came on and a dozen friends and colleagues jumped out and shouted, “Surprise!” His wife had planned a secret birthday party for him. Surprise!
Not all surprises are good ones, at least at first glance. Jesus would often do and say things that would take people by surprise – and they weren’t always pleased about it. Take, for instance, the surprise Jesus had in our Bible passage for today. Jesus was handed a scroll from the book of Isaiah and asked to preach on it. He went straight to a Messianic passage of great importance to the Hebrew people, and read these words: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.” And then, he closed the scroll, sat down, and announced, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”
SURPRISE! The prophet Isaiah had been inspired to write those words more than 700 years earlier. For seven centuries, the word had been preached on a soon-coming Messiah who would turn the world upside-down. He would lift up the hurting, the oppressed, the blind. They had waited hundreds of years for the fulfillment of this prophecy, and were prepared to wait hundreds more if necessary. And now a poor, no-name carpenter claims to be that Messiah. Surprise! Is it any wonder that later on in the chapter we discover that the men of the synagogue tried to kill Jesus?
However, “The Gospel is neither a discussion nor a debate. The Gospel is an announcement!” And that’s exactly how Jesus treated it. He didn’t explain, argue, debate he just announced this information and let the worshipers make up their own minds. Still today, if we take this passage seriously, it has the same potential. Jesus’ announcement tells us three important things about God.
FIRST, OUR GOD IS A GOD OF HOPE.
Listen to Jesus’ message: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach Good News to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.”
Wherever Jesus went, he brought hope. It is what people need! He brought hope to the leper, exiled from his home and his community. He brought hope to the paralyzed man who was unable to care for his family. He brings Hope to people in a pandemic, to those in an earthquake, to people in wildfire, and to those in a storm, to people caught in a war. To people who feel worthless, or lost, or broken, or rejected, or beyond saving, Jesus brings the message that God loves them – that they have a purpose in life. This was Jesus’ first act in life and his last act before death – the giving of hope.
Where God is, there is hope; where God is absent, there is no hope. That was the message Jesus came to share with us.
The SECOND thing Jesus’ announcement tells us is that our GOD IS A GOD OF JUSTICE.
Most world religions operate on a very simple assumption: you get what you deserve in this life. It’s a simple, but flawed equation: health and wealth are blessings from God. If you don’t have health or wealth, then God must not love you.
Jesus came to turn this world view upside down. No longer does might equal right. He came to declare that God loves the poor, the blind, the sick, the oppressed even more because of their humble state. It is treasure in Heaven for which we should be striving. He showed that a healthy body is worthless if one’s soul is dead in sin.
When I worked for Acadia in Roanoke, I had opportunity to work with (a co-op engineering student from VA Tech who was born in India, Besheck (his name). When he learned that I was a Christian, he shared with me about his religions of India. They had many gods in their religion. The society in India has lived under a rigid caste system in which each person is born into a set social group. There are different levels, or castes, and a person’s caste at birth will determine what job he can have, whom he can marry, and what rights he has in his society. On the very lowest rungs of society are the Dalits, The Christian faith is quite attractive to the Dalits. They choose to follow Christ even when they know the consequences they might face. Why would the Dalits, who are targets of persecution and abuse, invite more such treatment by becoming Christians? Because in Christ, we meet a God who loves and lifts up those whom others would tear down. He cares about those who are hurting, who are helpless, who are brokenhearted, who are in bondage. God is a God of hope. Also, God is a God of justice.
Finally, Jesus’ Announcement tells us that our GOD IS A GOD OF FREEDOM.
In our world, slavery is officially illegal, yet it is still a fact of life for many people who live in remote parts of the world. Generations of indigenous peoples have been raised with no idea of freedom, individuality, or basic human rights. As slaves they are not allowed to get an education, marry without their master’s permission, or keep their own children.
In Jesus’ day, He encountered people who were slaves. But Jesus continually demonstrated that God is a God of freedom, not bondage. When Jesus walked this earth, He rebuked the power structures that oppressed people. And Jesus made it a regular practice to set people free. Our God is a God of freedom. And He can free you too.
Some of us end up living for years in prison cells of our own making. We are bound by addictions, anxiety, low self-esteem, anger, fear, guilt, misconceptions about God. We can’t grasp who God is when we come to worship and when we hear talk about His love, or new life, or stepping out in faith, or living the abundant life. We’re just lucky to make it through the day without collapsing from the weight of our chains. But we weren’t made to live that way.
The Spirit of God is always the spirit of liberty; the spirit that is not of God is the spirit of bondage, the spirit of oppression and depression, the spirit of the evil one.
When I was young and studying to become a pastor, I went for training to Dr. James Kennedy’s Church in Coral Ridge, FL (he was the founder of a program known as Evangelism Explosion). While I was there, part of the training was to go with a team into the neighborhood to share the Good News of Jesus with people in their homes. So on one particular night we visited a home close to the beach. We were invited in and we explained why we were there. We were from the church seeking anyone who needed to hear about Jesus and how He could change their life. After some time of sharing, this man and woman prayed and committed their lives to Jesus that night. Before we left, the couple said, “We have been feeling so confused about the things going on in the world and in our lives, but now we feel so different and so at peace and free.” Surprise!
“The Spirit of God is always a spirit of surprise and a spirit of liberty.” That’s what God is all about. God is about hope; God is about justice; God is about freedom. Surprise! Jesus came to share the Good News that God cares about our hopelessness, our oppression, our bondage. God loves you! And today Christ wants to surprise you by changing your life. Will you come?