Freedom!

In Luke 4:14-21, we have Jesus who has just returned to his home town after becoming quite famous throughout the region. He has already started his ministry and has actually performed some miracles. He has started teaching in the synagogues and has impressed everyone with his knowledge and his style. People who hear him are amazed because they haven’t heard anyone teach like he does. It’s like his words are coming alive to them and making sense. They don’t just hear the same old blah, blah, blah from the Pharisees about being clean or obeying all the rules. Suddenly…the scriptures mean something and they start to see God as THEIR God…interested in THEM…Loving them…caring about THEM both as a nation and as individuals. In the midst of extreme poverty, persecution, and living as under the power of foreign invaders, they started to have hope that they were not insignificant…their lives were not meaningless…these people were NOT worthless.

So what was so powerful about Jesus’ message? I mean, he hardly says anything…just one sentence after reading the passage from Isaiah. What was it he read?

“El Espíritu de Señor esta sobre mi,

Por cuanto me ha ungido

Para anunciar buenas nuevas a los pobres.

Me ha enviado a proclamar libertad a los cautivos

Y dar vista a los ciegos,

A poner en libertad a los oprimidos,

A pregonar el ano del favor del Señor.”

These words are incredibly powerful. They told the people that in the midst of all suffering…in the midst of all the pain…in the midst of their seemingly insignificant little lives God announces to them (and to us) that there is another way of looking at our lives. You think you are captive to your limitations? You think that being poor or uneducated or under someone else’s control keeps you from living your life to the Glory of God? Do you think that you are powerless to change this world because you don’t have equal status or because your only a woman or your only a child or your only an immigrant or your not rich or whatever? Jesus announces a new vision to the world. ¡Libertad! Freedom! Like Mel Gibson shouting in Braveheart… “Libertad a los cautivos!” You are not bound by anything. You are free…and God’s favor is upon us.