Today's Daily Lesson comes from Isaiah chapter 61 verses 1 and 2a:
The spirit of the Lord God is upon me,
because the Lord has anointed me;
he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed,
to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and release to the prisoners;
2 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.
These were the words which Jesus read when he was called to preach in his home synagogue in Nazareth at the outset of his ministry. It is a word of hope and deliverance, first spoken by Isaiah at the time of Israel's exile and then picked up by Jesus in the season of his people's oppression.
The Gospel cannot be the Gospel unless it brings good news to the oppressed.
Christianity is not just about getting people to heaven. It is not, as someone said, "a spiritual evacuation plan from earth". Christianity, and Judaism before and with it, are not just full of heavenly promises. They are full of earthly ones also. And in Jesus we Christians believe the promise has its fulfillment.
Desmond Tutu used to say, "Pie in the sky and sweet by-and-bye" didn't sound appease the South African people because a post-mortem dessert didn't sound very appetizing.
The Gospel of Jesus is not pie-in-the-sky. It is good news to the poor here on earth, and in our neighborhoods, and our prisons, and our schools. It is the proclamation of the "year of the Lord's favor", which is now and not just sometime later.
NOTE: We are reading the whole Bible this year. Tomorrow's Lesson continues with the prophet Isaiah as we read chapters 64-66.
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