Riverside Presbyterian Church

Luke 4: (16-20) 21-30"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me. God 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; to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor...."These Isaian words were read in the synagogue in Nazareth by Jesus. They express wondrous promises, an expansive messianic agenda, timeless hope. In their original setting, this utterance of "Isaiah" (chapter 61) advocated for a particular socio-political program over against competing views in post-exhilic Jerusalem. It so happened that not everyone involved in rebuilding Jerusalem and Jewish society agreed with the wording of this platform.Jesus was not neutral about the prophetic vision. Or perhaps the passage of time had eroded the controversial edges of Isaiah. In any case, according to Luke's gospel Jesus adopted the vision of Isaiah as his own mission statement, saying "Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing."S