Third Sunday after the Epiphany

Third Sunday after the Epiphany (C)

January 26, 2025

Text: Luke 4:16-30

            Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing (Luke 4:21).  Not just the today of the hearers in Nazareth in our Holy Gospel.  Today… our today… and every Sunday, and every time the Spirit gathers us around the gifts of the Lord in Word and Sacrament.  But especially today, as in January 26^th, 2025, in a very particular way.  Baptisms.  Confirmations and First Communions of those now baptized and instructed, catechized.  Those already confirmed members of other congregations, but who have now moved here, and are seeking a place, a home, in which they may hear the living voice of Jesus, in the Spirit of His Father, proclaiming His performative Word into their actual day to day lives, their families, their vocations, their bodies, their souls… doing things: Good news preached to the poor.  Liberty to the captives.  Sight to the blind.  Release to those oppressed.  They’ve heard it here, thank God, and so, they are staying, and committing, affirming their faith, making their good confession.  And the Body of Christ in this place (to use Paul’s analogy in our Epistle [1 Cor. 12:12-31]) grows stronger, God be praised.  

            Our Lord’s sermon in Nazareth has been called “the paradigmatic statement of Jesus’ Ministry.”  That is, as our Lord reads this passage from Isaiah (61:1-2), and preaches its fulfillment in Him (God in the flesh), He sets out the pattern, the roadmap, of what He will do in Israel for three years, from the beginning of His earthly ministry until His Passion, His suffering and death on the cross.  And what He will do, ultimately, and for all people, in that suffering and death for sinners, and in His bodily resurrection from the dead.  And in our own death and resurrection in Him.  Good news (Gospel).  Healing.  Release.  That is why He came.  This paradigm is present in every Word of the Holy Gospels, and really, every word of the Scriptures, if God only gives us eyes to see it, ears to hear it, hearts to believe it.  Jesus accomplishes it and proclaims it.  The Spirit delivers it as it is proclaimed and enacted in the Sacraments (the Spirit and the Word always go together).  And sinners, once exiled from the Father, are now reconciled to Him as His dearly loved children.

            The great surprise is, this isn’t just for Israel.  It is for the nations.  It is for the Gentiles.  And that is what gets Jesus into trouble.  The dear people of the Nazareth congregation love the Hometown Boy’s sermon… until He makes this turn.  The salvation given to, and through, Israel, will now go out to those Israel considers beneath them.  The Gentiles.  The world.  As Elijah was sent to the widow of Zarephath.  As Elisha was sent to Naaman the Syrian.  This fills the congregation with murderous wrath.  “How dare they be included in our Kingdom.  They don’t belong here with us.  They are not supposed to receive mercy.”  So, they reject the preaching, the members of the Nazareth synagogue.  And along with it, the Preacher, and the gifts given in His preaching.  They would rather go to hell than receive the gifts of God with those people.  And they bring Jesus to the brow of a hill in a futile attempt to throw Him off.  Utter rejection (a foreshadowing of Israel’s rejection of the Savior all the way to the cross.  He walks away this time, but only because it is not yet His “hour.”

            And note this, because we can fall into this error, too.  The angels of God are rejoicing today, as they do when even one sinner repents.  Join your hearts and voices with theirs, and not with the congregation in Nazareth.  We all want a growing congregation, in theory.  But you’ve heard the horror stories of veteran members of some particular church who resent the new members, because the makeup of the body is changing, and the veterans feel threatened.  I’m sure that won’t happen here, and I thank God for the welcome our new members have experienced.  Keep that up.  They are your brothers and sisters in Christ.  Members of your own body.  Take them in.  Assimilate them.  Love them.  Don’t fall into the Nazareth error.  And this warning is for you new members, too, as much as it is for the veterans.  Because you won’t always be new.  Guard against it.  Repent of it, wherever it crops up.  Don’t let the devil even begin to attack us in this way. 

            After all, the Lord’s preaching releases us from that.  Today.  Now.  In this moment.  Beloved, new member or veteran, young or old, man or woman, clergy or lay… whoever you are… whatever your sins… whatever you’ve done… wherever you’ve been… This preaching is for you. 

            You who are poor… poor in spirit, which is to say, one who makes no claims of righteousness or worthiness of your own before God… and you who are, perhaps, literally poor… Good News!  Christ is your righteousness.  He is your worthiness.  He is your life.  And He is the Treasure enriching you beyond imagination, beyond any wealth gold or silver could bestow. 

            You who are captive… prisoners and slaves, yes, but maybe not too many of those in the crowd today.  How about those captive to besetting sins?  Captive to addiction, or depression… to a broken mind or body?  The Lord Jesus is your freedom, your loosing from all that binds you.  Your sins are forgiven for Jesus’ sake.  And He will heal you.  Ask Him.  Trust Him.  Receive from Him.  He will begin your healing already, now, in this life (though, understand, it will come with the cross).  And what is only partial here, will be whole and complete when He raises you bodily from the dead. 

            Those who are blind…  Of course, Jesus heals any number of physically blind people in the Gospels, and the blind will see again, if not in this life, by medical intervention, then in the resurrection, when we will see perfectly… But, the spiritually blind, which is the condition of every one of us when we are born.  Those who cannot, by their own reason or strength, believe in Jesus Christ our Lord, or come to Him.  Jesus preaches to you.  And when He speaks, the Spirit comes by His breath, on the wind of His Word, to do what your wisdom and strength can never do… bestow on you saving faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. 

            Those who are oppressed… by other people.  By sin, by death, by the devil.  By the derivatives and symptoms of those enemies: Grief and sorrow, pain, disease, injury, guilt, shame.  Jesus lifts the yoke from off your neck.  He is your consolation.  He is the salve that soothes you.  He has taken your guilt and shame away from you, and nailed it to His cross.  And in the end, He will raise you from death, and wipe away every tear from your eyes.

            See, what this is… this Today in Jesus Christ, called here “the year of the Lord’s favor” (Luke 4:19; ESV)… This is the Year of Jubilee.  The Sabbath of years, it was to take place every fiftieth year in Israel.  No reaping or harvesting.  All debts forgiven.  All slaves released.  Inheritances returned to the rightful heirs.  Every Israelite resting in God, in His salvation and providence.  Trusting Him.  Believing He will do what He promises.  Israel never did it very well.  But it was all a type, a foreshadowing of things to come.  Christ is the fulfillment.  This is what He does for us.  Total release.  Complete forgiveness.  Wholeness.  Abundance.  Rest in the sin-atoning, life-giving, righteousness-bestowing work of Christ.  Wherever, and whenever, Christ is present with His people, this is what He does for us.  And, incidentally, it’s what we can do for each other. 

            And that is the Epiphany we receive Today.  In our hearing, and before our very eyes, Christ declares all our debts paid in full by His death for us on the cross, sins forgiven.  He bestows righteousness and life and freedom in His resurrection.  And He does it in the splashing of water, the sounding of Words, and the Feast of His very body and blood.  Rejoice this day, beloved.  Because Today, the things that have been proclaimed are fulfilled in your hearing.  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son X, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.