…Mrs. Jane Barnett will lead us in Morning Prayer Sunday February 3rd and Father Riley will return to lead us in Holy Eucharist Sundays Feb 10, 17; 24th.
…The new Forward Day by Day daily devotion booklets for February, March; April are in the church, please take one.
3 EPIPHANY - C - 19 LUKE 4. 14-21
“Jesus, filled with the power
of the Holy Spirit, returned to Galilee…”
Jesus has just returned from the wilderness
where he was preparing for his earthly ministry. There he was tempted by Satan
to use his divine powers to meet his own needs and to bow down to Satan and
worship him.
Jesus countered every
temptation with the truth and power of Holy Scripture. Satan, on the other
hand, vainly tried to use scripture to tempt Jesus, but understands neither
their truth nor their power. Without true understanding knowing and quoting
scripture is worthless.
Jesus returns in the power of
the Spirit he received at baptism. The Spirit of God becomes the ruling force
in his ministry. Jesus was a practicing Jew and synagogue worship was his
custom. Thus, he begins his ministry by teaching in the local synagogues and
the people are amazed at his teaching.
After making the rounds of the synagogues in
Galilee, Jesus returns to his hometown, Nazareth
and attends synagogue worship with those who know him. His fame as a teacher
and a healer preceded him. It was the custom that a layperson should read from
the scriptures. Jesus stands up to read and is handed the scroll. He opens it
to Isaiah’s prophecy of messiah.
“The Spirit of the Lord is
upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent
me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to
let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
It was also the custom that
after sitting down the reader would comment on the passage. Jesus does so, but
his comment is not what the people expected. “Today, this scripture has been
fulfilled in your hearing. “
Some were offended and others
were completely in the dark as to the meaning of his interpretation. Jesus
understands his ministry as fulfilling the ancient prophecy. The people do not.
How is it we know about God?
I mean really know who God is and what our relationship to Him is to be.
We can be introduced to God
and His Son, Jesus, through other people. That is, we can be told about God.
Like the Samaritans who believed what the woman at the well told them about
Jesus, we too can learn something of Him through the witness of others.
However, they took her word
only so far. They sought him out for themselves and through their personal
encounter with the Living Word; they were moved to a deeper belief in Him based
on their own conviction.
We don’t have the luxury of
sitting at his feet, as Mary did, listening to his teaching, while her sister
Martha worked in the kitchen. What we have as a primary source of information
about God and His Son, Jesus, is the Bible, the Holy Scriptures. Which as the
catechism teaches, “contain all things necessary for our salvation.”
We can come to know whom God
is by reading and studying the Word of God written. That includes the Old
Testament - the Bible of Jesus. He quoted the Psalms. He quoted from the
prophets and he quoted from the Torah (the first 5 books.) He was raised in the
synagogue. He practiced his religion. He knew the word of God.
In knowing God, he understood
the divine mission he had been given. In knowing the Word of God, he defeated
Satan in the wilderness whose aim was to derail his mission. In knowing and
being able to interpret the Word of God to the people, he was able to teach
them how to live as God intended, not only in relationship to Him, but also in
relationship to one another. (The Ten Commandments.)
In today’s first lesson the
priest, Ezra “read from the book, from the law of God, from morning to mid day,
with interpretation. He gave sense to the word, so that the people understood
the reading.”
In the time of Ezra, the
Spirit of God had not yet been given to the people. God lent His Spirit to
those whom he had chosen to speak for him at a particular time and place.
At his baptism, Jesus
received the Holy Spirit; the same Spirit that lead him into the wilderness.
The same Spirit gave him the wisdom and strength to defeat Satan. This same
Spirit filled him with power as he began his ministry by teaching in the local
synagogues.
Moreover, it was this same
Spirit that Christ gave to the church at Pentecost. His own first gift for
those who believed, that empowered the disciples to continue the mission Jesus
began of bringing God to man and man to God.
We receive this same Spirit
at our baptisms. The Spirit of God has been given to us so that we might come
to understand who God really is. To know who Jesus really is and what our relationship
to Him and our relationship to one another are meant to be.
We learn this through the
reading and meditating on his God’s Holy Word, written, and through our
personal encounters with the Word made flesh, Jesus, His Son. Whom we can
encounter in the face of friend and stranger. Whom we encounter in a very
special way in the sacrament of His Body and Blood.
To be grounded in scripture
is the means for us to know God and his plan for us and to see Jesus for who he
really is - the Savior and Redeemer of the world. It is the Spirit of God that
will lead us to this knowledge and understanding.
A knowledge and understanding
that will enable us to resist the temptations of the enemy to turn us away from
God. A knowledge and understanding that will enable us to maintain our Faith in
those times that test our and love and trust in God.
Genesis to Revelation is a
continuing story of our salvation. It introduces us to the true nature of God -
Love, and His love made manifest in his son, Jesus, who by the merits of His
life, death and resurrection have opened to us the way to eternal life - the
pledge and the Hope of our calling. AMEN+
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