MONDAY October 21st
We have arrived today at what I called the ‘synagogue moment’ a few devotions back in Luke 4 and verses 16-21 ‘And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. And as was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and he stood up to read. And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.” And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. And he began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”’
Jesus had just spent a busy time following on from the wilderness experience teaching in the synagogues in Galilee, but now we see from verse 16 that he had come home to Nazareth. The next couple of words are important: ‘And as was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day’, I want to include here in this devotion something that I have mentioned often, but bears mentioning again, if Jesus is truly the example we want to follow, then we need to get back into the habit of making it our custom to attend the house of the Lord on the Lord’s day! Too many today somehow do not see the need for and the importance of being regular in fellowship with other believers, and sadly some have gotten into the bad habit of watching online since Covid instead of getting back into a place of fellowship with others. To quote from Hebrews 10:24-25 ‘And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.’
In the Old Testament, we read in Psalm 122:1 ‘I was glad when they said unto me, “Let us go to the house of the Lord”’.
On this occasion, as Jesus went to the synagogue, we read that he stood up to read and he was given the scroll of the prophet Isaiah, and he found a particular portion and began to read it. Can I suggest that he was going to read out his manifesto!
As he read it out, he concluded with this ‘Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing’. In other words, when the prophet Isaiah spoke these words, he was speaking about me, I am the anointed one, I am the One sent from God, the Messiah whom you have been waiting for. ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me.’
We will consider this statement in more detail over the next few days, but we can clearly see from these verses, that the Word who had become flesh, who in obedience to the words of the angel had been called Jesus, had a mission to fulfil, and the Spirit had anointed him to fulfil this mission.
Again, it reminds me of our verse for 2024, ‘Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the LORD of hosts’, and we will see how under the Spirit’s anointing Jesus went out to accomplish everything that he had been sent to do.