Imagine for a minute if we were sitting in that Nazareth synagogue that day. You come into the synagogue and sit down, bringing with you the worries of life, worry about your family, and having enough to feed your children. You may be worried about the Romans who occupy your land, or worried about your livestock, your fields, your work. As you sit there 2,000 years ago, you also carry hope, the hope that you were promised centuries earlier, of God sending a Messiah to Israel. But it feels so far off with the worry you carry. 

In the synagogue, the reader is someone you recognize, someone you have heard a few things about. He reads from Isaiah the passage that specifically says that a Messiah will be sent and who will do great things for Israel. And as He finishes reading, he sits down and says, “Today this scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.” 

Wait a minute, did he just say what I think he said? If that is true, everything is about to change! Hope bubbles to the surface. Intense, deep hope of better days ahead, our loving God is going to free us! Hope for all that Isaiah and God promised. Hope for freedom from Rome. Hope for you and your family. Hope!

So, what about us today? Does this reading invoke a reaction of hope in us? We are not living in an occupied land; we are not worried about our crops or livestock. We have much compared to those there that day and we have relative security. And yet, we should hope when we hear these words because they should mean just as much to us as they did to the people in that synagogue 2,000 years ago. Hope because of the specific promises made by God through Isaiah to people then and to us today. 

Isaiah wrote, and Jesus read, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor.” Glad tidings to the economically poor, the downtrodden, the afflicted, the neglected and the forgotten. He is talking about not just economically poor, but all who are poor in other ways, in ways you and I are sometimes poor. Sometimes we very much need those glad tidings too.

He reads on. “He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives.” Not just liberty to the imprisoned, but to those of us held captive by addition in all its forms, held captive by what society says we should be or care about, held captive by guilt or shame. Sometimes we very much need His liberty from that captivity we suffer under.

He continues, “and recovery of sight to the blind,” foreshadowing those he cures of actual blindness. But it is not just actual blindness He is curing, He also comes to cure us of our all that makes us blind to God’s work in our lives, His plan for us, and for all that pulls us away from God. Sometimes we very much need to recover our full sight of the divine actions in our lives.

The last promise made in that passage is, “to let the oppressed go free.” We are also oppressed by much in life. Sometimes we are oppressed by work or hard bosses. Sometimes we are oppressed by exclusion or by lack of support. Jesus promises that He will help us go free, and sometimes we too very much need freedom from the oppression that we live with.

The final thing Jesus says is, “Today this scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.” The key word is today. Not only on that day 2,000 years ago, but today! He brings all of these things to us and fulfills all of God’s promises to us today! He promises this to us again and again in scripture and he promises this at this altar where he sacrifices for us at every Mass. That promise is delivered to us…

When we receive the Eucharist…

When we pray in adoration…

When we seek for His help…

When we confess our sins…

… He promises to bring us glad tidings, to pull us out of captivity from that which binds us, to help recover our sight to see God’s plan for us and God’s action in our lives that actually does set us free. 

It’s real. It’s a divine promise. It’s today and it’s every day. When we face new challenges tomorrow that put us down, remember that promise and turn it over to Him. When our spirit falters next week, turn it over to Him. When we lose sight of Him, pray and receive it back. 

Live every day as the today promise made by Jesus.