Sermon: Isaiah 61:1-11 – The Spirit is Upon Me

Rev. Jeffrey T. Howard
Eagle Rock Presbyterian Church
Sermon: Isaiah 61:1-11 – The Spirit is Upon Me
December 14, 2008

We have arrived at the third Sunday of Advent and are continuing in our study of Isaiah. So far in Advent we have seen three voices emerge from this most important book. We have heard the voice of the prophet, Isaiah ben Amoz, speaking from eighth century Jerusalem preparing the people for the onslaught of the mighty Assyrian Empire. We have heard the voice of a poet with the people of God in exile after the Babylonians destroyed their city in the sixth century. And we have heard from the voice of a preacher accompanying the people of God as they returned to their destroyed city at the end of the sixth century. The common question that was being asked over two and a half centuries was, Is God still with us? And the answer that is given throughout the book is the Hebrew word “Immanuel” which means, “Yes God is with us.” We have the same question as we approach Christmas, “Is God still with us?” And the answer still rings true from Isaiah, God is with us.

Will you pray with me? Lord Immanuel we await your coming at Christmas. Prepare our hearts to receive you. Open our minds and our hearts to believe in you that you are truly God with us. Amen.

NRS Isaiah 61:1 The spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me; he 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; 2 to proclaim the year of the LORD's favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn; 3 to provide for those who mourn in Zion-- to give them a garland instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit. They will be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, to display his glory. 4 They shall build up the ancient ruins, they shall raise up the former devastations; they shall repair the ruined cities, the devastations of many generations. 5 Strangers shall stand and feed your flocks, foreigners shall till your land and dress your vines; 6 but you shall be called priests of the LORD, you shall be named ministers of our God; you shall enjoy the wealth of the nations, and in their riches you shall glory. 7 Because their shame was double, and dishonor was proclaimed as their lot, therefore they shall possess a double portion; everlasting joy shall be theirs. 8 For I the LORD love justice, I hate robbery and wrongdoing; I will faithfully give them their recompense, and I will make an everlasting covenant with them. 9 Their descendants shall be known among the nations, and their offspring among the peoples; all who see them shall acknowledge that they are a people whom the LORD has blessed. 10 I will greatly rejoice in the LORD, my whole being shall exult in my God; for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation, he has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself with a garland, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels. 11 For as the earth brings forth its shoots, and as a garden causes what is sown in it to spring up, so the Lord GOD will cause righteousness and praise to spring up before all the nations.

When the preacher arrived in Jerusalem with the people of God after being freed from Babylonian captivity by a decree from the Persian King, Cyrus, they saw the ruins of their beloved city. All that remained was a pile of rocks and the people Babylon did not want: the poor, the sick, the homeless, the disabled, and the aged. Who could blame them for wondering if returning to Jerusalem was worth all the trouble. At least in Babylon the exiles had jobs, homes and food on the table. In Jerusalem the marginalized had heard the poet years before declare God’s decree of comfort but as yet nothing had happened. Something dramatic was needed to convince the people that God had truly returned to Jerusalem and was with them.

The preacher assembled all the people of Jerusalem and the returning exiles on Mount Zion to hear an important proclamation. The preacher announced that he had been anointed by God; that means that he was the anointed one, the Messiah, the Christ. This anointing gave him the authority to speak on behalf of God. The spirit was also upon him so that he could speak as a prophet giving God’s word to God’s people.

The preacher told them that he had brought good news from God, very good news. He was there to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. All of the people knew exactly what this meant. The law of Leviticus mandates that every fifty years a jubilee should be called as God’s way of ensuring justice for all people. Every fifty years all debts were forgiven and all people were permitted to return to their ancestral homes. So if you were a poor widow who was forced to sell your land for food, on fiftieth year you got your land back. If you were disabled and had to mortgage your land to survive, at the jubilee your mortgage disappeared. So the preacher was telling everyone to return to their homes and rebuild because all of their debts were forgiven and their land was restored.

The concept of a jubilee sounds very foreign to us. We live in a nation that believes strongly in personal property rights. The land we own is ours until we sell it to someone else or when we can no longer pay the mortgage and lose it to foreclosure. But in biblical times it was understood that people did not own land. Land belonged to the one who created it, God. People were allowed to live and work on the land and pass it on to their descendants because the use of the land was a gift from God. God’s justice demanded that people not be forced from the land. He had given them just because of economic conditions. So every fifty years God declared a jubilee when everyone could return to the land that God have given them. The preacher was giving the people some really good news. God had taken their land away because of their idolatry. But with the declaration of the jubilee God was canceling their debt and allowing all of them to return home to rebuild.

The reason God had declared the jubilee was to demonstrate to all the people of the earth God’s great glory. To this end he entered into a new everlasting covenant with his people. God would bless his people and his people would proclaim to the world that they had been blessed by God. This covenant is still in force today. God has richly blessed us with forgiveness of sins and a good life. We are called to proclaim this blessing of God to all people. This is the mission of the church: to acknowledge that we have been richly blessed and the demonstrate God glory to the world by proclaiming it to everyone we meet, everyone in Eagle Rock, everyone in the world, that we have been blessed by God.

Eventually Jerusalem was rebuilt but it was never fully restored to it former glory. The Persians, the Greeks and later the Romans occupied and controlled it. The people prayed for the day when another preacher would come, be anointed by God, and proclaim another jubilee year. The waited for the day when the poor, the homeless, the mentally ill, the aged, the widows and the orphans would return to their ancestral land as God had promised.

Then one day in the first century, a young rabbi from Nazareth preached his first sermon from Isaiah chapter 61. He had been proclaiming good news to the marginalized people of Galilee. Listen to what happened from Luke, Chapter 4.
Luke 4:16-21 16 When he came to Nazareth where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, 17 and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written: 18 "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, 19 to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." 20 And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. 21 Then he began to say to them, "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing."

Like the preacher five hundred years before, Jesus was claiming to be the anointed one, the Messiah, the Christ. Jesus was claiming that the Spirit of God had come to him giving him the authority of Moses. And with that authority Jesus had come to proclaim good news to the poor. This good news was a year of jubilee. All debts were to be forgiven and the people restored to their ancestral homes. Of course Jesus’ words were treasonous. By speaking them Jesus had endangered his own city. If anyone found out what Jesus had said the Romans might crucify all the men in the village. So they argued with Jesus and a mob tried to throw Jesus over a cliff. But Jesus and the good news he was spreading could not be silenced. A jubilee had been called by God’s Messiah.

How are we to handle this call for jubilee today? With one in ten mortgages in default and banks needing government support to survive what are we doing to bring good news to the poor? What are we saying to the people who are losing their homes? Maybe, we should think of making a drastic change in the way we deal with real estate in America. Our belief in private property and our desire for maximum profit had led us into an economic mess. So what if we tried something new? What if we said that God owns all the property and the people use this property as a gift from God? What would that mean in modern America?

As Christians I think it is time for us to stand up for biblical principles even if they are unpopular. If we are truly the follower of the anointed one, the messiah, the Christ and if we are called to proclaim the good news to the poor, then we should advocate a radical shift of our economic system away from personal property and the pursuit of profit to a system based on the requirements of justice that we find in scripture. We need to do this because God we worship is the God of justice and righteousness. And as God’s people our mission is to care for those in need.

Father in heaven, we thank you for all the blessing that you have poured down upon us. We will respond by proclaiming to the world all that you have down for us. And we will proclaim the good news to the poor in our community. We will do this because it will allow your glory to shine everywhere on earth. Give our leaders the wisdom to design an economic system that is consistent with your call to care for those in need. We pray all of this in the name of our coming Lord, Jesus. Amen.