The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because He has anointed Me to preach the good news to the poor….Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.

Can you finish this sentence by a famous news commentator: “Hello Americans, this is Paul Harvey, stand by for…… news.” News is what I have for you today.

I start most of my days by going downstairs, pouring a cup of coffee, and looking over the newspaper. Unfortunately, much of what I read is not good news. No matter what news source you listen to or read much of what is out there is sad and bad. We are bombarded with the harshness that is around us. Within sixty miles, less than an hour, arson, robbery, drive-by shootings, theft, domestic violence, corruption, and layoffs take place. Beyond those sixty miles is more of the same, maybe even worse. Less than sixty miles often within the circle of our family, friends, and co-workers, sometimes even within us, there is disease, hurt, discouragement, hostility, and all kinds of uncertainty. How many of us have news that isn’t the greatest? Maybe that bad news is news that others know, maybe they don’t? ….. we gather here to hear some Good News.

Our Gospel lesson reveals that Jesus returned to Galilee (after His baptism) in the power of the Spirit. He was teaching with an unheard of authority and power and the people were amazed. He had some Good News that seemed worth tuning in to, words that touched hearts and lives, words that could renew and reshape lives.

Our text tells us that He was teaching in the synagogues, as was His custom. It was a longstanding habit of Jesus’ to join with others regularly to sing Psalms, to hear prayers, to hear the words of God that were recorded on the scrolls of prophets, and to have someone expound on what was read.

Jesus sets a powerful example for all of us in keeping the third commandment: for six days you may work but the seventh day is a Sabbath Day of rest unto the Lord, a day of sacred assembly.

In our text we find that this “street preacher” goes home, goes back to the synagogue where He was raised, back to where everyone knew Him, and He stood up to read. They handed Him the scroll of the prophet Isaiah. He unrolled it and carefully He found the verses He wanted to read.

In our Gospel lesson we know that Jesus chose to read from what we know as Isaiah chapter 61. In case you didn’t know it: chapters and verses didn’t exist in the days of Jesus; the divisions we have in the Bible wouldn’t come about until the Middle Ages. Beginning around 1200 the bible was divided into chapters. The verses and the form of the Bible we have today comes in around 1500.

The reading Jesus read in Isaiah comes from a time when the people have squandered the love, blessings, and direction of God. Many have turned away from God, made gods of their thinking, wants, and desires. The worship of false gods and ungodly practices has corrupted the hearts and hands of people. Their way of life is crumbling and invaders are overrunning their borders. The people are facing being taken away in bondage- something they didn’t really believe could happen to them. Of course the people are lamenting, “We are God’s chosen people how could it have come to this?” Sure sounds like people from all ages.

By the inspiration of the Holy Spirit the prophet Isaiah wrote of a time of rescue and restoration: there will come One who will set you free, restore you, and rebuild you. The Spirit of the Lord will be upon Him! He will preach Good News to the poor, open the eyes of the blind, and give freedom to the prisoners!

These weren’t just some feel good words but this was real hope to any person from any age who has been overrun and taken hostage by the harsh and often hard realities of living in a sinful and fallen world. These words were even written for those who have sinned boldly and those who sin quietly.

Those words gave hope back then and even give hope today. You see human nature and the human dilemma have not changed. We, too, live in a time of bad news, and we need news of hope, real hope and restoration.

Now Jesus, the hometown boy, of whom the word is spreading that He is quite a teacher- has the making of a rabbi- the air in the synagogue is pregnant with anticipation: what will He read…. what will He preach about? And He shocks them with a bombshell: God gave you promise of a Savior, a Messiah, the Lord’s Christ. Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.

This was great news for them and for us! The year of the Lord’s favor is upon us. The Messiah has come. He was accredited to us- validated to us – by signs and wonders. He did what only God could do and He did it very well, repeatedly and convincingly: He physically opened the eyes of the blind, healed lepers, raised the dead, and cast out demons. He did it that they would know and we would know that He is the One Isaiah prophesied would come.

Then He taught. He taught of God and about God in such an authoritative way because He did not need to speculate about God - for He was and is God in flesh appearing. His words carried and still carry real hope and promise to those who have been taken hostage by life, overrun by all manner of enemy, and even forgiveness to those of us who have sinned grievously.

He taught of God’s justice: all of us have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, and no mountain of good words, good intentions, or monumental sincerity will earn God’s favor. And yet, Jesus taught, God because of His love and in His mercy did not abandon us- He was good to His promise to send us a Savior, Jesus. This Son of Nazareth would do more than teach and even do amazing miracles, He would pay the price that the rebellion of our sins, all our sins, yours and mine, the sins of all people demanded - He would die in our place. He would place Himself under God’s wrath against sin for us. All the punishment that should have been ours crushed down upon Him. He would earn for us God’s favor, His forgiveness, His adoption as sons and heirs of heaven, by His death on the cross and His resurrection three days later.

This, my friends, is great news, astounding news- it is what has become known as The Good News, the Gospel. And the study of It will make us wise unto salvation (2 Tim 3.15). The Gospel will give an abundance of forgiveness to those who are poor in spirit; It will release those who are held captive in sin, and It will give hope to those imprisoned by life and its failings and frailty. It will be light to those who sit in the darkness of this fallen world.

At first the people hearing Jesus were amazed at His reading and teaching, but soon the seeds of doubt planted by Satan and our rebellious nature began to sprout. The nodding approval of “isn’t this Joseph’s boy” began to be replaced with growing offense of “Isn’t this the carpenter’s boy? Isn’t His mother’s name Mary and aren’t His bothers’ James, Joseph, Simon and Judas? Aren’t all His sisters with us?” (Matthew 13.54-56) His teachings and proclamations raised such an offense that Luke records they drove Him out of town, to the edge of a hill, and had every intention of throwing Him over a cliff.

Aren’t those people amazing- all that is God is right there and they rejected Him, doubted Him, seeked to push Him aside, or even do away with Him. How often are we like that? All too often I’m afraid, but even then Jesus does not push us aside and abandon us. He knows being one of his followers doesn’t mean that we are prefect this side of heaven; it means that because of Him we are forgiven. Still believing in this Son of Nazareth is a struggle: the good we would do and proclaim we often do not. The evil we ought not to do we do, but thank the Father for He has not abandoned us, turned from us; thank the Holy Spirit that dwells within us that we might continue to believe in Jesus and all that He has done by His life, death, and resurrection.

Thank God that we can daily return to our baptism and be reminded of the promises made to us in our baptism: He saved us by a washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit. (Titus 3.5) Thank God we can know the words of absolution spoken to us are at Jesus’ command and carry His promise of forgiveness: Jesus breathed on them and said, Receive the Holy Spirit, If you forgive them their sins they are forgiven. (Jn 20.22-23) Thank God that by study of Holy Scriptures we can be made wise in the ways of the One true God in the midst of a very unwise and faltering world.

All this is Good News, the best of news. Paul Harvey you may think you have news worth standing by for but truly we have the Good News worth standing up for.