030 | Time is Now

| Read Isaiah 61:1-11 | Listen |

The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the LORD's favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion— to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called mighty oaks, a planting of the LORD for the display of his splendor. (Isaiah 61:1-3)

Luke recorded in his account of Jesus' life that on a Sabbath Day in Nazareth Jesus stood before everyone in the Synagogue and read aloud from this passage in Isaiah (Luke 4:19-20). Notice where he stopped reading. Jesus stopped right after the words "in the year of the LORD's favor." As we can see the passage goes on to say "and the day of vengeance of our God." We will come back to this.

So part of the reason Jesus came to earth was "to proclaim the year of the LORD's favor" and ultimately, "the day of vengeance of our God." Jesus came here to tell us that there will be a time period of grace and a time period for the destruction of evil. These periods of time are described as a year of grace and a day of vengeance. In the light of New Testament Scripture one can not take these time periods literally, only figuratively. A long period of grace and a short period of vengeance.

Ok, vengeance is such a loaded word in our day and one that I still struggle with in the Scriptures. I do not have a complete understanding of why God would describe his justice this way, but I continue to search the scriptures and keep words like these in context of what I have learned about God from the whole of scripture and Jesus himself. To me the day of God's vengeance is simply the point in time when all evil will be destroyed by God. This may be an elementary understanding of what is meant, that in time I will see more clearly, but that is where I am right now.

So why didn't Jesus read aloud the rest of this passage? Why did Jesus stop just before the announcement of the coming point in history that God will destroy all evil?

When Isaiah originally spoke these words it was all about the future. When Jesus repeated these words it was about both the present time and a future time. Jesus spoke these words at the beginning of his public ministry. He quoted the Scripture that corresponded to his first and most immediate time on earth - the first coming. The rest of the sentence "the day of vengeance of our God" corresponds to his second coming. The Messiah's first coming was all about salvation and his second coming will be all about justice and the ultimate destruction of evil.

John Piper summarizes it this way: "...what Jesus says in Luke 4:18-19 at the outset of his ministry is that he is the Messiah and that he is ushering in a day of good news—a day of release and healing and liberation; and for now the day of vengeance is postponed."

The birth of Jesus was the beginning of a new age. It was the beginning of a period in history marked by release, healing, and liberation. A time of grace. We are in this time period right now. We are living during the year of the Lord's Favor. By the mercy of God we are living "in the day of salvation." Now is the time! Today!

For he says, "In the time of my favor I heard you, and in the day of salvation I helped you." I tell you, now is the time of God's favor, now is the day of salvation. (2 Corinthians 6:2)

God is listening for our call. God hears us today and God will help us. Our help has arrived in Jesus.

| More on the Essential Jesus journey. |

Photo Credit: The photo above titled "The Railway Station With A Myriad Of Trains And One Clock That Rules Them All" was uploaded to flickr.com by Peter from Wellington.
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Who is Jesus?

For those who have been visiting this blog regularly already know I have been working my way through the devotional book titled "The Essential Jesus: 100 Readings Through the Bible's Greatest Story". This book was written by Whitney T. Kuniholm who is the president of Scripture Union USA. He is also the author of "The Essential Bible Guide". As the title suggests this book is a collection of 100 readings from Old & New Testament scripture, selected to answer a simple question. Who is Jesus?

I highly recommend this book for giving some structure to your devotional time. It is a well organized with short very clear 2 to 3 paragraph reflections on each passage. The 100 passage readings are organized into 4 parts:
Part 1: Who is Jesus?
Part 2: Old Testament
Part 3: New Testament
Part 4: Who is Jesus ... to You?

The readings are also grouped into sets of five. An introduction to each set points out a few themes that will be developed in the individual scriptural passages and the sets end with a few questions about the 5 passages. Here are some of the titles to these sets:
The Need for a Savior
Previews of a Savior
Psalms About a Savior
Prophecies About a Savior
The Birth of Jesus
The Beginning Ministry of Jesus
The Sermons of Jesus
The Parables of Jesus
The Miracles of Jesus
The Prayers of Jesus
The Hard Sayings of Jesus
The Crucifixion of Jesus
The Resurrection of Jesus
The Early Church of Jesus
The Second Coming of Jesus

I will be writing out my thoughts for a post next week on the 30th devotion from the book titled "Mission Statement". The passage reading is Chapter 61 of Isaiah in the Old Testament. It is the last reading from Part 2 of the book and the last one from the Old Testament.

Essential to God's Master Plan

After spending several months on these 30 passages it is striking to me, in a new way, that God gave his people such a glimpse of the future, the Messiah, Jesus, in scripture so long before he would actually live here on this earth. Hundreds of years before. The detail which is reveled in the Old Testament about the coming Messiah is simply stunning. Perhaps this has had less of an impact on me in the past since most of my life I have been familiar with the overall account of Jesus' life. In one sense knowing about Jesus from the New Testament gives you fresh eyes in reading the Old Testament, but it can also allow you to read too easily through the detail about the Messiah without connecting it to the time line of history and absorbing it as you would new information. So much detail was well known about the Messiah hundreds of years before Jesus lived on this earth.

In many ways the future can be fearful. The future is a big unknown in our life. We humans like to know things before they happen, even though, through life experience we realize we can not really know things before they actually happen. We can plan, but we have all had those well thought out plans that go amiss on just one simple small detail about the future that we did not know.

All through history God has given us detailed glimpses of his master plan. Depending on where we are at, our life experiences, our focus, we may not understand the things written about in scripture concerning the future, but God gives us glimpses. Our view of scripture is clouded by our human nature, our sin, and prevents us from reading it clearly and understanding it more clearly, but it is there in black and white, none the less. God has laid out his plans. To me this is the Grace of God. In his loving mercy God has given his people all through history the master plan. His master plan is perfect because God is not limited by time. God can see everything, the past, the present, and the future all at once. God is eternal. His planning is perfect. No detail is unknown to our creator. Everything has been taken into consideration by God. There is comfort in this fact. There is a peace in that for me today.

As I continue to work through these 100 passages in the coming year the one thing that I know, the one thing that is very clear to me, is that Jesus is the essential key to understanding God's master plan. I do not know how all the details come together, especially concerning the future, but I do know that at the center of everything that matters to my Creator, my God, is Jesus. My strong desire today is to know Him more.

I encourage you to join me on this journey in learning more about Jesus. A journey through 100 Bible passages focusing on him. To learn more about the 100 passages including a list of the journal entries or posts I have written so far on each of the passages visit my Essential Jesus page.

| More on the Essential Jesus journey. |

Photo Credit: Trippin' again! by pHil____, on Flickr.

Here are the posts corresponding to each of the 100 passage readings I have completed to date.

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