“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,” proclaimed Jesus; then, like in suspense movies: “all eyes were fixed on him.” The voice of Isaiah resounded vividly: words so ancient and so beloved, so prayed for and so longed for, so near and so far. The voice of Jesus gave it flesh, and scripture came alive.
Jesus carefully searched the scroll for that passage: he knows the Scriptures well. A thousand passages speak of God, but he chooses this one, where humanity is defined with four adjectives: poor, captive, blind, and oppressed. So he closes the book and opens life. Here is his program: to bring joy, freedom, healed eyes, liberation. A messiah who takes burdens away, and who offers new perspectives rather than rules.
And they are words of hope for the weary, victims who can’t take it anymore. God starts again from the last in line and reaches out to the truth of the human through its sickened roots. Adam is spiritually poor rather than sinful; he is frail before he is guilty; we are weak, but we are not intrinsically malicious; it’s just that our wings are clipped, unable to fly far.
The Gospel reveals beauty and hope, where its first idea is to heal wounded hearts. The Gospel is not moralistic; it’s liberating.
“I have come to preach a year of the Lord’s favor,” a year of grace, a century, a lifetime of benevolence, to demonstrate that God is not only good but the greatest good.