Jesus ends his preaching tour of Galilee in the synagogue of his bar mitzvah. The
standing room only crowd has gathered in eager expectation of seeing the
hometown boy made good and Jesus does not disappoint. He unrolls the scroll of Isaiah and
finds the words of promise that were the hope of those who sat by the waters of
Babylon and wept. The same words that had become the longing of the oppressed under the new
management of Rome. For a moment between the reading and the sermon there was
silence, every eye fixed, every breath held, every ear attentive. As soon as he
spoke, “today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing” the spell was lifted
and in the verses that follow the SRO crowd rejects the promise fulfilled and things
turn ugly. But in the pregnant pause before he spoke, where anything and
everything is possible, the scripture was fulfilled. Maybe that is where freedom
and recovery and restoration are real for us as well. When in silent
expectation hope is not diminished by attempts to rationalize or explain. Such
waiting faith believes God is intimately aware of our deepest need. Waiting
faith believes the good news of grace for those impoverished, held captive by
circumstance beyond their control, blinded by sin and oppressed by fear. We
hold onto such hope with radical trust that the proof is not in the pudding but
in the hope that the promise is as good as it sounds.
No comments:
Post a Comment