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 circumstances 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.
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