Messianic Mission

ME

Today is the third Sunday of Advent, and Advent means Coming or Arrival of Jesus Christ from heaven to earth as the son of God, and in the historical Christian calendar, there is a four week countdown until the season of Christmas.

During this waiting of his coming (though he has already come 2,000 years ago and promised he will come again), we are called to celebrate and prepare ourselves for his arrival. So everyday and especially on Sundays, Christians all over the world traditonally follow a liturgical calendar. 2020-2021 is known as Year B, and on the third sunday one of the passage of focus from the Old Testament Prophets is Isaiah 61:1-11. (Usually, there would be also a Psalm, an Old Testament narrative, a New Testament gospel, and New Testament letter). They would be read out loud and finally the preacher will preach using all of them. I think I will just stick to the one passage from Isaiah.

WE

Now you might wonder at first how does Isaiah 61 relate to Advent? Why not talk about Mary visited by the angel, or the Magi visiting the child. Well one immediate connection would be that our Lord Jesus spoke these words in Luke 4:17-21 when he goes to the synagogue on a Sabbath and opens up a scroll in his hometown of Nazareth.

Luke 4:17–21 ESV

17 And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written, 18 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, 19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” 20 And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. 21 And he began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

Jesus claims he is the this anointed one filled with the Spirit who brings good news to all. The people were shocked. They should be happy. They were waiting for the Messiah. Yet he didn’t meet their expectations. Why is that? Who were they expecting? And what is this good news he is proclaiming?

GOD

See, when it comes to the gospel or good news, what Jesus read isn’t what usually comes to our mind if we’ve been Christian long enough. We think of Salvation. Justification by faith. Atonement. Afterall, the good news is the heart of the Bible.

But what Jesus says here, based on Isaiah 61, IS the good news. The good news is a proclamation The Messiah’s mission is to proclaim the good news by being the good news we can share and live out in the world. He is the anointed one, or Messiah, a king-prophet figure prophesized in the scriptures who would one day rescue and deliver Israel from bondage and oppression from foreign nations, and people his days expected that it was the Romans. But this was written during the time of Isaiah the prophet, around 8th century BC, and the oppressors were the Babylonians. Isaiah is a Sourthern kingdom prophet of Judah composed of the tribe of Benjamin and Judah loyal to King David.

We won’t have time to go into every verse in detail, but we can draw out the key themes of the Messiah’s Mission as follows:

I. The Mission of the Messiah is to love the least in word and deed (1-4, 10-11)

Isaiah 61:1–3 ESV

1 The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; 2 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn; 3 to grant to those who mourn in Zion— to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit; that they may be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified.

This beautiful poem (as most prophecies are in the form of poems) begins with the Spirit of the Lord anointing the Messiah. For those keen readers of the Old Testament and those who have been attending our Sunday bible Study: The Rise of Israel’s Monarchy on 1 and 2 Samuel, we know the first two kings of Israel, Saul and David both were anointed and filled with the Spirit. King Saul and David upon being anointed by Samuel were filled with the Spirit. Anointing + Spirit is a recipe for affirming someone as king.

This Messiah to come would also be filled with the Spirit, so that he and he alone can bring good news to the poor. Not just the financially poor, but the spiritually poor. People who are lost, who are in bad shape. Who are in deep trouble. What is this good news? Besides what he does which we will see in the next verses, it’s who he is. The king has come. This king is above all other powers, all other governments, all other powers and forces. And as such he has proclaimed amnesty and mercy to all who admit their poverty. But the financially poor IS of concern to him. Interesting he would come himself not as someone much better off, certainly not from a palace dress in purple garments, but a carpenter turned rabbi. He’s good news to the poor not necessarily by making them rich, such as the prosperity gospel teaches. But he makes us rich by identifying our poverty and yet lifting us from labels like poor or unloved or useless or addict. At the same time he calls those of us who are rich to provide for the poor.

Already this king heralds good news, but here’s where he differs from other kings. While other kings and queens are hands off, or you have to go through a lot of red tape and security to maybe get a glimpse of him or her, this king is intimate. He is your doctor and counselor, to bind up the brokenhearted. If you are discouraged, if you are disappointed, if you are despairing and honestly who isn’t to some degree during this pandemic, he will attend to you.

But he also announces liberty to the captives, then goes ahead and does it by opening the prison doors.

It may not mean much to us but for those who are truly persecuted, and no I am not talking about those churches who are fighting the government to remain open while defying wearing a mask or social distancing. That’s not persecution. That’s privilege and a lack of love for neighbours wrapped up in the guise of false victimhood. Pick up or subscribe to the Voice of the Martyrs newsletter and you will see what true persecution is: Pastors imprisoned for holding small church gatherings. Believers arrested without cause and held for decades in jail, denied basic human rights. Militant groups storming into villages and massacring all the men, capturing the girls to force them to renounce their faith and marry into their religion. The words liberty to the captives is just so much more precious to 98% of this world then we can ever imagine.

Yet we have our own captivity don’t we? Some of us are captive to power. Some of us are captive to lust, or pornography as Tim talked about last week. For others, we are captive to our mind, and COVID has really rattled our mental health and well-being. I know how much slower I am each day to find the motivation to work, how much more easily I get upset in one moment, and depressed the next. It’s the prison of having too many options, things flying too fast at a pace we can’t catch up with. It’s the prison of isolation, not able to see each other face to face.

Whatever your prison is, the Messiah has opened the prison doors. A related announcement is verse 2, the year of Jubilee, here described as the year of the Lord’s favour. It was a time where debts were forgiven, slaves were freed, and lands and vineyards are given rest. It was a time of celebration. The word favour is the same as grace, in contrast to vengeance. It’s a period of wrongs being made right.

Vengeance may sound harsh to us, but to people who are constantly oppressed, exploited and institutionally made to never be able to get out of their plight, whether it’s the despots in oppressive regimes, caste system in India or racism in Canada and U.S., and other parts of the world, the voice of vengeance to long for what’s coming to the perpetrators, while leaving GOD to exercise his judgment, and not them, is a cry we should not ignore.

And then to mourn, of deaths? Certainly! We should mourn for all those who lost their lives whether due to COVID, or terminal illness, or suicides.

But those who mourn in Zion contextually are mourning about how far they have drifted away from God and his command. They married foreign gods by marrying foreign women. So they betrayed God who rescued them time and time again to chase after an idol. The powerful oppress and exploit the weak by charging crazy amounts of interest. They cheat and steal from the poor to make even more money, like large corporations with their billionaire CEOs or big box stores quashing the little mom and pop shops. They did whatever please and gratified themselves. But when all that sin had been summed up and God’s justice brought about the destruction of Judah, losing everything and having to start over, those who mourn know they had sinned and feel deep remorse for the wrongs they have done.

Can you imagine a billionaire holding a press conference saying he will give away 95% of his wealth to the run-down neighbourhoods? Or the government admitting they have wasted the taxes they collected and will repay from the political party’s coffer to all those who are wronged? That’s what deep remorse is. Similarly, when we are at our wits end, when we stop trying to do things our way, indulge ourselves in sinful and destructive behaviours, we will be comforted and brought back into God’s embrace. Not only with words, but with transformation! Isaiah describes it as a change of clothings, a change of identity:

For the ashes we dump on our head, he gives us instead a beautiful crown

For the stench of sin clinging to our body, he washes us with expensive olive oil.

For the faint spirit, hopeless and defeated us in ragged sackclothes that barely fit our body, he clothes with a garment of praise.

And to complete his transformation in us, we are made righteous and given the power for righteous living. Right relation with God and with others, the way God intended his people to be that one day, sin no longer needs to be mourned because sin doesn’t exist! Like a mighty oak tree planted by God, those who receive this righteousness will be abundant, stable and enduring. Ultimately, it will take another tree in which the Messiah will be crucified on for this righteousness to be ours forever. And in gratitude, we worship him in praise and exhaltation! (v. 10-11).

Now that we are lifted from our poverty, our brokenheartedness, our captivity from imprisonment and our mourning from sin and life’s circumstance through surrender, how are we to live into the new reality of being an oak of righteousness?

The Ministers of the Messiah are to live righteously in the midst of an unrighteous world (5-9)

Isaiah 61:5–6 ESV

5 Strangers shall stand and tend your flocks; foreigners shall be your plowmen and vinedressers; 6 but you shall be called the priests of the Lord; they shall speak of you as the ministers of our God; you shall eat the wealth of the nations, and in their glory you shall boast.

I want us to focus particularly on verse 6, does that sound familiar that these righteous and redeemed by the Messiah’s good news would be called priests of the LORD? Of course, this was the promise to Moses we would a priesthood for the nations. What does it mean to be a priest? Simply put, we bring God before the people. Here again, context is important. Verse 5 talks about strangers and foreigners who have become under servitude as they herd the sheeps and plow the fields and tend to the grapes of the righteous. These are the former nations who tried to attack and capture the Israelites, tried to lure them with their false gods, tried to oppress them with slavery. Now things have turned around, and the weak have become the strong. But an important message is we are not to now return their evil by being their master to dominate and exploit them in retaliation. We are to be their minister. We pray for them, teach them about God, and tend to their well-being. Think of someone who has been unfair to you, who has always kept you down. Or it could be a system, or groups of people. God is saying if one day we are to rise above them, break out of their shackles on our life and potential, do not treat them like they treat us. This is so hard because it’s against our natural instinct, but it’s such a powerful statement of what it means to be righteous. We are to pray for their well-being and be kind to them. In other words, love your enemies, bless those who persecute you. Bless, do not curse. Then finally, verse 8-9:

Isaiah 61:8–9 ESV

8 For I the Lord love justice; I hate robbery and wrong; I will faithfully give them their recompense, and I will make an everlasting covenant with them. 9 Their offspring shall be known among the nations, and their descendants in the midst of the peoples; all who see them shall acknowledge them, that they are an offspring the Lord has blessed.

Why is Isaiah 61 good news? Because of this promise from the LORD based on his character! He speaks in the midst of this proclamation, declaring himself a lover of justice. Because of his hate for robbery and wrong, he is determined to make things right. But what is new (though not so new if you read the Old Testament as a whole) is this everlasting covenant, a contract, between God and his people, that he will reward us with. He will be our God and we will be his people forever! And because of our close proximity to the Lord of justice, we will carry the important role of being God’s representative as witnesses in the world. What a precious and humbling identity! Verse 9 says we are to become a community which the world will be envious of, because we are blessed.

YOU

We are so compelled by His love we want to bless others, starting with each other.

We are so compelled by his justice, we want to enter into the darkest prisons literally and figuratively of the human condition and heart, and bring His hope and light into it.

We are so compelled by his mercy, we want to take on the task of binding up the brokenhearted, by caring for the most vulnerable, offer financial and physical support and verbal encouragement.

We are so compelled by his grace we continue to pursue righteous living, to live with relating to our families, our spouse, our children, our co-workers, even enemies in the spirit of Jesus’ forgiveness, humility, and self-emptying love.

WE

Can we imagine one day we would be so well known for our generosity, our self-emptying love, our love for our neighbours, that we hear comments like, “I may not believe God yet, but if I were to imagine what would it be like, it would be like those people at the corner of Woodbine and Hillmount.” Or, “I know when I am with them I will be loved and accepted no matter what.” Or “I want my kids to be friends with their kids.”

MCBC English congregation, may we strive to be the redeemed and righteous oak that glorifies the Messiah, our LORD Jesus Christ, who is the good news. He is our healer, our deliverer, our Saving King.