The Kingdom Mission

Apologies for a long one. This is an edited transcript of a talk given on Sunday in our church. I felt it needed adding here for our church family - and you!


The Mission of Christ

It's Sabbath, and you are gathered in the local synagogue in Nazareth. We stand together and recite the Shema, 'Shema Yisrael, Adonai Eloheinu, Adonai Ehad' – Hear oh Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one. Then we join in a number of other prayers, before one stands and reads from the Law of Moses.

Then comes the time when we have a reading from the Prophets. A young rabbi, Yeshua bar Yosef – Jesus, son of Joseph – stands to read. Your attention is immediately focused because of the popularity he has gained across Galilee. The talk is that he is somehow different, possibly even a prophet, certainly someone with a message and a power beyond that of a normal rabbi.

Yeshua opens the scroll of Isaiah and reads:

The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour.

Something in the way he reads it evokes a power and engagement that was surprising and attractive. You wait. This is the time when there is, traditionally, a teaching based on what has been read. The young man looks around and says, 'Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.' Can it be true? Is it possible? After four hundred years of silence, are Jesus and his cousin John the Baptiser God's prophets proclaiming the long awaited coming of Messiah. Your heart leaps with hope...and more than a little fear.... What does this mean?????

In Luke 4 Jesus' has been baptised, confronted the devil in the wilderness, and now returns to begin his mission. Luke describes the scene I've just narrated, and it is, of course, totally unexpected. You can read it in Luke's words in Luke 4:14-30.

Jesus isn't just promising to do miracles, and his audience understood that. They understood the implications of what he was saying, and then, Jesus upturned their expectations and redefined everything they believed was true of their God and his promises to them. That's a concept we encounter a lot in the gospels, 'redefined.' Jesus was offering them the red pill, and everything would change.

The Prophet Isaiah

The portion of scripture that Jesus reads is from Isaiah 61. This is a really interesting scripture because it combines two very important and powerful cultural/religious expectations and hopes in first century Jewish life. Isaiah 61 is both messianic and promises a restoration after exile. It pictures the victory of God and the people of Israel returned to their land at the time of God's great presence of himself with his people and throughout the earth. Jesus takes these expectations and – here we go – redefines them around himself.

Jesus takes the themes of Isaiah 61 – Messiah, restoration, Jubilee – and brings them crashing into the reality of his time, but in a way that his hearers don't want to accept, and, in fact, violently reject.

The beautiful Kingdom

When Jesus' hearers listened to him read Isaiah and its fulfilment, they got it. They heard, implicit in the text, the promise of the Messianic kingdom and freedom from oppression. They heard the restoration of Israel and all that had been surrendered to the occupation of the gentiles. They heard of God becoming king and justly ruling the whole earth from his throne in Jerusalem. They heard of pure and undefiled temple worship. They heard overtones of the Year of Jubilee – the forgiveness of debts, freedom from slavery, rest for the land. They heard of all they had waited for, longed for and prayed for since the return form Babylonian captivity.

Quite literally, they heard the promise of all their dreams come true. We might say, very tongue in cheek, of all their Christmases come at once...

When we read the words of Isaiah Jesus brought to the synagogue, we hear miracles and salvation. We hear that good news is preached to the poor, which to us means 'gospel' and translates as believe in Jesus as saviour so you can go to heaven when you die. We hear of Spirit anointing and that means miracles and gifts and supernatural power. We hear of prisoner's being liberated and the oppressed set free, and think of deliverance from sin and Satan. We read of blind eyes being opened, and understand that to be either literal miracles or metaphorical of salvation. We read of the year of the Lord's favour, and celebrate that God's blessing rests of us so we can have prosperity and success in life.

I'm not saying those things are necessarily bad, but that's not what Jesus' first century audience heard. And I don't think it's what he primarily meant.

When Jesus' read these words from Isaiah, those present in the synagogue heard, 'Jubilee.'

The Messianic kingdom was marked by the reality of Jubilee. This was the sabbatical year where the ground was to lay fallow to prepare for many more harvests; Israelite slaves were to be freed; land purchased given back to its original owners; debts were forgiven and the nation gave thanks for the provision and prosperity God had given them. Although there is no evidence Israel ever celebrated Jubilee, it remained a powerful image of God's justice, mercy and blessing on his people. And what they anticipated would be a reality in the coming kingdom of God through his Messiah.

To Jesus' audience they heard of Spirit anointing and they thought of God himself anointing their king and priest – Messiah; they heard good news for the poor and they saw debts forgiven; they heard freedom for prisoners and they understood that the slaves would be released from bondage; they heard of the blind regaining sight and they thought of a restored right to worship in the temple; they heard of freedom for the oppressed and they imagined regained hope and possibility; they heard of the Lord's favour, and saw return from exile, freedom from oppression by their enemies, and a return of God's presence to his temple in Jerusalem.

They heard that Jesus was now proclaiming that God's Jubilee, the kingdom of the Messiah was finally here.

Initial Reaction

There's an old saying, 'If something's too good to be true, it usually is.' I remember the first time I got an email from the Nigerian Royal family letting me know that if I could give them my bank account details they would deposit a million dollars into my account. Or when I got a text in the early hours of the morning from the UK or US to let me know I'd won the lottery and they needed to know where to put the funds. It's just too good to be true.

I think those listening to Jesus were in that state of mind. They were, we are told, speaking well of him, and obviously excited by the possibility that he really was a prophet who was breaking God's long silence and indicating the day of deliverance was at hand.

But then the doubts crept in. It seemed too good to be true. After all, wasn't this Joseph's son? The carpenter's boy? How could he be such a prophet?

Jesus responds by reminding them that often prophets aren't appreciated in their hometown, and perhaps they will want some sort of miraculous proof of his credibility.

But then he takes this theme of Jubilee and the Messianic kingdom and does the unthinkable.....

All are welcome

• 'I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah's time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon. And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet none of them was cleansed – only Namaan the Syrian.'

Jesus, with those words, made it clear that this great visitation of God, this kingdom that is characterised by restoration and jubilee is not only for the Jews, but is open to gentiles as well. The second temple Judaism of the time predominantly believed that if Israel, the Jewish people, were righteous enough, if they followed the Torah closely enough, if they were devout enough to the religious observances given by God, then God would deliver them through his Messiah.

Notice how Jesus characterises this new Messianic kingdom he is proclaiming as crashing into history at that moment. It is for the poor – marginalised by their economic status; for the prisoners – marginalised by their legal status; for the blind – marginalised by their physical/religious status (unwelcome in the temple by a religious expansion of Mosaic law); for the oppressed – marginalised by the authority and power structures of their time. Jesus' message is good news for all these groups, and for the gentiles, for those who are marginalised by their ethnicity. At no time does Jesus proclaim or infer that this kingdom is for those who see themselves as righteous!

Jesus has just explicitly proclaimed that the kingdom of God, the Messianic age, the great time of Jubilee is for the outsiders, the unacceptable, the unwanted, the powerless, the marginalised, the weak, the poor and the needy. The God of Israel is now the God of the whole world. He hasn't abandoned his ancient people, he has expanded his welcome through Jesus and all may come in.

Jesus words, as usual, exposed the hearts of those listening to him – they were furious. They sought to be the privileged ones, the special ones, the superior ones who were to enjoy the blessing of God. The ones whose righteous lives were recognised as worthy of the kingdom. But Jesus wrecks all these pretensions and exposes the heart of God for his creation: God is for all who are outsiders and calls them into his family.

Good News

This is good news. It's good news for everyone of us, and everyone we know. God is for us, he is so for us that instead of leaving us lost and separated in sin and selfishness he calls us to connect with him through faith in Jesus and find wholeness and community.

This is good news. It means we can never work hard enough, be good enough, earn or deserve God's favour – it is given freely in Jesus the Messiah. God the creator has, through Jesus, issued the proclamation that the kingdom is here, the Messianic age has begun, the time of Jubilee is now. This kingdom is veiled, it is immature, it lacks clarity, yet it is here and is seen in and through the worldwide community of people who claim Jesus the Christ as their Lord and King. We live in hope and anticipation of that day when the kingdom will be unveiled, the mature kingdom is revealed, we see it clearly and explicitly when Jesus returns to God's good earth.

Until that day we enjoy and live in the light of Jesus' kingdom on earth. As followers of the Messiah, Jesus, we are to live in a way that is different and counter-cultural to this world. Our lives are to challenge the world-views, the attitudes, the power-structures and the expectations of all who would marginalise and exploit the poor and the enslaved and the blind and the oppressed and the excluded. We are to speak and to be for those who have no voice and no power. We are wonderfully blessed to enjoy and to carry into our everyday lives God's favour and grace.

Jesus' mission to challenge and subvert every power, every authority, every dominion, every principality, every cultural influence or force that seeks to dehumanise and destroy people is our mission as well. Followers, disciples, of Jesus have been changed, called and empowered by the Spirit to be shaped into the image of Jesus, to become more like him and more human, and in turn are sent to be for their world what Jesus was for his – proclaimers and examples of the presence of this new age and kingdom of love and justice and grace and peace.

In the appropriately named movie, 'Kingdom of Heaven,' Orlando Bloom seeks to defend Jerusalem against Saladin. Despite the historical inaccuracies and revisionism rampant in the film, towards the end is an interesting scene. Orlando is asked how they can defend the city without knights. He turns to one young man who turns out to be a servant to the Patriarch of the City. Orlando tells the young man to kneel, and then looks around and bids every man capable of bearing arms to kneel. He then says:

• Be without fear in the face of your enemies. Be brave and upright that God may love thee. Speak the truth even if it leads to your death. Safeguard the helpless. This is your oath.

For the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven he makes everyone a knight. Jesus has called ordinary people – you and me – and equipped, empowered and commissioned us to be carriers, ambassadors and visible expressions of his now-present kingdom. He bids us to be without fear in the face of our enemies; be brave and upright knowing that God loves us; speak the truth whatever the cost; safeguard the helpless.

This Messianic vision isn't just what we embody, but that lives within every believer in Jesus Christ.