In the Gospel passage this weekend, Jesus returns to his hometown. At this point in his life, he was getting a reputation as a man who knew the spiritual life. He went to the synagogue, which was filled with people who knew him, and Jesus got up to do his normal task of reading the Scripture. He read a beautiful passage from Isaiah in the Torah about the work of the Spirit. The passage Jesus chose is a statement he wanted everyone to understand. This is what he has come to accomplish within us: to give us the Spirit. The challenge of the Spirit is that it awakens something very different from our egos. It awakens the longing every person has to understand and to see, to somehow know what it is we are called to accomplish in this world. Jesus made this statement: “These words are being fulfilled in your hearing.” It’s about Jesus coming into the world filled with Spirit. Jesus is calling us into openness to whatever the next moment brings. It’s about living in the present moment knowing that there is more than enough to call upon to use in order to be able to accomplish any task. God uses each and every person in their own unique way to add something to the work of building the reign of God.
Let us pray … Father, we give you praise and thanks for bringing us the law, and all that it teaches us of wisdom. We ask you to balance the wisdom of the law with the gifts of the Spirit so that we truly can see and be filled with an awareness of the challenge of living the life you have called us to live, a life of great abundance and great peace. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.
