Welcome to Pastor Jack Buckley's weekly blog and podcast.
You have three ways to hear his weekly message:
- Read Pastor Jack's GODblog.
- Listen now to an audio of the scripture reading and Pastor Jack's sermon.
- Listen anytime. You choose the time and place. Download Pastor Jack's GODcast to your MP3 player.
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
How To Read The Bible
Psalm 19; Luke 4:14-21
The visiting rabbi's message was absolutely brief and to the point. In the synagogue that day you could hear a pin drop when Jesus interpreted the old prophecy with a single sentence. Definitely not your ordinary sermon. Look and listen closely, though, and you'll find a classic case study in how to read the Bible and know you're making sense.
Listen to the GODcast!
_______________
The prophecy that Jesus read from that day (Isaiah 61:1-2) describes the Messiah's mission of mercy and healing in "the year of the Lord's favor." That would be the Jubilee Year (see Leviticus 25) -- a nationwide year-long Sabbath that came on a 50-year cycle. [7 years = 1 Sabbatical year; 7x7 years = Jubilee!]
During that year: all fields would get a vacation from farming; all debts would be cancelled; all servants would be set free; all property would revert to original family ownership; all families would reunite.
In short, it would be a 12-month season of recovery, release, and reconciliation. Call it Peace!
Jesus told his listeners that Isaiah's peaceful prophecy was being fulfilled right then and there, that he was the promised Prince of Peace they'd been hoping against hope to see before they died.
In context, Isaiah's use of the Jubilee theme was a call to believe God keeps all good promises and to get ready to experience a very special one in their own day.
Exiled in Babylon as they were, they could use a good promise or ten. So Jubilee release and reconciliation sounded very good to their ears. If only they could return home to the Promised Land, then all good things would once again be possible!
[Sidebar: There is scant evidence that in all of Israel's history a Jubilee Year ever really happened. A great shame and disappointment, if true. Even so, the idea burned bright as a glorious ideal to aim for through all the nation's meandering journey of faith and sometimes faithlessness.]
So Jesus pronounced the beginning of a new Jubilee, his own reign of peace and blessing. Now, 2,000 years later, there is scant evidence that in all the Church's history we've seen even one year's worth of worldwide release, reconciliation, or recovery.
But during the last year all of America witnessed a dramatic demonstration that some Christians are absolutely committed to the spirit of Jubilee against all odds.
When several Amish children were shot down in a Pennsylvania schoolhouse, their parents' and neighbors' response took our collective breath away with its profound simplicity. Here we saw the ultimate meaning of our religious buzzwords "grace" and "peace."
Diana Butler Bass describes what they did this way:
"Their practice of forgiveness unfolded in four public acts over the course of a week. First, some elders visited Marie Roberts, the wife of the murderer, to offer forgiveness. Then, the families of the slain girls invited the widow to their own children's funerals. Next, they requested that all relief monies intended for Amish families be shared with Roberts and her children. And, finally, in an astonishing act of reconciliation, more than 30 members of the Amish community attended the funeral of the killer."
She says her husband disagreed when she exclaimed what a great witness those actions were to the way of peace. "They weren't witnessing to anything. They were actively making peace!"
Bass goes on to speculate what might have happened if we Americans had responded to the horrible events of September 11, 2001 according to the Amish way of life. Then she makes a modest proposal:
"We're five years too late for the Amish response to 9/11. But maybe we should ask them to take over the Department of Homeland Security. After all, actively practicing forgiveness and making peace are the only real alternatives to perpetual fear and a multi-generational global religious war. I can't imagine any other path to true security. And nobody else can figure out what to do to end this insane war. Why not try the Christian practice of forgiveness? If it worked in Lancaster, maybe it will work in Baghdad, too."
Almost 100 years before all of this, the British author G. K. Chesterton lamented, "The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult and left untried."
Suppose that now, perhaps history's most desperately deadly day, we could declare in all good faith what Jesus said in that synagogue service: "Today this Jubilee promise is being fulfilled right before your eyes!"
posted by Jack Buckley at
11:25 AM
<< Home
|
|
 |
|
|
