Jesus reads Isaiah’s prophecy, the Lord’s ministry as fulfilling Old Testament hopes and expectations

January 7, 2016

Thursday after Epiphany

Saints of the Day: Saint Angela Foligno (1248 - 4 January 1309), Saint Raymond of Peñafort, Priest (c. 1175-1275), Saint Lucian, Priest and Martyr (312)

Reading 1

1 John 4:19

4:19Beloved, we love God because He first loved us. 4:20If anyone says, “I love God,” but hates his brother, he is a liar; for whoever does not love a brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom He has not seen.[1] 4:21This is the commandment we have from Him: Whoever loves God must also love His brother.[2]

5:1Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is begotten by God, and everyone who loves the Father loves also the one begotten by Him.[3] 5:2In this way we know that we love the children of God when we love God and obey His commandments.

5:3For the love of God is this, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome, 5:4for whoever is begotten by God conquers the world. And the victory that conquers the world is our faith.

Responsorial Psalm

Psalms 72:1-2, 14 and 15bc,17

R. (see 11) Lord, every nation on earth will adore you.

1O God, with your judgment endow the king, and with your justice, the king’s son; 2He shall govern your people with justice and your afflicted ones with judgment.

R. Lord, every nation on earth will adore you.

14From fraud and violence He shall redeem them, and precious shall their blood be in His sight. 15bMay they be prayed for continually; 15cday by day shall they bless Him.

R. Lord, every nation on earth will adore you.

17May His name be blessed forever; as long as the sun His name shall remain. In Him shall all the tribes of the earth be blessed; all the nations shall proclaim His happiness.

R. Lord, every nation on earth will adore you.

Luke 4:18 

R. Alleluia, alleluia.

The Lord has sent me to bring glad tidings to the poor and to proclaim liberty to captives.

R. Alleluia, alleluia.

Gospel

Luke 4:14-22

14Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news of Him spread throughout the whole region.[4] 15He taught in their synagogues and was praised by all.

16He came to Nazareth, where He had grown up, and went according to His custom into the synagogue on the sabbath day. He stood up to read[5][6] 17and was handed a scroll of the prophet Isaiah. He unrolled the scroll and found the passage where it was written: 18The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free,[7]19and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.

20Rolling up the scroll, He handed it back to the attendant and sat down, and the eyes of all in the synagogue looked intently at Him. He said to them, 21“Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.”[8] 22And all spoke highly of Him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from His mouth.

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Notes on Readings:

[1] 1 John 4:20 - Cannot love God: some ancient manuscripts read "how can he love . . . ?"

[2] 1 John 4:13-21 - The testimony of the Spirit and that of faith join the testimony of love to confirm our knowledge of God. Our love is grounded in the confession of Jesus as the Son of God and the example of God's love for us. Christian life is founded on the knowledge of God as love and on His continuing presence that relieves us from fear of judgment (1 John 4:16-18). What Christ is gives us confidence, even as we live and love in this world. Yet Christian love is not abstract but lived in the concrete manner of love for one another.

[3] 1 John 5:1-5 - Children of God are identified not only by their love for others (1 John 4:7-9) and for God (1 John 5:1-2) but by their belief in the divine sonship of Jesus Christ. Faith, the acceptance of Jesus in His true character and the obedience in love to God's commands (1 John 5:3), is the source of the Christian's power in the world and conquers the world of evil (1 John 5:4-5), even as Christ overcame the world (John 16:33).

[4] Luke 4:14 - News of him spread: a Lucan theme; see Luke 4:37; 5:15; 7:17.

[5] Luke 4:16-30 - Luke has transposed to the beginning of Jesus' ministry an incident from his Marcan source, which situated it near the end of the Galilean ministry (Mark 6:1-6a). In doing so, Luke turns the initial admiration (Luke 4:22) and subsequent rejection of Jesus (Luke 4:28-29) into a foreshadowing of the whole future ministry of Jesus. Moreover, the rejection of Jesus in His own hometown hints at the greater rejection of Him by Israel (Acts 13:46).

[6] Luke 4:16 - According to His custom: Jesus' practice of regularly attending synagogue is carried on by the early Christians' practice of meeting in the temple (Acts 2:46); 3:1; 5:12.

[7] Luke 4:18 - The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He has anointed me: see the footnote on Luke 3:21-22. As this incident develops, Jesus is portrayed as a prophet whose ministry is compared to that of the prophets Elijah and Elisha. Prophetic anointings are known in first-century Palestinian Judaism from the Qumran literature that speaks of prophets as God's anointed ones. To bring glad tidings to the poor: more than any other gospel writer Luke is concerned with Jesus' attitude toward the economically and socially poor (see ⇒ Luke 6:20, (see Luke 6:20, 24; 12:16-21; 14:12-14; 16:19-26; 19:8). At times, the poor in Luke's gospel are associated with the downtrodden, the oppressed and afflicted, the forgotten and the neglected (Luke 4:18; 6:20-22; 7:22; 14:12-14, and it is they who accept Jesus' message  salvation.

[8] Luke 4:21 - Today this scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing: this sermon inaugurates the time of fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy. Luke presents the ministry of Jesus as fulfilling Old Testament hopes and expectations (Luke 7:22); for Luke, even Jesus' suffering, death, and resurrection are done in fulfillment of the scriptures (Luke 24:25-27, 44-46 ; (Acts 3:18).