…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; to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor, and the day of vengeance of our God. (Isaiah 61:1–2 ESV)

Isaiah prophesies about 700 years before the arrival of Jesus. Providing context to this prophecy, Isaiah is proclaiming a message of restoration and hope. The people of Israel had broken God’s covenant. Therefore, Isaiah prophesies that the people will be captured and carried away into Babylonian exile and Jerusalem will be destroyed. But the hope for the people is not over and God’s plan to save the world and draw people to him has not been thwarted. Hope is being pictured. If you have grown up in the pews this text may sound familiar. In Luke 4:18-19 Jesus reads this part of Isaiah’s scroll in the synagogue and declares that it has been fulfilled through him. Jesus is the picture of Isaiah 61:1-2. The Spirit of the Lord was upon Jesus, for he was anointed to bring the good news to the poor, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor, and to proclaim the day of vengeance. These are pictures of what Jesus would do when we came. It is easy to stop the reading of Isaiah at this point since this is part of the text that Luke quotes to show that Jesus is the fulfillment of Isaiah’s coming anointed one. But notice that we are stopping in the middle of the sentence of this prophecy. We need to continue reading because Isaiah is going to describe our purpose and what we will do when Christ comes…

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