The Words We Long to Hear

Sunday, January 26, 2025 – Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10, Psalm 19, 1 Corinthians 12:12-31a, Luke 4:14-21

Listen to the suffering of the people of Judah.

First, their king and his family were forced into exile in Babylon. Then a few years later, when the great Temple was destroyed, almost all the Judeans were forced out of their homes and sent into exile too. The people had no homeland and no place to worship their God. They spent 70 years in exile in a foreign country.

When they returned, they rebuilt their community and then gathered in the square to listen to the reading of their sacred texts. It had been 70 years since they were allowed to meet in public and hear those words. When Ezra opened the book, their eyes were fixed on him, their hearts longing to hear a hopeful message again.

They yearned to hear that God had not abandoned them, that their covenant was intact, and that their lives would get better.

They needed God to show up for them in a real way. And hearing their holy words, in their own homeland, after all this time, brought them to tears. God was present and real in the words they longed to hear.

Now listen to the suffering of Nazareth and Galilee, of Palestine; people living under occupation. They may not have been forced into exile in a foreign country, but they lived under brutal conditions, under Roman tyrants who controlled every aspect of their lives. They were poor, many were struggling with sickness, and they were not free.

They, too, needed God to show up for them in a real way.

What would they hear on this day in the synagogue from Jesus? They knew him as a boy, he grew up among them. But he’d been gone for a little while. And now they were hearing a lot of buzz about his teaching.

So, when Jesus entered the synagogue that day, just like in that square in Judah, the people yearned to hear a good word that brought them some hope. Jesus stood and read from the scroll of Isaiah:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives,
and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

Then he sat down.

And “the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him.” You can almost feel everyone leaning forward waiting for more. And then, the mic-drop moment. Jesus simply says, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

Today this scripture has been fulfilled.

Today, there’s good news for the poor. For the captives. For the blind. And for those who are oppressed. Today, Jesus says, there is release, recovery, and freedom. Today.

Again, God was present and real in the words they longed to hear.

Now, listen to the suffering of Bradenton. So many are struggling and in real trouble financially, physically, mentally. We still need you, Jesus. We still need God to show up for us, don’t we? We still yearn to hear words of hope.

It’s so easy to listen to a Sunday scripture and just nod our heads, and maybe think “that was a nice message,” but then we open our eyes on Monday, and maybe nothing’s really changed. And even if things are okay for us right now, we all know others who are suffering.

Maybe people don’t come to church anymore because they don’t believe they’ll hear a good and helpful word that will do anything to fix their lives. Maybe they don’t believe that God will show up for them in any real way.

So, I’d like to ask you – how does God need to show up for you today?

This is risky business, this God stuff.

Maybe you’re too afraid to share your own pain, though I think we need to hear it. So, think of your children. Your grandchildren. Your best friend. Your neighbor.

Is someone struggling with a divorce? Or buried in grief over the death of their spouse? Is someone in the chains of addiction to drugs or alcohol? Has someone you know given up about ever finding a job again? Or are they about to lose their home because they can’t pay the rent?

What words do you wish they would hear – as if from the mouth of Jesus – that would restore or release them? I’m seriously asking this – How do you wish God would show up for the people nearest and dearest to you?

[then I shared one of my own concerns and invited others to do the same]

At the very beginning of our gospel, Luke writes that “Jesus, in the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee…” Maybe Jesus was only able to bring those words people longed to hear, and to assure them they were real, because he was activated by the Spirit of God.

The Spirit of God spoke through Jesus and filled him with the power to heal, to teach, and to transform people’s lives.

Can we live in the power of the Spirit? That’s what we were promised, that’s what we were given on that very first Pentecost. The power of the Spirit. Can the Spirit of God help us to show up for our children, our grandchildren, our best friends, and our neighbors?

Can the Spirit of God activate our faith enough so that we can make God present and real in the words we all long to hear? And in the words our neighbors are desperate to hear? Can we speak those words in a language they will understand?