16 He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. He stood up to read, 17 and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written: 18 “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free,19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”20 Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. 21 He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” ~ Luke 4:16-21
As we pointed out in our last blog, Luke moves us from the temptation of the Lord Jesus to the launching of the formal Galilean ministry of the Lord Jesus. During this time in Galilee, the popularity of the Lord Jesus was rising. According to v.16, the Lord Jesus began teaching in the synagogues which were the perfect place for Him to teach. Every town and village had one.
All of the synagogues in Galilee faced Jerusalem. And so the speaker would look to the back out the door and would be looking directly toward Jerusalem. Synagogues that were built to the east of Jerusalem faced west. Those built to the south faced north because Jerusalem was always the focal point because that was where the temple was located. For the Lord Jesus, every synagogue He ever preached in faced Calvary, and so He taught in the synagogues.
I find it quite interesting that the Lord Jesus had performed no miracles in Nazareth. He had neither taught there nor had He told anybody He was the Son of God or the Messiah. He just worked in His father's carpenter shop. The people of Nazareth didn't know He was the Messiah. They didn't hear Him speak and they didn't see any of His power.
At this point of the narrative, the Lord Jesus is back in Galilee and the word is traveling regarding what He had done at the marriage at Cana which is adjacent to Nazareth. The people there had heard about the miracle in Cana and they heard about the cleansing of the temple because it happened at Passover and many of the people of Nazareth were there when it happened. And so there was this growing interest in this local young man who had come back home.
On this particular day, the Lord Jesus entered the synagogue on the Sabbath. For the first time He stood up to read. In v.17, we read, "and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written: 18 “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free,19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor."
In the synagogue, when they read the Torah, they read it in one to three verse increments and several people would read. And, on this day, the Lord Jesus was the only reader and He was reading the text for the sermon that He would give. He had been approved by the ruler of the synagogue or else He wouldn't have been given the opportunity. This was the first time the Lord Jesus taught in a synagogue.
In v.17, we read, "and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him." And the Lord Jesus reads Luke 4:18-19 which is a quotation of Isaiah 61:1-2. Now, the people knew that this was a messianic passage. They knew that Isaiah's prophecy was largely a prophecy about the Messiah. And it is a quotation of Isaiah 61:1, which reads "The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me because He anointed Me."
Interestingly, in v.19 where the Lord Jesus reads from Isaiah 61:2: "To proclaim the favorable year of the Lord." He stops in the middle of the verse because the rest of Isaiah 61:2 says, "And the day of vengeance of our God." The Lord Jesus leaves the latter part out because it was not time to talk about vengeance. It was not time to talk about judgment. It was time to talk about salvation.
After He read that portion, He closed the book, rolled it back up and gave it back to the attendant, sat down, because being seated was the traditional posture for teaching. Then He said, "Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing." He was saying, "I am the Messiah."
Another reason the Lord Jesus closed the book and turned the comma into a period is because He will come again. There will be, yet, another coming. Yes, He is coming again. And when He does, he will fulfill the second part, "the day of vengeance of our God," the great tribulation period, the wrath of God upon the earth.
So the Jews believe the Messiah was coming. He had come. He's announcing, "I've come." What they didn't know yet, and now we know, there's a thing called the "church age" between His first coming and His second coming of Isaiah 61:2. That comma turned into a period has lasted more than 2,000 years.
We should be thankful for this punctuation the Lord Jesus provided that day when He spoke in that synagogue. Be thankful for the comma, because we were saved by the comma. The church age is the comma. The age of grace is the comma. The worldwide gospel going out to all of creation is in that comma. One day there will be "the day of vengeance of our God." There will be no more comma left.
There will be a final reckoning, period. But until that period, we live in the comma. We live in the age of grace. It is still the acceptable year of our Lord. So, the Lord Jesus announces, "I'm the Messiah. I'm sent to the poor, to the brokenhearted." And, He turned the comma into a period.
