Week 19—Monday Matthew 13:12-17
Matthew 13:12-17
THE NAZARETH MANIFESTO
We come now to a key passage which reveals the whole Christian gospel as the Word became flesh. Not only in the initial incarnation in human flesh, but as a continuing incarnation—as a method and attitude in everything connected with that gospel—it was all an application of the principle of the Word become flesh, the principle become practice. As Jesus stood up to read in the Synagogue at Nazareth, he announced his program and purpose: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor [the economically disinherited]. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives [the socially and politically disinherited] and recovering of sight to the blind [the physically disinherited], to set at liberty those who are oppressed [the morally and spiritually disinherited], to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord [a fresh world beginning—the corporately disinherited]” (Luke 4:18-19). He closed the book and began to say to them: “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing” (4:21)—today this word of Scripture becomes flesh, in me. And it did!
In his own Person Jesus embodied this fivefold redemptive impact upon life and started movements which then and now are leading to the emancipation of the poor from economic bondage, the downtrodden masses from social and political captivity, the physically disabled from their disabilities, the morally and spiritually bruised from their guilts, the world from total bondages in the total life. The program became the Person and the Person became the program—they were one. The text became clothed in flesh and blood. No wonder “they were surprised that words of such grace should fall from his lips” (Luke 4:22, NEB). It was the grace of embodied fact—the grace of being and doing.
O Jesus, in you what we hear we see—the hearing and the seeing are intertwined like the words and music of a song. We are enthralled by the wonder of it. Now reality has a face and hands and feet and a heart. We bow in the presence—the blessed presence of the Embodied. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: All my programs will be the interpretation of my person, for I must preach only what I produce.