‘to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour ‘ Luke 4:19
The title of this blog comes from a song that was written to celebrate God’s creation of Adam. However, for those of us who know it we would associate it with discos and having a good night out but this was never the intention of the original writer of the song.
This got me thinking about our New Year’s resolutions and how we try and begin a New Year with great intentions to live better than the previous year or to transform the overindulgence of the month before.
Somewhere in us, we want to improve our health, wealth, and relationships; deep down, we know something needs to change.
I wonder what your resolution was; I wonder how long it lasted.
For those of us who seem to ooze self-control, we might even reach the end of the year with resolutions intact and ambitions achieved.
But the real question is did you choose the right resolution? Was your goal the right one? Who did it benefit you, others, or both? Is this yearly impulse to do better God’s plan for us?
If we’re honest, our resolutions are often about bettering ourselves and attempting to create a better outward representation to the world. For many of us, it becomes a means to hide what is inside, to ignore the pain, suffering and ugliness of our hidden sin.
If this is you, then I have great news for you. There is a means to end this suffering, a means by which you can deal with the hidden pain and ugliness that sin traps us in.
You won’t be surprised when I say Jesus is the source of this great news, but you may be surprised by why He is the solution!
In Luke 4 Jesus was in the synagogue reading from the scriptures and this particular day he was reading Isaiah 61 which said one was to come who would proclaim three things.
- Proclaim good news to the poor
- Proclaim freedom for the captives
- Proclaim the year of the LORD’s favour
And as Jesus closed the scroll he said ‘“Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”
These may mean very little to us but to the Israelites who heard this, it was the most shocking news as they knew it meant he was fulfilling the promise of the Year of the Sabbath and the Year of Jubilee. These were times in the calendar when all sins, all debts, and all failures were cancelled out. Everyone was free to begin life again without debt, without sin and shame for all they’d previously done wrong.
Can you imagine rather than making New Year’s Resolutions in an attempt to better ourselves we look to someone who can cancel out all our debts, all our sins, all that brings us shame, regret, and fear?
Well, I have ‘good news’ now is the year of the Sabbath, now is the year of Jubilee, now is the year of the LORD’s favour.
Now is the time for us to realise the reason we keep seeking for more is that we’re really poor because there is something we are lacking.
Now is the time we realise that everything we chase after is keeping us captive. That only Jesus has the power to set us free, free from our sin and the sin of others.
Why? Because Jesus is the ‘year of the LORD’s favour’. Jesus is who completes us.
Take time to read Isaiah 61. As God declares to the ancient world who his Messiah is going to be, today we can have confidence that the Messiah has come to not only proclaim but to also fulfill these ancient promises, which are as relevant to us today as they were to those who first heard them.
Isaiah 61:3
‘to bestow on them a crown of beauty
instead of ashes,
the oil of joy
instead of mourning,
and a garment of praise
instead of a spirit of despair.
They will be called oaks of righteousness,
a planting of the Lord
for the display of his splendor’.
So maybe your ‘new’, New Year’s resolution will be ‘let me be a display of your splendor, Jesus, as you turn my ashes of trauma into beauty, my mourning of sinful regret to joy, and my spirit of despair that grief and darkness will never end into a garment of praise’.
Now that’s what I think is worth celebrating!
Living His Word 