"Jesus stood up to read ... (from) the prophet (and said) .... Today this scripture has been fulfilled." (16, 17, 21)

George Bush was elected president of the United States in November of 2000. Shortly thereafter I read a quote in the Sacramento Bee, by one of his Associate Pastors at his home congregation in Texas. The pastor said, "he is the new Moses!" I was not quite sure what slavery or what wilderness the pastor would have President Bush lead us out of or save us from, but I wrote the Pastor a note and said I was withholding my acclamation until I saw where president elect Bush would take us. I was for that moment from Missouri, ‘show me’, and then I will follow.

It is similar in this Sunday’s gospel text. Jesus, returning from the wilderness and the devil’s temptations, receives praise for his work from the people in Galilee. (15) The people in the surrounding area of Nazareth are pleased with him. Then heading home, at Sabbath worship Jesus’ equates himself with the words of the prophet. It is the case of another prophet who will lead the people of God, but will they follow? Luke writes that what Isaiah prophesied is complete in Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus has "good news for the poor, release for the captives, sight for the blind, and freedom for the afflicted." (4:18)

But, the people in Nazareth will want proof. They will not follow before they know where they are going. In next week’s gospel they get so upset with Jesus; they take him to a hill outside Nazareth prepared to kill him for his arrogance. Jesus would have them go where they have never traveled. Jesus wants them to dare to explore what Isaiah prophesies is for all people. The difficulty is that his home town is very comfortable, thank you very much, with life as it is.

What then can this possibly mean to us? Preachers in our faith have been engaging God’s people with the meaning of scripture before Ezra read the law at the Water Gate and the people wept. (8:9). Ezra blessed the Lord and read, ‘do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength’.’ (10)

We continue Ezra’s custom this morning. We blessed the Lord. We read God’s word and soon will share in a small meal with sweet wine. (9) We have with song, voice and music, prayed and blessed God in worship.

Now the preacher, puts God’s word into common parlance so that the gathered will understand, as with Ezra, who "gave the sense, so the people understood." (Nh 8:6) Before Nehemiah and Jesus followed this custom of worship, our Hebrew heritage made sense of the history of God’s life in our midst in the same way. It has always been our practice to read the scripture and understand it for ourselves from what was originally spoken.

From the two creation stories in Genesis to the meanderings of the Exodus, and the exile and return from Babylon, which Jesus quoted from Isaiah; we gain provision for our lives. We have been making sense of the lean years and the fat years of God’s people since Abraham was called out of Ur of the Chaldeans,

Ezra and Jesus did the same. This is our custom and in this case it is up to us to search out our poverty, our confinement, our ailments, and our affliction. (4: 18) If we have none of these disorders, then Jesus’ message has nothing to say to us. Luke writes this is how it is that Jesus has come into our midst.

We have no need of Jesus, if we are not poor, captive, blind or fettered. (18) When Jesus fulfills this scripture, preaches it to all within hearing – then it is for us as well. For Christians, Nehemiah’s word is fulfilled in Christ as well. Jesus is prepared to lead where we can follow, but what wilderness – what Egypt do we need to be led out of?

Nehemiah covers it with one word. "Do not be grieved...." (8:10) Nehemiah faces Jesus’ poverty, enslavement, lack of sight and liberty with one word. Ezra sums up the problems that Jesus addresses with the word - grief. This is a word we are use to as well. We grieve our losses – say when we lose our health, or through divorce lose a marriage, or in death when there is loss of life. We grieve. Grief is nothing new to our day and age. It has its place.

For Luke, grief belongs to the poor who have no visible means of support. They are dead. The jailed cannot move about and the blind cannot see. The people Jesus has good news for are as good as dead. They haven’t got the spirit of life in Jesus’ Israel.

But there is a joy, a fulfillment in the midst of all life’s sorrow that is ‘the strength of the Lord’. (8:10) This isn’t to say that we hide our heads in the ground when troubles surround us. Neither do we sentimentalize poverty, prison, ill health or the anarchy surrounding the Nazarenes. It is not fair to simply dismiss Roman and Galilean circumstances as worse than our lives in the United States.

Grief abounds here, as well, from teenager’s street racing, to a mother’s unwarranted drowning and children’s untimely deaths, to overflowing prisons and international governments that don’t care a fig for their people. These are worth our grief. We can share with individuals, families and nations their sorrow because there is good news.

In the midst of all the poverty -- Jesus comes to bring us the strength of God. God knows grief. God is with us in the midst of grief. God gives a delight beyond ourselves. God leads our way in the Ezra’s of scripture completed in Jesus of Nazareth.

God’s prophet-leader is the One, filled with the power of the Spirit – the One whose "strength is the joy of the Lord." (8:10) the One who leads us out of the ‘bondage’ of grief.