Lord's Year of Favour

(By Desmond Knowles. Source: Entering the Lectionary.)

3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time - Year C (27 January 2019)

Nehemiah 8:2–4, 5–6, 8–10. Psalm 19:8–10, 15. 1 Corinthians 12: 12–30. Luke 1:1–4; 4:14–21.

This text is being fulfilled today even as you listen.

A great moment in Jewish religious history is recalled in today’s gospel. Jesus was the center of attention when he declared the Lord’s year of favour as he preached in the synagogue of his home town of Nazareth, where he had been brought up. He opened the scroll and read that passage from the prophet Isaiah, who many years before declared that the long-awaited Messiah would bring Good News to the poor, proclaim liberty to captives, give sight to the blind and set the down-trodden free. When he had the full attention of the congregation, he calmly and deliberately announced, ‘This text is being fulfilled today even as you listen.’ It was a declaration that the moment of salvation had arrived and that he was the long-awaited Messiah, the fulfillment of Israel’s hopes and dreams. The effect was stunning as the locals tried to come to terms with the fact that the holy one of God had turned out to be one of their own. The hope of ages had been born in their midst. There was an air of expectancy at the realization that God, far from abandoning them, was near at hand, concerned and interested in their well-being.

The message of the gospel, first preached in Galilee, is to be spread today through us. The word of God which first came to birth in our souls at baptism is anxiously waiting to burst forth and take root in the lives of others. Every year is a year of favour from the Lord. There are so many ways we can make these words of Christ, about bringing glad tidings to the poor, liberty to captives and sight to the blind, our very own and have them fulfilled in our hearing. When we help those whose hearts have grown cold and are heavily weighed down, the love of God shines through us and we make them realize that Jesus Christ is not a memory but is living among us today.

We can touch people’s lives and be healers in times of estrangement, sympathetic listeners in moments of sorrow and towers of strength and loving care on the occasion of tragedy. To be successful channels of his message we have first to put our own house in order, by accepting the good news of Jesus, inviting him into our lives, so that he can show us the way. If we are privileged to receive the gospel, then the challenge arises as to what extent do we pass on this portrait of God’s favour to others by what we are. A question for all of us to ponder – what is the Good News proclaimed by my life to others today? There is nowhere we can walk in life without leaving the imprint of who we are, good or bad, upon the ground we tread.