Third Sunday of Epiphany, 26 January
Readings: Neh. 8. 1-3, 5-6, 8-10; 1 Cor. 12. 12-31a; Lk. 4. 14-21
Theme: Reading the Scriptures
Chapter four of Luke’s gospel narrates the beginning of the Galilean ministry of Jesus. Just like the priest and scribe Ezra, Jesus reads the scriptures for the people. When the New Testament refers to the ‘Scriptures’ it means what we would call the ‘Old Testament’. At the time of the book of Nehemiah, which was written in the latter half of the fifth century BC, following the return of the people from Babylonian exile during the period of the Persian rule of Artaxerxes I in Palestine, the project at hand was one of reconstruction and rebuilding. Reconstructing the capital of Judah, in the southern half of the country, and rebuilding the walls of its capital, Jerusalem. All this rebuilding is a key moment in the formation of what we would today call Judaism: the religion of the book, of Torah, the religion of the book of the law of Moses. It is this reading of the law of Moses which constitutes the Jews as a people, as a religion who follow God’s law as given to Moses. You might say, it is the founding of the nation in a moment of the reading of the constitution, as we would say in modern democratic terms. The identity of the people is given through the laws that they follow as these embody the meaning and values of what it is to be Jewish.
So, when Jesus goes to the synagogue, in his home town of Nazareth in the Galilean countryside, he unrolls the scroll to read Isaiah 61. 1-2 for those gathered in the synagogue for worship and teaching. This is another moment, like in the time of Nehemiah, of reconstruction and of rebuilding. Though this time, it is not the city of Jerusalem and its walls that will be rebuilt, but rather the hopes and the longings of the people of Israel for the messiah to come and to fulfil the promises made to them long ago through the patriarchs and the prophets. Now is the time for this accomplishment. Today is the moment for the ministry of Jesus in the North of the country in the region of the sea of Galilee to begin the restoration of the North with the South, of Israel with Judah, the reuniting of the divided kingdom under the true king of Israel, Jesus.
This means that the one who is reading the Scriptures in the synagogue is none other than Israel’s God himself in the person of Jesus. If the Scriptures are the biography of God and God’s dealing with his people, when Jesus reads the prophet Isaiah, he unveils the meaning of the Scriptures as now revealed in his own person. He is the one who has been anointed to bring good news to the poor, to proclaim release to captives and the recovery of the sight to the blind. He is the one who will let the oppressed go free and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour. In other words, he is the messiah. The one that the Hebrew Scriptures had foretold would redeem his people. This redeemer is Jesus, who is the embodiment of Israel’s God. This is why at the end of our reading from the gospel for today, we have those words of Jesus which state that, ‘Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing’. Jesus is the one who fulfils the promises made to Israel.
What does this tell us about how we should read the scriptures? Crucially, it tells us that as Christians reading the Bible, we should read it backwards. What does it mean to read the Scriptures backwards? It means that in order to understand the Old Testament, from a Christian perspective, we need to interpret it as being fulfilled in Jesus. This does not mean that we ignore the historical context of the original text, we clearly need to understand that in order to be able to interpret how Jesus is the fulfilment of it, but it does mean that what the New Testament is doing is showing us how it fulfils the Old Testament promises.
This means that the narrative structure of the New Testament is in many ways a re-reading of the Old Testament through the experience of the death and resurrection of Jesus in the early Christian communities. Once the early followers of Jesus had grasped what Jesus had said and done in his ministry, following his resurrection and ascension, it then became clearer to them just how it was that Jesus was indeed the God of Israel. So, the motifs of the Old Testament, such as exodus and return, the scattering and the bringing together of the tribes of Israel, and the promises made to their ancestors and their fulfilment, are all used by the gospel writers to provide a framework for narrating the sayings, the teachings and the actions of Jesus as the accomplishment of all of these motifs in Jesus, the God of Israel.
This is why Judaism and Christianity are so interwoven with each other. You might say that Christianity is one of the streams following through Judaism, almost as if it is one of its lost tribes, that needs to be united with the other tribes in order for the new Israel to be reconstituted. Consequently, rather than seeing Judaism as the Old and Christianity as the New, it is better to see both Judaism and Christianity as parts of a whole that are still in the process of being reunited. Furthermore, the Samaritans, who are not Jews, are also a part of this eschatological Israel. The fulfilling of the promise of reuniting all the peoples under the one God of YHWH, who has visited his people in the person of the Son. This final reuniting of all the peoples is the work of the Holy Spirit in history who is bringing to fulfilment the union of all peoples with the God of Israel, Jesus. So, when we read the Scriptures, we should do so backwards, so that we can look forwards to the future coming of the King of Israel in all his glory.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.