It was, indeed, Divine wisdom' - the Spirit of the Lord' upon Him, which directed Jesus in the choice of such a text for His first Messianic Sermon. It struck the key-note to the whole of His Galilean ministry. The ancient Synagogue regarded Is. lxi. 1, 2, as one of the three passages, [2189] in which mention of the Holy Ghost was connected with the promised redemption. [2190] In this view, the application which the passage received in the discourse of our Lord was peculiarly suitable. For the words in which St. Luke reports what followed the Pethichah, or introductory text, seem rather a summary, than either the introduction or part of the discourse of Christ. This day is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears.' A summary this, which may well serve to guide in all preaching. As regards its form, it would be: so to present the teaching of Holy Scripture, as that it can be drawn together in the focus of one sentence; as regards its substance, that this be the one focus: all Scripture fulfilled by a present Christ. And this - in the Gospel which He bears to the poor, the release which He announces to the captives, the healing which He offers to those whom sin had blinded, and the freedom He brings to them who were bruised; and all as the trumpet-blast of God's Jubilee into His world of misery, sin, and want! A year thus begun would be glorious indeed in the blessings it gave.
There was not a word in all this of what common Jewish expectancy would have connected with, nay, chiefly accentuated in an announcement of the Messianic redemption; not a word to raise carnal hopes, or flatter Jewish pride. Truly, it was the most un-Jewish discourse for a Jewish Messiah of those days, with which to open His Ministry. And yet such was the power of these words of grace.' that the hearers hung spell-bound upon them. Every eye was fastened on Him with hungry eagerness. For the time they forgot all else - Who it was that addressed them, even the strangeness of the message, so unspeakably in contrast to any preaching of Rabbi or Teacher that had been heard in that Synagogue. Indeed, one can scarcely conceive the impression which the Words of Christ must have produced, when promise and fulfilment, hope and reality, mingled, and wants of the heart, hitherto unrealised, were wakened, only to be more than satisfied. It was another sphere, another life. Truly, the anointing of the Holy Ghost was on the Preacher, from Whose lips dropped these words of grace.' And if such was the announcement of the Year of God's Jubilee, what blessings must it bear in its bosom!
The discourse had been spoken, and the breathless silence with which, even according to Jewish custom, it had been listed to, [2191] gave place to the usual after-sermon hum of an Eastern Synagogue. On one point all were agreed: that they were marvellous words of grace, which had proceeded out of His mouth. And still the Preacher waited, with deep longing of soul, for some question, which would have marked the spiritual application of what He had spoken. Such deep longing of soul is kindred to, and passes into almost sternness, just because he who so longs is so intensely in earnest, in the conviction of the reality of his message. It was so with Jesus in Nazareth. They were indeed making application of the Sermon to the Preacher, but in quite different manner from that to which His discourse had pointed. It was not the fulfilment of the Scripture in Him, but the circumstance, that such an one as the Son of Joseph, their village carpenter, should have spoken such words, that attracted their attention. Not, as we take it, in a malevolent spirit, but altogether unspiritually, as regarded the effect of Christ's words, did one and another, here and there, express wonderment to his neighbour.