Lectionary for Jan. 26, 2025
Third Sunday after Epiphany
Nehemiah 8:1-11; Psalm 19;
1 Corinthians 12:12-31a; Luke 4:14-21
Have you ever had to tell someone that what they just heard is actually good news? A friend’s daughter runs competitively and qualified for the Boston Marathon this year. As sometimes happens, the qualifying time was revised downward because too many people qualified. To ensure she would make the cut, my friend’s daughter wanted to requalify and cut 10 minutes off her time. But after running in yet another marathon, she was disappointed that she only sliced seven minutes from her previous qualifying time. In the process, however, she ran the fastest marathon of her life! She needed her father to remind her that her time, while not her goal, was a personal record and was very, very good news.
The lectionary passages this week contain stories of people hearing good news but not recognizing it fully until someone explained just how good what they heard was.
When Zerubbabel, Ezra and Nehemiah attempted to reestablish Judah under Persian rule, they repeatedly ran into a distinct issue: the people weren’t obeying the covenant, most likely because they hadn’t been taught God’s words. So on Rosh Hashanah (the feast of trumpets and start of the civil year) Ezra called a great assembly for all the people to hear the words of God.
The lectionary reading omits verses because the names can be difficult to pronounce, but Ezra carefully installed people on the platform with him to act as human megaphones. When he read a passage, the 13 men standing with him also read it to project the sound to the assembled crowd. Ezra had thoughtfully stationed several scholars among the crowd to explain and translate the texts as needed. He spent a great deal of time and forethought making sure the reading of Scripture would be accessible, because he wanted to make sure that everyone could experience the joy of learning the law (Psalm 1:2, 19:7-11; 119:111-112).
But the people didn’t experience joy! On the contrary, they wept with sadness. The text doesn’t describe why they were sad, only that their sadness was out of place. Nehemiah, Ezra and all the other leaders declared a pause on the reading so the people could celebrate that they were actually hearing good news. The leaders commanded the people to eat party foods and drink freshly fermented sweet wines so they could come back and hear the word of God as good news.
Going beyond the lectionary reading, one of the first things they learned from the public reading was that God wanted to celebrate their history of wilderness wandering and God’s provision for them during that time. They celebrated Sukkot (the feast of tabernacles) with more Scripture reading, more eating and more drinking (Nehemiah 8:13-14). Once the people were told what they were hearing was good news, they were able to celebrate!
The lectionary passages this week contain stories of people hearing good news but not recognizing it fully until someone explained just how good what they heard was.
Centuries later, Jesus returned to his hometown of Nazareth from his work around the Sea of Galilee, including in his adopted base of Capernaum. Every other town was thrilled to have this Galilean celebrity visit them, but we don’t have any description of the reaction to his return to Nazareth (Luke 4:15-16). Jesus quickly fell back into old patterns of visiting the synagogue (16) and rose to read from Isaiah, paraphrasing 61:1-2:
The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.
Jesus rolled up the scroll and sat down to preach his sermon and began by saying the Scripture was fulfilled in the hearing of the people. It is only at this moment that we have any sort of reaction from the denizens of Nazareth. There was no reaction for Jesus’ return to town, his entry into the synagogue or his reading of Isaiah. But once he began his sermon, telling the people that the good news proclaimed in the scroll of Isaiah was especially good news for them, did the people speak well of him and show amazement at his gracious words (Luke 4:22). Jesus had to tell them that what they were witnessing was, in fact, good news.
What does this mean? Let us be people who not only speak the good news but also recognize it when we hear it. It’s easy to put our heads down and shuffle through life. But every time someone says that God has been good or that Jesus was born, taught, healed, died and rose to life, I want to exclaim “Hallelujah, Amen!” Reading God’s law is good news worth celebrating, Ezra says. Reading Isaiah and God’s good news for the poor and the prisoner is always good news, Jesus says. And it is especially good news when the Word Incarnate proclaims the good news!
