What anticipation must have filled the air, what fascination in the minds of the worshippers, as Jesus of Nazareth ascended the synagogue's bima (platform) to read from the Torah and the Prophets.

This son of Joseph and Mary had returned to his home village in the lower Galilee as a Prophet, announcing the in-breaking of God's redemptive reign in human affairs: "The Kingdom of Heaven (God) is here!" he boldly announced.

We can only speculate as to the assigned Torah portion that Sabbath morning long ago in Nazareth. But the concluding prophetic reading, the Haftarah, was the reader's choice—and its message is every bit as timely today as it was two thousand years ago.

After ascending the bima, Rav Yeshua (Rabbi Jesus) asked the attendant for the "Book of Isaiah" (Luke 4:17). Unfurling the scroll—like the one found intact among the scriptures discovered near the Dead Sea in Judea—he turned to his passage of choice and began reading:

"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me ... to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." (Luke 4:18-19 NRSV)

As "the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him," Yeshua rolled up the scroll and handed it to the chazan (attendant). He sat down, as was the custom, and began to expound upon the word of the Lord.

Two aspects of his reading of Isaiah are striking: the first, commonly noted; the second, rarely understood. First, Yeshua stops reading what we know as Isaiah 61:1-2 in mid-sentence.

The original text reads: "... to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor, and the day of vengeance of our God ..."

Jesus deliberately concludes his reading with the words sh'nat ratzon la'Adonai—"year of the Lord's favor." He desists from reading, v'yom naqam l'eloheinu— "and the day of vengeance of our God."

The point is pretty obvious: Yeshua's agenda as the Anointed (Messiah) of God is related to manifesting, extending and embodying God's favor toward men. He is not the divine Agent of God's judgment.

Second, out of the mouth of two witnesses a matter is established in Jewish tradition. To reinforce his point, therefore, Yeshua engages in a bit of creative reading and rabbinic exegesis of the Isaiah text.

He inserts a phrase—"to set at liberty those who are oppressed"—from the well known passage of Isaiah 58:5-6 immediately before his concluding reference to "the favor of the Lord." Why does he do this?

Very simply: to drive home a point.

Jesus connects his reading of Isaiah 61:2a to the only other passage in Isaiah—indeed in all the Hebrew Bible—that has the same exact phrase: ratzon la'Adonai (Isaiah 58:5b)!*

His use of this rabbinic technique of linking two texts that have the same key word or phrase (called Gezera Shava) dramatizes the main point and provides his interpretive key to the passage's intent.

To a stunned hometown audience, Jesus both announces his messianic identity and interprets his messianic task by a creative reading of the Isaiah scroll.

Contrary to the expectations of many, in Nazareth and the Galilee (including his cousin, John the Bapitzer), Jesus announces that the time is not yet for God's wrath to be poured out against wickedness, arrogance and the kingdoms of men.

No, that baptism of fire will come with a future Apocalypse. Now is the time for a baptism of the humble and repentant in the renewing waters of the Holy Spirit.

Yeshua emphasizes that today is the day of salvation, not of judgment. He announces the good news of God's favor, not the bad news of God's vengeance.

He is the Anointed one through whom God's kingship is breaking into people's hearts and lives, healing, saving, encouraging, comforting, delivering and making whole. The Messianic task as Jesus understood it is all about showing forth God's favor.

At his birth, angelic hosts announced God's shalom or peace coming on the earth and His favor upon men. Now, at the birth of his public ministry, Jesus echoes those glad tidings.

In him, we see Isaiah's prophecy being fulfilled and the favor of the Lord breaking forth. With him, we say, "Glory to God in the highest!"

* Discovery of this remarkably sophisticated exegesis by Jesus was made by Jerusalem School scholar, Dr. Steven Notley, noted in an article on www.jerusalemperspective.org.

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