NOTES for Luk 4:18-19

The prophet's words that he is sent to testify to "the year of Yahweh's favor" ("the acceptable year of the Lord" in the Synodal translation), Jesus plainly applies to Himself. The corresponding prophecy was obviously messianic for everyone, and the "year of favor" was understood as the year of the Messiah's coming. Jesus applies what was said to His own coming, thereby hinting at His own messiahship, about which He almost never spoke directly. Such hints were apparently connected with the fact that His messiahship plainly corresponded neither to popular messianic ideas nor to the expectations connected with them.

On the one hand, Jesus had to let those who listened to Him understand that the messianic age had arrived and that He Himself was the expected Messiah; but at the same time His plans certainly did not include becoming the leader of a mass messianic religious-political movement, to which everything would inevitably have been reduced had He declared His messiahship directly and openly. The hints and the corresponding messianic Old Testament texts were meant not only to make the listeners suppose that the speaker was bearing witness about Himself as the Messiah, but also to make them think about why He was not saying this directly.

In this way Jesus wanted to cut off the idly curious and those who were satisfied only by traditional ideas, or by their own ideas, about the Messiah and about what He should be like. He wanted to attract the attention of those who understood the language of subtle hints and were ready to see a completely unexpected Messiah, whose image did not fit into the usual frames and traditional schemes.

Besides cutting off those who were eager to begin a messianic war immediately, there was another goal here. A person following Jesus had to be ready for surprises, precisely there and then where and when they would least be expected. Both His own path of the cross and resurrection and the path of those who followed Him were unlike anything known and familiar.

Here it was often necessary to act in a situation where logic and traditional models failed completely and could only get in the way. And it was better to prepare His disciples for this from the very beginning, from the very beginning to make them see the traditional and familiar in an unexpected and unfamiliar way. Sometimes such a look could even shock, but it was better to go through the shock at the beginning of the path, so as to become used to it and in the future, when there would be much more that was shocking in life, already accept it as a natural and inevitable part of the Christian's path.

In Christ the prophecy was fulfilled. But whom is it speaking about? It is still possible to understand why healing is given to the broken, release to captives, and sight to the blind. But why is joy promised only to the poor, and freedom only to the oppressed? And what does that have to do with me? Of course, I am sometimes oppressed, but not all the time!

It is no wonder that not everyone in the synagogue reacted properly... Or should we still try to reread this passage once more and try to enter into the meaning of these words, to discover in ourselves the need, the thirst for freedom and healing? Otherwise Jesus will have to go to another town again...

Today's reading prompts us to reflect on the truth expressed in a well-known saying whose Gospel origin, however, is far from universally known today: no prophet is accepted in his own country (v. 24). By quoting a messianic passage from the Book of Isaiah, Jesus quite plainly identifies Himself as the One of whom the prophet spoke (vv. 17-21). At first glance, His listeners' reaction seems paradoxical: on the one hand they agree with Jesus, but on the other they immediately begin to doubt. How could their fellow townsman, whom they had known since childhood, make any claim to be the Messiah (v. 22)? They demand miracles from Him not as signs of the Kingdom but as proof of His messiahship (v. 23). It is then that Jesus speaks the bitter words about a prophet in his own country (v. 24).

Yet the paradoxical reaction of Jesus' listeners was actually quite understandable, and not merely because “great things are best seen from a distance.” The issue here was ordinary familiarity, which often proves to be one of the most serious obstacles on the spiritual path. Their doubts are justified, not by chance, with the thought that they have known Him since childhood: “Is not this Joseph's son?” So how could there be any question of messiahship? Of course, if Jesus had been recognized by respected people or official authorities and they had directly identified Him as the Messiah, He would undoubtedly have been welcomed with joy and celebrated as a famous fellow townsman. But there was no official recognition, and the townspeople had to decide for themselves. The force of habit weighed upon them.

Fallen human beings tend to see reality not as it is but as they are accustomed to seeing it. Clichés are common and widespread, and they arise for a reason: reducing reality to patterns and using ready-made models to describe it form a kind of psychological mechanism by which human beings adapt to the world—a mechanism without which, after the Fall, they can no longer manage. Yet this same adaptive mechanism often prevents a person from seeing what is new and unusual. It offers ready-made patterns and models where they do not apply, where the realities involved fit no pattern and can be described by no model.

The Kingdom to which Jesus bears witness is just such a reality. It fits no familiar framework. Yet Jesus' fellow townspeople do not want to lose that framework; they are prepared to defend it at any cost, and Jesus simply will not fit within it: an unrecognized Messiah, a disturber of the peace, someone passing Himself off as no one knows whom and claiming what no one in their small town had ever claimed or would ever have dared to claim. This is how He appeared to the people of Nazareth. They were left with only one remedy: to rid themselves of their excessively troublesome fellow townsman. And they would have done so if they could (vv. 28-30).

As we can see, it is not only the hatred of religious rigorists and the maneuvering of politicians that lead Jesus to the cross. He is driven there also by the narrowness of fallen human nature.

The year of the Lord's favor, or the year of the Lord's mercy in another translation, is what Jesus came to announce to us. Under the pressure of difficult circumstances in life, we often forget that the true purpose of His coming is precisely this. And that this year has already been brought into the world by Him, although for now it remains hidden. What is it? Where can it be seen?

Perhaps today's Gospel passage itself serves as the answer to this question. Christ passed through the hardest trials in the wilderness, endured them, and came to possess some special power, some special peace, radiating uncreated light. We understand this from the reaction of the people in the synagogue, who had come to an ordinary Sabbath gathering. The reaction was unexpectedly fitting, which was rare with Him in the synagogue, at least at first. Yes, later they were filled with rage, but at first they "bore witness to Him." Perhaps in that brief opening moment He in some especially obvious way manifested the year of the Lord's favor in Himself.

Yes, but that is Him; what about us? Let us remember a time when we honestly prepared ourselves, fasted, prayed with some special strength, then came to the liturgy, brought our repentance to the Lord, received the Holy Mysteries of Christ, and... do we not feel the year of the Lord's mercy in our soul at that time? Perhaps it is exactly like that.

The Lord proclaimed the fulfillment of the prophecy. The acceptable year of the Lord had come. But where is it? Why do we see the opposite, that the world still lies in evil, that the unjust are exalted and the just are trampled down? Then it is not so. The prophecy did not come true. How can we accept the thought that the Lord's prophecy did not come true?!

Two things can be said in response to these doubts. The first, and apparently very important, is that the concept of "prophecy" must not be understood narrowly or in a utilitarian way. Fortune-tellers claim to tell you your fate, "what will happen." It would be more accurate to call prophecy a revelation of God's will. But there is also human will. God is not a conductor, and the world is not a stage, because everything happens in the complex interaction of two wills: the human and the divine. The Lord took His step and fulfilled what He had promised; after that, it was up to our will to accept it or not accept it. We did not accept it. And if we had accepted it, without question everything described in Isa. 61 would already have reigned on earth for two thousand years. But we did not accept it; we ourselves did not want to, or more precisely, we were not yet ready.

And second: there were people who did accept it. Yes, and precisely for that reason the prophecy did come true after all. That is why Theophan the Recluse writes: "The Lord came not only to announce the acceptable year, but also brought it. Where is it? In the souls of believers."

The problem of insiders and outsiders has always existed, in every society and every culture. Everywhere and always it has turned out that it is better to be an insider than an outsider. But then the Messiah came into the world, and it turned out that everything was not so simple. It turned out that an insider is not necessarily someone we know. Most often it is someone we think we know. And this is understandable: we perceive our own people as part of the familiar and known world. There is no need to look closely at them, and no need to listen carefully to their words. In general, we already know more or less what our own people can tell us.

Outsiders are another matter. An outsider is always someone you do not know. Someone who is not part of the known and familiar world, and here it does not matter where he is from: another continent or the neighboring village. Outsiders are often rejected, but they are always looked at closely. People listen to what they say. Not necessarily in a friendly way, but always attentively. After all, an outsider has to be understood. Or at least explained to oneself. Explanation is often an illusion of understanding. Understanding presupposes the perception of another person as he is. Explanation begins when we perceive this other person as we want to see him, so that he will fit within the bounds of our perception of the world familiar and known to us.

Christ can and must be accepted as He is. And He can and must be understood too - also as He is. But He does not need to be explained. Not to ourselves and not to others. Provided, of course, that we want to communicate with Christ and not with our images of Christ. And here it turns out that it is easier for those to whom He is an outsider. They know nothing about Him. His own people also know nothing about Him, but they think they know everything. Unlike outsiders, who at least are not mistaken about their ignorance. And it is this way not only with Him.

It is this way with God too. With His heavenly Father. It is no accident that Jesus gives examples from ancient Jewish history of God's not being recognized by His own people. A failure to recognize Him that separates people from God. And from the Messiah too. For God or the Messiah to begin to act, a person must want it. And must turn directly to God. Directly to Christ. But not to those images of God or Christ that he has invented for himself. Otherwise even the Kingdom may turn out to be unreal. Imagined. And so may life in it.