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Summary
I totally get why we would want to write-in the name “Jesus” on our ballots in the upcoming election. But I need to break it to you: Jesus won’t be president. Once, they tried to make Him king (that’s a president), and He ran away. Once, He actually was on the ballot, and we all voted for Barabas. Even His base — His people, His hometown, folks like us — would not vote for Him once they understood His platform.
At the start of His ministry in Luke 4:16, Jesus comes home to Nazareth and, in the synagogue on the Sabbath, reads from the prophet Isaiah and then gives an expository sermon. “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me [Christos in Greek means “anointed”] to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty [aphesis: forgiveness] to the captives and the recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty [aphesis] those who are oppressed (literally, “crushed”) to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
And there, mid-sentence, at Isaiah 61:2a, Jesus rolls up the scroll and sits down (That’s what Rabis did when they were about to teach.) He says, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” “And,” Luke 4:22, “all spoke well of him and marveled at the words of grace that were coming from his mouth.” That’s a 100% approval rating.
People say that He got Himself crucified for claiming to be the Christ, but I don’t think that’s the real reason. At the start of His ministry, He publicly claimed to be the Christ while subtly implying that His listeners were actually the poor, captive, blind, and oppressed, and they all smiled, “marveled at his words of Grace,” and said, “That’s our boy; I’ve got the T-shirt; I vote for Jesus.” 100% approval rating.
And then, of all things, Luke 4:23-28, Jesus says, you know there were many starving widows in Israel in Elijah’s day, but he was only sent to a widow “in the land of Sidon… And there were many lepers in Israel in the time of… Elisha. And none of them was cleansed but only Naaman the Syrian.” Verse 29, “When they heard these things, all in the synagogue were filled with wrath (like vessels of wrath, grapes of wrath). And they rose up and drove him out of the town and brought him to the brow of a hill… so that they could throw him down the cliff.” That’s a 0% approval rating.
What happened? And why did He stop reading at Isaiah 61:2a, “to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor”? That line is most obviously a reference to the Year of Jubilee — “Jubilee,” which is a peculiar word for “trumpet” or “Ram’s horn.” After a sabbath of sabbath years, at the 50th year, on the Day of Atonement, at the sound of the trumpet, all debts were to be forgiven, prisoners released, and property returned to its original owner. Pretty great! …If you’re in debt, imprisoned, or exiled from your home….
“Anointed to proclaim the year of Jubilee.” That’s Isaiah 61:2a, and this is Isaiah 61:2b: “And the Day of vengeance of our God.” Liberals will argue that Jesus left 2b out because He believed that Isaiah just got it wrong. Conservatives will argue that Jesus left 2b out because He knew He would need to return sometime after 2024 and not be the same “yesterday, today, and forever” but become the vengeful, unforgiving, kick-ass Messiah that many seem to hope for. I opt for a third explanation: Isaiah 61:2c, “To comfort all who mourn…. ”
Do Canaanite (Sidon was the prototypical Canaanite city) starving widows mourn? Do Syrian generals (Naaman commanded the army of Israel’s arch enemy), afflicted with leprosy, mourn? Do people you hate and hold to blame mourn? If so “the anointed” will comfort them.
Does that make you angry and fill you with wrath? It could, until you saw the Truth, and then you would mourn. And then the Truth would comfort you.
The Day of Atonement was a prophetic picture of THE DAY OF ATONEMENT, when upon a tree in a garden on the Holy Mountain and at the edge of the eternal Seventh Day, Jesus cried, “Father forgive them. They know not what they do,” and “It is finished.” That’s Good News; that’s eternal Jubilee. But at first, it might not feel so good if you think someone owes you something; you’ve got someone in some sort of prison; or shut them out of your life because you want to be left alone, for you think that your life — “The Life” — is your own. Remember? We took it on a tree in a garden.
There was a time and a place when and where my life really felt like my own: It was the temple of my room — ski posters, rock collection and bug collection, and my drum light overhead. It was all about me. The last night I spent in my room was May 27, 1983. And that’s because May 28, 1983, was the Day of Vengeance upon the Kingdom of Peter Hiett. And of course, there’s only one to blame, and her name is Susan. For two decades, it had been all about “me,” and now I had to think “we.” But I sure did enjoy my new bedroom….Well, until August 26, 1988. That was the Day of Vengeance upon the Kingdom of Peter and Susan. And there’s only one to blame, and his name is Jonathan Hiett, the answer to our prayers. Then Elizabeth, Rebekah, and Coleman. I could blame them but don’t want to. The arrival of the Kingdom of Jesus is vengeance upon the Kingdom of “me-sus” in the way that my wedding day annihilated the kingdom that was my old room.
Families are made by God; cities (polis in Greek, like politician) are usually constructed by people (like Cain). They aren’t made by God with a covenant of grace but by people with a covenant of law. So, everybody has their own room, and all agree to protect those lonely rooms with walls between the rooms and around the city. And ironically, by protecting individual “rights,” everyone in each city begins to look exactly the same, for they are no longer held together by flesh and blood and sacrifice — that is, Love; they (it) are held together by fear.
In a democracy, it means that politicians aim for 51% that think the same, act the same, and talk the same, and blame the 49% while thinking of them, acting toward them, and talking of them as totally different — the scapegoat.
In Nazareth, Jesus read Isaiah 61:2a, but instead of reading 61:2b and c, He described it. Of course, they got angry; He was preaching the Gospel of Relentless Love and messing with their scapegoats (Canaanites, Syrians, and Romans who crucify Jews).
In Isaiah 61:3-8, Isaiah goes on to prophesy glorious things for Israel . . . and the same things for the nations. At the sound of the seven Jubilee trumpets, the seventh time around the city, the walls come tumbling down, and all are devoted to God as a sacrifice: Canaanites, Israelites, and all the children of Adam. We must all lose our lives and find them in Jesus.
In Isaiah 63:1-6, Isaiah prophesies the death and resurrection of Jesus, the Scapegoat. He tramples the winepress of the wrath of God alone. “The day of vengeance was in my heart, and the year of redemption (The Jubilee) had come,” says the Savior of all, “Yahweh is Salvation,” Jesus. . . our Scapegoat.
On the Day of Atonement, the sins of Israel were placed on the scapegoat, which was released into the wilderness, and on THE DAY OF ATONEMENT, the Scapegoat came in from the wilderness and offered Himself to God and all of us with Him. In this is Love. Life is a communion of sacrifice—the willing sacrifice called Love.
Carol Wilson’s father once saw a black man gun down a friend, and from that point forward, he hated all black people. Years ago, Carol went to visit her father in a nursing home in Ohio where she found him in his room, terrified, and shaking like a leaf. “Jesus Christ came to me,” he said, as he grabbed her arm . . . “And He was black.”
Of course He was. “Whatever you do to the least of these you do to me.” The least of the least of these is your scapegoat. And Jesus is the head of all Adam: black, white, Syrian, Canaanite, Edomite (Esau), Israelite (Jacob), and Roman.
Could anything crush a person’s bruised and swollen ego quite like discovering that the one on whom you had placed all blame for all your problems gave His life for you, even as you constantly took His life in anger?
When I blame others, I will come to see that I have blamed Jesus, the Judgment of God. And when I see that I have blamed Jesus, I will begin to blame myself. And when I begin to mourn, I will find someone comforting me in the temple garden that is my soul. My soul is the wilderness into which the Scapegoat has been sent. Jesus is the Scapegoat who brings me in from the wilderness to offer myself before the throne in the temple. At the tree, grapes of wrath are crushed, vessels of wrath become vessels of mercy, and blood that is wine flows as a river of life between every member of the living body and back to the throne in the living temple that is the body of Jesus the Christ.
Isaiah 66 is a picture of “all flesh” uncontrollably praising God for having delivered us from our lonely selves and into his City, His Body, His Bride, in everlasting Jubilee. In the End, we all blame God and discover that He has sacrificed Himself for all and for each. And that’s “The Good” and “The Life.” And so, there’s no one left to blame and all we can do is worship.
“I never heard my father say another hateful word,” said Carol, “and I have to share this story.”
It’s not the president that will change the world; it’s the story of Jesus. And if you want to share it, it’s not just you that’s sharing it; it’s Christ in you. Not your choice, God’s choice, the Judgment of Unconditional Love. He knows that we won’t vote for Him, so He votes for us and inside of each and all of us; He is the decision to love that is Love. And that’s why Jesus won’t be president; He’s already the King of Kings.