| Sunday after Christmas , 2001
Isaiah 61; Luke 4:16-21
Liberty to the Captives
The captivity of Dayna Curry and Heather Mercer to the Taliban caught the attention of a lot of people. The two women were imprisoned with six other European Christians for sharing the Gospel with the Afghan peoples. When the capital city of Kabul fell to the anti-Taliban troops, the Christian prisoners were taken quickly out of their cells in the middle of the night and jammed into a van. The vehicle headed south for Kandahar. The prospect of going to Kandahar worried the Christians. As one of the captives commented: "We knew that if we ended up in Kandahar, we probably wouldn't survive there." After three hours the van stopped and the guards locked the prisoners in a metal crate. Temperatures dropped and they froze the rest of the night.
The next morning they started out again until American planes bombed nearby. This scared the guards. They decided to lock the workers in a filthy jail and wait until the planes left the area. However, a little later on, as Mercer and Curry looked out the window of the jail they noticed that the guards were running away. Half an hour later, men began pounding on the door. The eight captives assumed it was the enemy again. But when they opened the door, they saw different men. They were allies. One of the Afghans smiled and announced: "Freedom!"
With that word, not only were the eight relieved and overjoyed, but millions of Christians as well who had followed the story and were praying for the safety of the women.
The context for Isaiah chapter 61 is a prisoner's harsh chains and bondage. The prophet Isaiah lived at the time of the captivity of Israel. He gave notice that the Spirit had come upon him and anointed him for a purpose, and that purpose was "to preach good tidings to the poor, to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD." They were words of hope to the hopeless, for they promised freedom, restoration, and joy.
Seven hundred years later someone else quoted the same words - Jesus did. We see it in Luke 4:16. It occurred at the very beginning of Christ's ministry. Let us read that. [Read Luke 4:16-21.]
After His temptation in the desert Jesus returned to His hometown of Nazareth. He entered the synagogue where He regularly attended. (Our Lord's customary attendance at the synagogue ought to encourage our weekly attendance at Church.) At any rate, before the eyes of all, Jesus stood up and read the Isaiah passage, sat down, and declared: "Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing." In other words, Jesus applies Isaiah's words to Himself, as if the whole passage related to Him alone. It was a bold affirmation, and it is hard to know whether the people marveled more at His words or His audacity. And yet it was true then, and it is true today. As the Messiah, our Lord Jesus fulfills everything that Isaiah predicted. So on this Sunday after Christmas let us ask, In what way did Jesus proclaim liberty to the captives? How did He open the prison to those who were bound, and proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD? What kind of freedom was Jesus talking about?
"The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me to proclaim liberty to the captives." A lot of people would like to interpret those words socially, politically, or economically. Not too long ago the majority of seminaries were dominated by a fad called liberation theology. Many professors still believe this doctrine that attempts to blend Marxism with Christianity. According to liberation theology, just as Jesus came to destroy the oppressive social structures of His day, so the Church should now rise up against the Yankee imperialists. Jesus wants the church to spearhead the revolution against capitalist exploitation and free the third world to a proletarian paradise. Since the fall of the Soviet Union and many of its socialist satellites the Marxist model has been largely discredited. But liberation theology has proven to be Hydra-headed. You cut off one head and two others appear. Hence, the old liberation theology has been replaced by feminist theology and gay theology.
The feminist version asserts that Jesus came to topple the patriarchal institutions that oppress women and set them free unto a glorious feminist society. Gay theology advocates something similar. They see their world governed by homophobic social structures. Christ therefore came to set free homosexuals and lesbians by overthrowing homophobic oppression in every sphere of life.
Such notions are clearly ludicrous, and yet, the shelves of seminary libraries are loaded with this kind of drivel; seminaries and professors actually believe it and teach it, and if you understand this type of thinking you basically understand the direction in which the liberal churches and denominations are heading nowadays.
Jesus sat down in the synagogue in his home-town of Nazareth and announced: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, Because He has anointed Me To proclaim liberty to the captives To set at liberty those who are oppressed" What did He mean? We have traced a few erroneous readings. What would be a better rendering?
The spiritual significance is primary. Jesus was proclaiming the same thing that Isaiah was. Isaiah prophesied good tidings to those who were enslaved under the tyranny of evil; to those who were forsaken and abandoned and wretched in themselves. Slavery to sin is the starting point for understanding the ministry of Christ. When Jesus declared that He had come to preach the Gospel to the poor He was speaking of spiritual poverty. Christ comes to those who have been humbled and overwhelmed by a conviction of their own sin and distress, who have no confidence in their own goodness.
To appreciate the full effect of this passage we should recognize that it applies to us, just as much as it applied to the people living at the times of Isaiah and Jesus. Owing to original sin, we are the poor, brokenhearted captives. You and I are the prisoners of sin. Apart from the saving power of Christ, we have a disposition toward wickedness that is so strong, St. Paul called it slavery to sin (Romans 6:20). In John 8:34 Christ Himself taught, "every one who commits sin is a slave to sin." We are under the dominion of sin in the sense that it rules our hearts and wills. We have little inclination or disposition to obey God. Drug addicts and drunks and sexual sinners acknowledge this fact. Those of us who cannot control our temper, appetite, or selfish thoughts ought to acknowledge this as well.
We're by nature sinful, and thus the children of wrath. When we admit that we are sinful by nature, let's not misunderstand that phrase. Our nature is not sinful as created by God. Our Holy Father is a good God who created us good. Our nature is sinful as fallen creatures. It's out of that fallen nature that the New Testament describes us as being in bondage to a radical bent, or disposition to sin. After the Fall, and without Christ, the whole orientation of a person's life is one of hopeless bondage to the devil (Hebrews 2:14). There is really no neutrality; every person is bound either to sin and death or to godliness and life.
The perversity of the human heart is only part of the tragedy. The hideous and enslaving depravity of man's heart and mind can so rapidly deprave the life not only of an individual but of a community and a nation. In other words, sin spreads out. It affects the environment and covers creation like a filthy garment. The frightening and regrettable story of mankind is in large measure one of tyranny, brutality, lasciviousness, and superstition.
John Henry Newman probably read as much history as anyone who ever lived. After pondering the calamities of each and every age, he came to a gloomy conclusion. He wrote:
"To consider the world in its length and breadth, its various history, the many races of man, their starts, their fortunes, their mutual alienation, their conflicts; and then their ways, habits, governments, forms of worship; their enterprises, their aimless courses, their random achievements and acquirements, the short duration of man, the curtain hung over his futurity, the disappointments of life, the defeat of good, the success of evil, physical pain, mental anguish, the prevalence and intensity of sin, the pervading idolatries, the corruptions, the dreary hopeless irreligion, that condition of the whole race, all this is a vision to dizzy [one's head], and inflicts upon the mind the sense of a profound mystery, which is absolutely beyond human solution."
Newman paints a dismal picture. But we can't argue with him. His portrait is an accurate one. Due to sin, the whole world has been dragged down into a twisted mess. And what is the problem at its core? What is that evil that is the source for every other trouble? It is the heart of man. It is our hearts. They are captive to sin. You and I are "dead in sins and wickedness" and therefore we lie under the dreadful judgment of God. As the Prayer Book states in the Exhortation: we are "miserable sinners, who lay in darkness and the shadow of death."
It is in this context of slavery to sin that the words of the prophet Isaiah take on exhilarating joy. "The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me to proclaim liberty to the captives to set at liberty those who are oppressed."
Christ's incarnation is a rescue operation. The Christmas message begins with the fact that we all have a need for Christ's coming. We all have a need to be set free from our slavery to sin. God's work of redemption in Christ is essentially a rescue operation for the purpose of setting free those whose sin has placed them in hopeless bondage to the devil (Hebrews 2:14). This setting free, or liberation, comes with assurance that "if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed" (John 8:36).
The Lord shed His blood upon the Cross to redeem us from the shackles of sin. That is the Gospel message. The Gospel is one of grace. It is about what God does for us. We are not saved by our works, but by the work of Christ, who, by His grace, gives us salvation as a free gift. By grace Christ sets free the captives.
And what are we free to do? Are we free to act however we like? Are we free to say whatever we want, and go wherever we desire? Is Christian freedom the same thing as moral license? No, not at all! The true and authentic freedom of Christ is actually a freedom to serve God. That's right. We are free to be slaves to the will of God. In this matter of slavery, there is no neutrality. St. Paul insists that we are slaves "either of sin, which leads to death, or we are slaves of obedience, which leads to righteousness. So the important question that confronts us all is this: To whom are we enslaved? To what are we captive? You and I are either captive to a self-centered bondage to ungodliness, or captive to a God-centered bondage to sanctification.
Those who come to the Cross are liberated from sin's dominion. There is a complete reorientation of the will. The heart is changed in such a way that it no longer wants to be captive to sin, rather it wants to love and serve others. That is authentic liberty. Such freedom does not mean we no longer struggle against sin. Our propensity toward evil is the hardest battle we fight every day of our lives. The difference is this: the freedom of Christ gives us the victory. We desire to be like Jesus, and please our Heavenly Father.
This freedom not only rescues the heart and soul of believers, it restores the whole order of creation. The incarnation of the Son took place both to redeem mankind and the world. Another way of stating this is to say that salvation extends just as far and wide as the curse. If the curse has affected every square inch of the earth, then every square inch will one day be redeemed. If the curse has harmed plant life and animals, those crooked effects will be straightened.
In the past, Christians understood this far better than we do today. Isaac Watts penned some inspiring lyrics in 1719: "Joy to the world! The Lord is come: Let earth receive her King; Let every heart prepare him room, and heaven and nature sing, and heaven and nature sing, and heaven, and heaven and nature sing." Verse two goes: "Joy to the earth! The Savior reigns; Let men their songs employ: While fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains, Repeat the sounding joy, Repeat the sounding joy, Repeat, repeat the sounding Joy. The next verse is also good: "No more let sins and sorrows grow, Nor thorns infest the ground; He comes to make his blessings flow Far as the curse is found, Far as the curse is found, Far as, far as the curse is found." These are the blessings of Christ's coming to earth. We have the promise of Scripture that the fulfillment of the vast majority of what Isaac Watts describes will take place through the preaching of the Word and the celebration of the Sacraments in this present age before the End. It is no wonder that the mountains sing to the Lord, the trees clap their hands, and the hills skip like lambs (Isaiah 44:23; 49:13; 55:12; Psalm 114:4).
Though we were slaves of sin, by God's grace in Christ and through faith in Him we have been set free. If you have never repented of your sin, and put your faith in the blood of Christ, then you are still a slave to sin. Christ our Lord is the Great Transformer! He is the Great Liberator! Surrender your life to Him. Experience authentic freedom. As you now come to the kneeling rail for Holy Communion, may your hearts overflow with joy and thanksgiving for His Christ's coming to earth to give us freedom; freedom from the prison of sin; freedom to serve Him.
Return to Sermons |
