THE MINISTRY OF JESUS

It is early in the earthly ministry of Jesus. He has just spent forty days in the wilderness where he was tempted by Satan. The Bible tells us that after that time of testing, Jesus returned "in the power of the Spirit" to Galilee, where news about Him spread like wildfire.

On the next Sabbath, Jesus was in His hometown of Nazareth and, as was His custom, He went to the synagogue and stood up to read from the Scriptures. As He stood to read, the congregation was no doubt buzzing with excitement because of all they were hearing about Him.

It is at this point that Jesus makes a definitive statement about His mission - about who He is and what He came to do.

They handed Him the book of the prophet Isaiah and He read the passage that we know today as Isaiah 61:1.


“The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed; To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD.”



The next verse records that Jesus then handed the book back to the attendant and sat down.

There are two very interesting things about this passage. One is where Jesus stopped - after "to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord." The next verse in Isaiah says, "And the day of vengeance of our God." We can conclude from that omission that the second part of that sentence is still to come. Jesus came to fulfill the prophecy that He read; the "Day of Vengeance" is still yet to come.

The second interesting part of this passage is the use of the word 'liberty' twice. The term 'Liberty' means the ability for people to act in accordance with their free will. To be at liberty is be free to make your own choices. Jesus indicates here that His mission is to bring liberty to those who are in bondage or suffering under oppression.

If you unpack this section of scripture, this is what Jesus intended to accomplish:


• Preach the Gospel to the poor (Evangelism and missions)


• Heal the brokenhearted (Meet the spiritual and emotional needs of people)


• Tell those in captivity they are free (Deliverance from the bondage of sin)


• Tell those who are blind they can regain their sight (Open the eyes of those who are blind to the truth)


• Set the captives free (Evangelism and missions)


• Proclaim the year of the Lord (Impact the culture with the Gospel)



There is no doubt that Jesus meant for this statement as a whole to sum up his ministry. It is sad to realize that we, the church - the hands and feet of Jesus in the world today - so often approach the ministry of Jesus in a peacemeal fashion as if we were choosing entrées from the cafeteria. Rather than taking on the totality of this mission statement as our job description, we tend to want to be busy doing the parts that interest us.

So many of our churches zero in on one or two aspects of this mission statement and neglect the others.

Why is it that our great churches that burn with evangelical fire neglect social ministries as if feeding people and telling them the Good News of the Gospel were somehow mutually exclusive? Why is it that churches that tirelessly work to meet the needs of the poor and disadvantaged often neglect to do the work of an evangelist? Jesus didn't intend His mission statement to be either/or. It is to be both/and! We are all called to share in the ministry of Jesus - the whole ministry of Jesus.

When we emphasize one part of the ministry of Jesus and ignore the rest, we are telling only part of the story. Let's examine our approach to make sure we are telling the whole story and living out the totality of the Gospel message.

It is when we both show AND tell the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord that we are ministering as Jesus did!