Today’s Gospel reading takes us to the synagogue at Nazareth. There children would be taught, and adults would gather to pray and sing and discuss the scriptures. It is the sabbath day and Jesus is invited to read. Apparently He deliberately chooses a passage from Isaiah, long regarded as referring to the Messiah. Then, as was the custom, He sat to preach. Jesus uses Isiah’s prophetic words as His own statement of intent: He has come to “bring the good news to the poor, to proclaim liberty to captives and to the blind new sight, to set the downtrodden free.” Jesus is a man with a mission: He has come with good news. The Gospel of St. Luke makes it clear that sharing this good news is an essential part of following Christ. The good news first delivered in the little synagogue at Nazareth spread throughout the then-known world, because people passed it on, passed it on, until it finally reached Rome itself. St. Luke’s Gospel has been specially identified as the Gospel of the compassion of Christ: Jesus reaches out to those in need, sits at table with the outcasts of His day – sick people, criminals, those who were poor. The Jesus of St. Luke did not come to to call those who were righteous and respectable, or who thought they were; He has much more time for those who are sinners and know it. The Jesus of St. Luke keeps strange company; His life begins in a stable with a pose of low-grade shepherds gathered round Him; and it ends with His being nailed to a cross between two criminals.
Each time we come to Mass that episode in the synagogue is being repeated. Today Jesus is here, today He’s bringing us good news, today He’s assuring us that He loves us and wants us to be His friends. Above all today He is proclaiming that the time of “God’s favor” has arrived. As we reflect – we can also take the time to thank God for the precious gift that has been given us in the Gospel of St. Luke.