Jesus preaches the shortest homily in history! In today’s Gospel Jesus reads a text from the prophet Isaiah and then gives a homily on this text. While His homily is very short it sets forth the mission that He will fulfill in the rest of the Gospel. His homily is one short sentence: “Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.” The Scripture passage He has just read is Isaiah: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me…he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor…to proclaim liberty to captives…to let the oppressed to free…to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.” (Isaiah 61:1-2).
Jesus’ mission is one of release and forgiveness. God has sent Jesus into the world to those burdened with both physical and spiritual sickness. The rest of the Gospel will make concrete this mission of release and healing. Jesus is empowered for this mission by the Spirit: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because God has anointed me.”
In our baptism you and I have also been anointed with the holy Spirit. After we have been baptized the priest or deacon says the following prayer: “God now anoints you with the chrism of salvation. As Christ was anointed Priest, Prophet, and King, so may you live always as a member of his body, sharing everlasting life.” In baptism we become members of the Body of Christ and are empowered by the Spirit “to bring glad tidings…to proclaim liberty.” Like Jesus, we can see ourselves, our call and mission in these words of the prophet Isaiah. We can actualize these words in our daily life and declare: “Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.”