The Mission of Jesus
who executes judgment for the oppressed Psalm 146:7
Oppressed – How can we imagine that we understand what Jesus came to do if we do not know the Scriptures? And I don’t mean the books from Matthew to Revelation. None of those New Testament passages make any sense unless they are surrounded by God’s revelation to Israel – the Old Testament. Christianity does not begin with Matthew. And not a single author of the New Testament writings was very far removed from the God of Genesis to Malachi.
Take this praise song, for example. Psalm 147:7-9 should jump off the page for anyone who has read Luke 4. Did you think that Isaiah was the only one who announced that God’s mission among men had a social context? Centuries before Isaiah, David told us that God was at work in the world, bringing justice, healing, encouragement and protection. When Jesus quoted Isaiah, He simply connected His mission to the things God had been doing since the Fall of Man. Oh, and by the way, since every Jew in the synagogue knew this connection, what do you suppose they understood when Jesus made it? Only one thing could come to mind. Jesus just claimed to be God! (Go read the psalm again and see if that isn’t obvious). No wonder they were upset.
Now we get to ask the application question. If Jesus announces that His mission is the same in the first century as it was in the tenth century BC, do you supposed that it has somehow changed twenty centuries later? Do you think that just because the Father sent the Son to redeem us that we are no longer called to execute that mission? Is it now all just love and forgiveness without fighting for justice, feeding the hungry, opening the eyes of the blind, lifting the broken, and guarding the strangers and widows? Not a chance! When Jesus calls us to be like Him, He means that we are to take up the same mission. We are to be God’s representatives in the fallen world – and that is accomplished by doing that same things God has been doing in the fallen world for a very long time.
Soon we will be celebrating the birth of Yeshua, salvation among us. We will put on holiday cheer, give presents, overeat and entertain ourselves while we claim to be adherents of The Way. Most of our activities will reflect none of His mission. We won’t recognize that Jesus’ proclamation of His divinity was couched in actions toward the oppressed of the world. We will enjoy the Christmas plays and the choral music and never think that Jesus came to bring God’s comfort to those in real need. We have long ago removed Christmas from any serious consideration of the ‘ashuqim (the Hebrew word for “the oppressed”). But Psalm 147 will not let us forget the “catalog of the wretched.” They are the true recipients of Christmas joy. God came for them, not for the comfortably affluent and creditworthy middle class. The gift of Christmas is not found at Macy’s or an on-line retailer. It is found in the midst of poverty, in the stink and straw of an animal barn, in displaced people, hungry and without shelter, in birth without sanitation, in fathers who cannot provide and in the tears of the outcasts.
Where will you spend your Christmas – in the hotel – or in the manger?
