Word of Life Church Podcast

On the Mount of Transfiguration Moses and Elijah appeared to Jesus and talked with him about the "exodus" he would soon accomplish in Jerusalem. This exodus is more than a euphemism for death. Just as Moses led Israel out of the empire of Egypt through a divine exodus, Jesus' cross opens the door for our exodus out of the empire of sin and death.

In announcing that God’s jubilee of liberation, amnesty, and pardon was arriving with what he was doing, Jesus omitted any reference to God exacting vengeance on Israel’s enemies. In claiming that Isaiah’s prophecy had been fulfilled in their hearing, Jesus is claiming to be Jubilee in person. But the scandalous suggestion is that this Jubilee is to be for everybody…even Israel’s enemies. Jesus has edited out vengeance, and this gives us a key to how Jesus read the Old Testament.

Ours is an angry and vociferous age. We’re constantly subjected to the noise of charged political rhetoric — the wearying din of the culture wars. Too often Sunday morning can be little more than a religious echo of this same noise. But shouldn’t Sunday be a Christian Sabbath, a time to quiet our souls and receive the gift of silence? What if, instead of being another contributor to this clatter, our churches became a shelter from the storm offering respite to shell-shocked souls?

When God gave Israel the Law, God also gave Israel a calendar. Included in Israel's sacred calendar was the year of Jubilee when debts were canceled, slaves were freed, and property inheritance was restored. The Jubilee was a divine liberation from debt, slavery, and eviction. During Israel's exile Isaiah prophesied of a Spirit anointed person who would announce the restitution of Jubilee. Six centuries later in the synagogue in Nazareth Jesus announced that he was fulling Isaiah's prophecy by announcing the arrival of God's jubilee

"Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace. Those four words seemed prescient. I don’t want to make too much of what was probably just a happy coincidence, but those four words did speak to me. Echoes, silence, patience, and grace. These were things I needed. I needed to hear echoes from the past. I needed to practice more silence in the present. I needed patience with the future. I needed grace to tie it all together. Like the five words in 2004, these four words in 2009 meant something to me. Four words from the Foo Fighters on the train to Assisi." - Pastor Brian Zahnd, "Water To Wine"