Rendering Ministry of Justice - Rev. Varghese Enathickal

‘”The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him, and he began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing”’ (Lk.4:18-21).

According to verse 20, Jesus sat down “the eyes of all were fixed upon him.” Have you ever returned to the town where you were raised, and visited with people you knew when you were a child? That is the situation in which Jesus found himself. He was back in Nazareth, his ancestral home. He sat there and had their complete attention as he said, simply “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” The people listening to him were those who had probably known Jesus since he was a child — and they realized that he was claiming to be the Messiah! He was saying that he was the One who would fulfill the Messianic hope and prophecy of Isaiah 61.

If you read on you’ll find that the people of Nazareth were upset, angry and enraged that Jesus claimed to be the Messiah. Remember in John 1, ‘His own people received him not.’ Jesus was back in his hometown, instead of a warm welcome, they chased him to the edge of town hoping to push him over the side of a cliff and kill him. Talk about rejection! Talk about betrayal! Talk about injustice! That very injustice nailed him to the cross just two years later, and he died. If you ever feel victimized by injustice.

If you ever feel that something doesn’t go your way, do you know the One who relates to that more than anyone? Do you know the One who is by your side and will stand with you always, one who’s also been victimized by injustice? His name is Jesus. When Jesus ceases to be a dim religious figure of the past, and becomes the living Lord of your life you won’t think of him out there somewhere, but right there in your heart. Our heart starts to be broken by the things that break the heart of God.

Throughout his ministry Jesus talked again and again about the difference between hearing the word and doing the word. He said: ‘But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand’ (Mt.7:26). So Jesus called people not only to hear, but also to do the word of God. We read from the gospels that Jesus was an evangelist, and he was also concerned about social issues. Jesus spoke about the poor and the oppressed and the broken.

When you follow Jesus truly, you want evangelism and you want people to come to know Jesus Christ — not as a dim religious figure of history, but as a living Lord of light. That’s evangelism! But you should also be interested in social concern, social justice, reaching out, exhaling to a world in need after you’ve inhaled God’s love. Our concerns are either evangelism or of social concern. The problem lies when we do not unify both the concerns and march forward in the gospel. When the evangelical people don’t involve in social issues, their evangelism is not very authentic and lacks depth. When social activists don’t spend enough time in prayer and in reading the Bible, so their social activism lacks its full power. Lets combine the best of evangelism and the best of social action.