Advent III
Advent continues as we approach Isaiah 61 from different perspectives.
Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11
1The spirit of The Living God is upon me,
because The Living God anointed me.
God has sent me out
to bear tidings of good news to the poor,
to piece back together the heartbroken,
to proclaim to captives—liberty,
and to those bound up—an opening up,
2to proclaim a year of pleasure belonging to The Living God
and a day of vengeance belonging to our God,
to comfort all mourners,
3to provide for the mourners of Zion,
to give to them a head covering instead of ashes,
oil of rejoicing instead of mourning,
an outer garment of praise instead of a disheartened spirit.
They will be called mighty trees of righteousness,
a planting of The Living God,
to show God’s glory.
4And they will rebuild the ancient ruins,
the former desolations, they will raise.
And they will make anew the wasted cities,
the uninhabited settlements of generation and generation.
8For I, The Living God, love justice,
I hate robbery and injustice.
I will give them their rewards faithfully,
And an everlasting covenant I will cut with them.
9And their descendants will be made known among the nations,
and their offspring among the peoples.
All who see them will recognize
that they are the descendants The Living God has blessed.
10I will rejoice, rejoice, I say, in The Living God,
my whole being will exult in my God,
for God has clothed me with garments of salvation,
with an outer garment of righteousness, he covered me.
As the bridegroom wears a head covering
and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.
11For as the earth brings out its sprouts,
and as a garden causes its sown things to sprout,
so The Living God will cause to sprout righteousness
and a song of praise before all the nations.
A Close Reading of Isaiah 61
(Adapted from my book, Unto Us A Child Is Born)
The first four verses of this passage are divided into two sections: the first section deals directly with the figure’s anointing and prophetic tasks (verses 1–3a); the second section speaks about the effects for the people who are privy to this anointed leadership (verses 3b–4).
In the first section, it is hard not to recall King David, given the dual motifs of anointing and spirit. 1 Samuel 16:13a states,
“Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him [David] in the midst of his brothers. And the spirit of The Living God entered David from that day going forward.”
The figure is anointed to proclaim good news, release, and jubilee. These are words of hope and comfort addressed to the poor, the heartbroken, captives, prisoners, and mourners. While it may be that spiritual destitution is in mind as well, the common meaning of these words points in a socioeconomic direction. They fit the beleaguered context of the postexilic community well. With the use of “good news” we are reminded of Isaiah 52:7:
“How delightful upon the mountains are the feet of the one bearing good news, the one bringing peace. . . . ”
These verses in Isaiah 61 do not appear to have an eschatological tone to them; they are not concerned with the distant future or the end of the world. The focus is on a current message of hope for the hopeless. The figure is anointed and uses the Hebrew word that will later in history be translated as “messiah,” yet this period does not have a fully developed notion of a messiah.
The second section (verses 3b–4) notes the results of this restoration of the community. They will be called righteous terebinths; they will rebuild ancient ruins and renew ruined cities. The most likely historical reference here is the return of the exiles to the land of Judah and the renewal of community back in their homeland. Ruin and devastation, caused by the Babylonians’ conquest of the area, are now envisioned as rehabilitated. Although the language may connote spiritual matters, the plain meaning of the text refers to physical restoration.
Verses 8–11 are best read in two sections. Verses 8–9 conclude a larger subsection of text, an oracle of salvation that began in verse 7. These verses speak of God’s love and hatred for specific actions. God loves justice and hates wrongdoing. These are the types of statements we associate with the Hebrew prophets. Also, God’s promises to make an everlasting covenant with God’s people, one that will include blessings for their descendants. For a people who were threatened by destruction, the mention of descendants is a powerful assurance. For a people who rightly questioned the notion of God’s covenant, given the brutality of exile, this mention of an everlasting covenant is a balm of comfort.
Verses 10–11 turn to rejoicing! Indeed, the tone of this portion is one of jubilation. While God voices verses 8–9, these final verses are spoken by the leader or perhaps the whole people, who lift praise because of God’s great salvation. The speaker is like both bride and bridegroom arrayed in the splendor of God’s garments; meanwhile, God is a gardener tending the shoots and bulbs. These hopeful words are a fitting ending to this chapter of promise.
Isaiah 61 and Luke 4
Isaiah 61 appears on the lips of Jesus in Luke 4 in the story of Jesus’s rejection in his hometown of Nazareth. Jesus stands up to read a scroll in the synagogue, and we hear Isaiah:
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” (Luke 4:18–19, New Revised Standard Version)
As in Matthew 11 and Luke 7, these actions of liberation are presented as occurring in the present tense. They are not just dreaming for the future. Furthermore, the identity of the figure, which is so disputed in the originating context of postexilic Judah, is now clearly framed as Jesus. Of course, one can ponder how precisely Jesus is understood here—as prophet? as king?
But the Gospel writer is clear that God’s spirit and anointing is upon Jesus. He will deliver the good news! Despite a history of interpretation that spiritualizes this statement, it is evident in the context of Luke that social and economic issues are in view. These are the economically poor, not just the spiritually poor. The beginning of Jesus’s ministry in Galilee is framed using the liberation concerns of Isaiah 61.
Luke 4 notes that the people who heard this declaration were at first amazed, but soon their marvel turned to rage:
“If the people of Nazareth were shocked and offended by Jesus’ sermon, what offended them was not the concept of the herald or his message, but the idea that the son of a local carpenter could claim such a role in the unfolding drama of salvation.” (John J. Collins, “A Herald of Good Tidings: Isaiah 61:1–3 and Its Actualization in the Dead Sea Scrolls” in The Quest for Context and Meaning: Studies in Biblical Intertextuality in Honor of James A Sanders, ed. Craig A. Evans and Shemaryahu Talmon (Leiden: Brill, 1997), 240.)
Indeed, Jesus, in Luke’s account, does claim this role for himself. The rejection that he encounters is not the rejection of a prophetic or kingly leadership that offers good news to the poor. Their rejection is of their hometown son as this leader.
The Joy Candle of Advent
On the Third Sunday of Advent, many congregations light the Joy candle in their Advent wreath. This theme can be explored profitably in Isaiah 61 in at least two ways. First, the good news proclaimed is one of joy. In fact, probably in an attempt to avoid the Christian term “good news” in its translation of Isaiah 61:1, the 2003 Jewish Publication Society Tanakh renders it thus: “He has sent me as a herald of joy to the humble.” During Advent, we might ask how we are heralds of joy during this time of stress and rush. In a season of joy, it seems natural to feel otherwise. To be a herald of joy we first need to be a container of joy.
Second, verses 10–11, often overlooked in this passage, are joyful praises to God for God’s incredible act of salvation and deliverance. Verse 10 begins, “I will rejoice, rejoice, I say, in The Living God, my whole being will exult in my God.” The deep, abiding joy of Advent is expressed in this type of rejoicing, which leads to the enumerations of God’s blessings to us. God the gardener (Isaiah 61:11) wishes for our sprouting of joy.
Black Theology: A Theology of Liberation
One cannot do justice to the complexity and power of a decades-old tradition such as Black theology in a paragraph or two. Nevertheless, it bears noting that Black theology emphasizes that Christian theology is a theology of liberation. James Cone proclaims,
“The task of Christian theology, then, is to analyze the meaning of hope in God in such a way that the oppressed community of a given society will risk all for earthly freedom, a freedom made possible in the resurrection of Christ.” (James H. Cone, A Black Theology of Liberation (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1970), 21.)
Isaiah 61’s proclamation of good news and liberty resonates soundly with this understanding of theology. The audience in need of good news for both Isaiah and Cone is made up of the downtrodden, the oppressed, the captive. In fact, the gospel of God is precisely for these people.
One way to take this biblical passage forward into our contemporary lives is to think about it in light of another Cone definition:
“The task of Black Theology then is to analyze the nature of the gospel of Jesus Christ in the light of oppressed black people so they will see the gospel as inseparable from their humiliated condition, bestowing on them the necessary power to break the chains of oppression.” (Cone, Black Theology of Liberation, 23.)
Whether we talk of the postexilic community in Jerusalem or American society in the twenty-first century, Isaiah 61 calls us to focus on the humiliated and to call for liberation, for the breaking of chains, for the proclamation of emancipation.
Let Us Go Now to Bethlehem
We offer here an expanding poem based on this biblical verse. Each week of Advent we will add a line to the poem.
"Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place.."
I. Create within your heart a little town of Bethlehem, a shelter for the Christ child. II. Take the journey there, inward. like the shepherds. behold.
III. Adore the child within, vulnerable and needy