When Jesus read from Isaiah 61 at the synagogue in Nazareth, he actually cut off the reading halfway through a line. The last line of Isaiah 61:2 reads, “To proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour and the day of vengeance of our God”. But Jesus had come to bring grace before justice. He had come to declare “the year of the Lord’s favour”. He is coming again soon to bring “the day of vengeance,” but not before his grace has been proclaimed throughout the whole earth (Matthew 24:14). The people of Israel wanted God to bring justice. They had suffered under Roman rule and they wanted God to bring vengeance upon their enemies. We need to be careful, however, when we wish for justice because, when we do, we wish it also upon ourselves. It is actually unjust for me to claim grace whilst wishing judgement upon someone else. Both grace and justice are good things. God does not sweep justice aside when he shows grace. No, he fulfilled justice by paying the just penalty for our guilt in Jesus Christ. He did this so that he could remain just and make grace available. Now is the time of grace and we are the proclaimers of grace. This does not take away from the necessity for civil justice. I am talking about relationships, where grace must take precedence. It takes some getting used to. Grace is very counter-intuitive. It is sometimes hard to receive and often hard to give. If we live by grace though, we will bring radical change into every environment where we have opportunity to show it.
Pray for the people who are bothering you the most right now.
Read Luke 4:14-30
