Luke 4,14-22 – Feria proper of January 9th
For Jesus, returning to Nazareth means returning home. That is, returning to the place that saw him grow, work, learn, pray. But on the page of Luke’s Gospel that we read today is said explicitly what his true mission consists of: «The Spirit of the Lord is upon me; for this reason he anointed me and sent me to proclaim good news to the poor, to proclaim liberation to prisoners and sight to the blind; to set the oppressed free and preach a year of grace from the Lord.”
They are the words of the prophet Isaiah, but Jesus refers them to himself as the clearest summary of why he came into the world. We could take inspiration from this synthesis to remember ourselves succinctly what happens in our relationship with Christ. First of all, we are the poor, that is, those who are not self-sufficient, to whom he came to speak a message of joy. We are those prisoners who need to be freed and those blind people who need to see meaning in their lives again. We are the oppressed who need to be freed from what crushes them. We are the ones who are the recipients of a time of mercy.
This is why we must never be afraid to admit our poverty, to say what takes away our freedom, to declare what we do not see clearly, to not expect ourselves to carry the weight of everything, to know that we all need mercy to live. Those who play at being self-sufficient understand nothing of the mission of Jesus. Instead, those who know they are needy enter into their logic and become the purpose of their mission.
