All are welcome to join us for Sunday Service at 10 am on January 26, 2025.  Sunday school runs during the service and coffee is served afterwards.

Here are Rev. Marlene’s thoughts on the upcoming service.

Marlene’s Rev. Notes:

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners, recovery of sight for the blind, and to set the oppressed free.” Luke 4:18

 In the political climate of imperial Rome, a merger of religion and politics justified the empire’s forced and violent conquest of other nations. Yet it is just such a counter cultural narrative that Luke undertakes in today’s Gospel. Writing around AD 85 for mainly a Gentile Christian audience, Luke faced the challenge of helping his Christian community to understand how Jesus, his ministry, and his message of the kingdom could rival Caesar and his empire.

Beginning the Gospel with a formal historical prologue, Luke assures his reader that this account is superior to earlier and less reliable accounts. In particular, Luke strives to portray the “events that have been fulfilled among us” as the culminating moment in Israel’s longing for the messianic age.

In recalling the words of the Prophet Isaiah, Jesus claims that he has been anointed by the Spirit. He declares that his role is to proclaim the message of the kingdom; to save the captives from captivity, the blind from blindness, and the oppressed from oppression. The Gospel shows how Jesus accomplishes this, not through Roman-style violence and conquest, but rather through his life-giving message and through his willingness to endure the violence himself, thus freeing others from that violence. He is indeed a saviour, Messiah (anointed one), and Lord in a way that Caesar can never be.

Luke places this message at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, where it serves as a kind of mission statement. Here, Luke helps the reader focus on Jesus’ place in history, and this scene helps us understand what is yet to come. The historical focus is summed up best in Jesus’ concluding words: “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

Rev. Marlene