The regular cycle of Torah readings will begin again next week, so this week we have the opportunity to divert a little from the cycle. Let's go back to the time of Jesus and look at what happened when Jesus went to his own local synagogue and joined in the regular readings from the scriptures.

If a person were called forward to read a scripture in church today, we would listen in expectation to see if it were relevant to us, hoping to feed on the word.

2,000 years ago, in the synagogue in Nazareth, Jesus came forward to read from the Prophet Isaiah. Did Jesus share a scripture that he had privately prepared, just as we might in our churches? Or is there a context to this incident that brings an element of awe to this passage from Luke?

In Jesus' day, the Sabbath readings were prescribed from the Torah. Typically, four men, each considered mature in the community, would be given a share of the weekly parashah (Torah portion). They would come forward, stand to read and sit to teach briefly on an aspect of the reading. The teaching would be interactive (hence they would be seated to show equality). Following this would come the Haftarah reading, where one more trusted man from the community would come forward in the same way to read from the Prophets.

The origin of the Hafatarah (a Hebrew word translated as parting or taking leave) is uncertain. One theory is that the tradition of this additional reading came from the time of Antiochus Epiphanes, the Seleucid King who invaded and ruled Judea ruthlessly from 168 BC prior to the time of the Maccabean Revolt. He forbade the reading of Torah as one of his strategies to destroy Judaism. Therefore, the Jewish leaders contrived a way of preserving their readings of scripture by taking parallel readings from the Prophets that reflected something from the prescribed Torah readings.

By the time of Jesus, Torah reading had been restored and the Haftarah reading was also preserved. This is still the tradition today.

It would be interesting to go back to Jesus' day and visit a synagogue (meeting place) and see how Torah and Haftarah readings were made relevant to the congregation by those who stood to read and sat to teach, and how the congregation interacted and discussed the passage. Would it be dry ritual or full of life? We might learn something from this structured approach to scripture where Torah was central.

So Jesus stepped forward and took the scroll of Isaiah. All eyes were fixed on him and all ears were open. He read from Isaiah 61 from verse 1 (as we have it in our Bibles) to halfway through verse 2:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me. Because He has appointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.

But where was this on the weekly schedule and what relevance would Jesus bring through it? The prescribed Haftarah reading nearest to this is on 21 Elul (24 September this year), when the reading is the whole of Isaiah 60. The following week the Haftarah begins from verse 10 of Isaiah 61.¹ Jesus' reading extended one week's portion and preceded the other.

Furthermore, these readings are in the middle of what is known as the 40 Days of Awe, the days leading up to the Day of Atonement and the Feast of Tabernacles (Sukkot) in the month of Tishrei, which follows Elul. My thought is that he read on 21 Elul and went beyond the prescribed reading.

Understood in this way, this was a very special day indeed! A reading from the Prophets that was a fulfilment of prophecy, all timed within the yearly cycle! It was no wonder the congregation was shocked and did not know quite how to react. Jesus extended their Haftarah reading right in the midst of the season leading up to the High Holy Days of Israel, not just reading from the Prophets but announcing who he was and is as Messiah of Israel!

Just as the Passover was fulfilled by his sacrifice three and a half years later, so his ministry began in his own town with this timely announcement as fulfilment of the exact scripture (give or take a verse) that they would have been reading anyway. This was the first place that Jesus went after his baptism and temptation in the wilderness (which also overlapped the Days of Awe). A day of awe indeed! He came to announce the opening of God's acceptable "year" first to his own little town.

Note that he did not finish verse 2 of Isaiah 61, which goes on to announce the beginning of the Day of vengeance of our God. That is reserved for a future time after the Gospel has gone to the entire world. We, today, are still halfway through Isaiah 61:2!

2,000 years on from that day in Nazareth, multitudes have had time to assess what came upon that congregation by surprise. Millions are still coming to faith in that carpenter from Nazareth who took his own town by surprise. He really is the Messiah of Israel, King of the Jews and Saviour of the world. How slow some people are to perceive it!

Oh that our own Bible readings would retain such life and relevance as we meet together in our own assemblies week by week. Yet if he is amongst us they will surely always be fresh and relevant, and bring new aspects of revelation of who he is - just as on that day.

Author: Dr Clifford Denton

Weekly Reading: Luke 4:16-30