Let me begin with a disclaimer. I wrote this for our church bulletin. My space over the past few weeks has been limited. Therefore I do not feel like I have really done justice to this topic (or to this pericope of text, Luke 4:14-30). There is much more that could be said, and were this not a virtual community, it might actually be spoken. I am going to go ahead and post this merely to try to whet your appetites as you in turn dive into the world of Luke's gospel. So if you are still interested, read on....
Shalom. This little Hebrew word carries with it so much.
Shalom means perfect wholeness,
wellness, and peace.
It is absolute harmony and serenity.
When we think of shalom, we would do well to imagine the Garden of Eden, where all of creation was in unity and was in relationship with God.
It was life in communion with God and all created things, life as God intended it to be.
With the fall something happened to the world. The wholeness of God’s creation was violently shattered, shalom destroyed. Chasms formed and relationships were broken. The world was not the way it was supposed to be.
Filled with the power of the Spirit, Jesus arrives on the scene in Galilee (Lk. 4:14). In a synagogue in Nazareth he stood up to read from the Scriptures. “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” (4:18-19). As he rolled up the scroll and sat down, he proclaimed, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing” (4:21).
This is a profound scene in the gospel of Luke. The words from the scroll of Isaiah define and describe the nature of Jesus’ ministry throughout the rest of the narrative. His ministry is about salvation; it is about shalom. Jesus comes to offer healing, acceptance, and inclusion to all 
who are marginalized or excluded from human fellowship, to the poor, the captive, the blind, the oppressed, the outcast! The ministry of Jesus is for the whole person in the whole world.
This aspect of Jesus’ ministry shapes how we understand salvation. Salvation in Luke is not a switch in our legal status before God. Luke’s general tendency is to think of salvation as encompassing both physical healing and inclusion in the restored community of God that is being formed around Jesus. It is about restoring people to health and wholeness, restoring them to relationship and community, restoring shalom to the earth and all people. In Jesus, God breaks down barriers of injustice and oppression; he restores the sick to health; he frees people from bondage to sin; he restores life as God intended. Salvation is for the whole person in the whole world.
2 comments:
This idea is a perfect companion to the discipline of hospitality that you and we have been discussing over the last year, especially sprining from "Radical Hospitality" and your neighbors at the monestary. Also, Jenn, several other leaders at our church and I have discussed and are increasinly convinced that salvation is much less event than it is process, the process of drawing closer and closer to God, justified continually by Christ and wrapped up in His community. You've give more excellent expression to the truth.
Shalom y'all,
JRB
We've been chatting about the process of holiness lately and about drawing people into a continually redeeming relationship with Christ. I'm liking the shalom emphasis on wholeness and God's intentions in creation.
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