{"id":11692,"date":"2007-01-07T19:48:47","date_gmt":"2007-01-07T18:48:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theologie.whp.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/?p=11692"},"modified":"2025-04-08T15:09:14","modified_gmt":"2025-04-08T13:09:14","slug":"luke-414-21","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/luke-414-21\/","title":{"rendered":"Luke 4:14-21"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

The Third Sunday after the Epiphany | 21 January 2007 | Luke 4:14-21 | Walter W. Harms |<\/span><\/h3>\n

WITH JESUS, TIMES HAVE CHANGED: HAVE YOU?<\/span>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u00a0 like to ask people what is the oldest \u201cthing\u201d in their home.\u00a0 While recognizing that everything in the home has always been, since the creation, I am looking for that which has some recognizable form which happened after the creation.<\/p>\n

I\u00a0 have some fossils which my son found on his adventures up many streams in this area.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know how old they are.\u00a0 Perhaps several million?\u00a0 Well, who knows.\u00a0 One thing for sure they really don\u2019t have much influence on me.<\/p>\n

I have a smoking set consisting of a hand hammered metal bowl used to contain a few live coals used to light the pipe of a person who was smoking tobacco. That was given to me by a friend when I was in Japan. It\u2019s supposed to be 300 years old, which is about 70 years before our Declaration of Independence, which really has meaning for us.<\/p>\n

But I would like to think that the oldest object which still grips me, holds me, disturbs me, and challenges me, at times, is God\u2019s Word in the OT.\u00a0 Today\u2019s reading from the life\u00a0 of Jesus recorded by this man, Luke, has Jesus quoting words from the book in the OT called Isaiah. Now Isaiah lived about 700 years before Jesus, and that means he lived some 2,700 year ago.<\/p>\n

Now that is old! Really old!\u00a0 That 700 year old stuff got Jesus so excited that he was bold to say: \u201cToday what this man said all those years ago is coming to fruition right now!\u201d\u00a0 What Isaiah talked about at Jesus\u2019 time was being fulfilled.\u00a0 It was happening, taking place, going on.<\/p>\n

Isaiah had said that the Spirit of the Lord would be upon a person who had been anointed, dedicated, set aside to, (listen to this!) bring good news to the poor, proclaim that the captives are released, the blind would be able to see again, and the oppressed would go free. This special person filled with God\u2019s Spirit would bring in the year, the time, the age that God would regard as special.<\/p>\n

Jesus to that says,\u00a0 \u201cYep, that\u2019s what I am here for and it is happening, folks!\u201d<\/p>\n

Now that statement of Jesus is old, really old, older than anyone here (I think!).\u00a0 We, that is Christians say, that what Jesus says is important, contains the only truth that is truth, and it is to be followed by us, believed by us, applied to us, each of us.\u00a0 His words are for you and for me.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Does the adjective, poor apply to you and me?\u00a0 Have we ever experienced the need to be released because we were tied up, couldn\u2019t escape from something?\u00a0 Have we ever been blind?\u00a0 Well, maybe not physically, but simply unable to see what we should do and the path we should follow?<\/p>\n

How about needing to be free?\u00a0 Sure we celebrated Martin Lutheran King, Jr.\u2019s day last Monday, and his words echo of his famous speech \u201cI have a Dream\u201d ring in my mind, „Free at last! free\u00a0 at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!“\u00a0 And he spoke at a time when he did not yet see freedom for all people in America. Do we still need to be free.<\/p>\n

And with all that is going on in your life, do you sense that you are living in God\u2019s favored time?\u00a0 I mean, do you have\u00a0 a basic belief that the Lord\u2019s with you, favors you and is guiding you because of his love for you?<\/p>\n

Some of this ancient stuff seems weird when we think about our world today.\u00a0 We seem to be like a character in one of those movies where suddenly a huge ball is rolling toward you and you are not sure you can get out of the way before it smashes you.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But I would like to tell you today that because this person Jesus showed up on the scene in Palestine, times have changed.\u00a0 Have you kept up with the times?\u00a0 Or are we living in some old calendar year, a time when Jesus was not, Calvary wasn\u2019t known, Bethlehem and Nazareth were what? And we keep dragging along the chains of our captivity, unable to see what lies ahead, poor excuses for human beings, unable to shed all that oppresses us.<\/p>\n

Because of Jesus, we who have so often failed to live up to our potential, have excused our behavior for reasons that in the light of day are made of non-existent material, and blame our behavior either on bad genes or bad up bringing.\u00a0 We, yes, we, that includes you, and it certainly includes me are released.\u00a0 We are rich with God\u2019s favor.<\/p>\n

God looks at you and is delighted because you, yes, you are his perfect person. But ah, yes, we don\u2019t see that do we.\u00a0 We believe reality is our bickering, our stuck-in-a-rut ways of doing things that result in anger, disgust, bitterness, and nauseating dull routines.<\/p>\n

Jesus has made it possible for you to change, to venture out into a world of compassion, love, forgiveness, hope and peace.\u00a0 He has wiped away the cataracts of our corrupt reasoning that distorts our vision of the heavenly Father, who loved enough, loved you enough, to have Jesus go through death and the grave for you.<\/p>\n

So many of the persons who were slaves when the Emancipation Proclamation was made didn\u2019t know what to do with their freedom.\u00a0 They were not prepared to make decisions because they had been under their taskmasters.<\/p>\n

In this new age in which we are living, we need to be bold in our faith.\u00a0 We need to trust this Jesus, filled with the Spirit whom he gives to us in Baptism and the Blessed Sacrament.\u00a0 We need to live free from old enslaving habits because Jesus gives you the freedom to live that way.\u00a0 We need to trust that this world which wants to oppress us and thus depress us with its beliefs and practices is powerless, useless, in his new age.<\/p>\n

Times are a-changing.\u00a0 It is the year, the time when God\u2019s favors are yours.\u00a0 Don\u2019t live in the past, but let the promises given in the past give your freedom, release, insights and riches, as you enjoy the world of your heavenly Father.\u00a0 Amen<\/p>\n

\n

Walter W. Harms, retired pastor<\/span>
\nAustin, TX\u00a0 USA<\/span>
\nComments: waltpast@aol.com<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>
\n<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Third Sunday after the Epiphany | 21 January 2007 | Luke 4:14-21 | Walter W. Harms | WITH JESUS, TIMES HAVE CHANGED: HAVE YOU? I\u00a0 like to ask people what is the oldest \u201cthing\u201d in their home.\u00a0 While recognizing that everything in the home has always been, since the creation, I am looking for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17572,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38,665,727,157,853,108,110,453,349,3,109,1174],"tags":[],"beitragende":[],"predigtform":[],"predigtreihe":[],"bibelstelle":[],"class_list":["post-11692","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lukas","category-3-so-n-epiphanias","category-archiv","category-beitragende","category-bibel","category-current","category-engl","category-kapitel-04-chapter-04-lukas","category-kasus","category-nt","category-predigten","category-walter-w-harms"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11692","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11692"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11692\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22527,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11692\/revisions\/22527"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17572"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11692"},{"taxonomy":"beitragende","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/beitragende?post=11692"},{"taxonomy":"predigtform","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/predigtform?post=11692"},{"taxonomy":"predigtreihe","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/predigtreihe?post=11692"},{"taxonomy":"bibelstelle","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bibelstelle?post=11692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}