“The Joy of the Lord is My Strength”
January 26, 2025
Rev. Rebecca Migliore
O du frohliche, o du selige
Gnadenbringen de Weihnachts zeit!
Weltging verloren, Christ ist geboren.
Freue, freue dich, o Christenheit!
That is a German Christmas carol I don’t even know the English translation of. But in 1965 my family went to Germany for a year so Dad could study at Tuebingen University. I was between 2 and 3. I don’t think I have any actual memories of the time we spent there (though I can recite stories of some of our adventures and the pictures we have of that time are emblazoned in my mind). What I do know is that my mother learned that carol and continued to sing it to us in German (inviting us to sing along) for years afterwards.
I was startled into this memory by a comment from the writers at SALT talking about our reading for this morning. “In this “inaugural address” of his ministry, Jesus is crystal clear that the Gospel is above all about God “lifting up the lowly” — words we’ve heard ring out in song in Mary’s “Magnificat,” and therefore a theme Jesus no doubt first learned from his mother.” With those words, a picture formed in my mind of Mary singing the Magnificat at bedtime to Jesus-- and those words “He has brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty” became encoded in his view of the world.
And so, when Luke presents Jesus’ “inaugural address” it is no wonder that he reads from the prophet Isaiah. No wonder he chooses words that talk about the Spirit of the Lord calling forth that lifting up of the lowly: good news to the poor; release to the captives; recovery of sight to the blind; setting free the oppressed; proclaiming jubilee (the year of the Lord’s favor). The basis of Mary’s song, the basis of Hannah’s song before her, the basis of Isaiah’s words, all tell us about the God who is speaking to these people, and to us. God is speaking once again—but the message is the same. God’s preference is for those who are not lifted up by the world. And things are about to change, in fact, as Jesus sees it, they already have!
I found it interesting to look at the two “first acts” of Jesus from two different gospels: the gospel of John and the gospel of Luke. Last week Rose talked about how Jesus’ first act of ministry in John, the first sign, was to change water into wine at a wedding. A fairly private arena, a wedding attended by family and friends. And most of the people in attendance don’t ever know about this sign, this miracle, at all. In Luke’s account, Jesus’ first act (that we hear about in detail) is a public event—reading and teaching in the synagogue in Nazareth (his hometown). Everyone is there—and everyone is talking about it! It might not be as flashy as the water into wine thing, but it sets out the blueprint for what God has anointed Jesus to do in his ministry and the story Luke will tell in his gospel and the Acts of the Apostles.
It was so jarring to be confronted with a split screen this week: on the one hand our own inaugural which I tried to see as little as possible, and on the other hand, having Jesus’ “inaugural” words swirling around in my brain. The contrast made the message that Luke focuses on that much more poignant—not “me, me, me” but “you, you, especially the least of you.” And it made me wonder, how do we hold onto this vision of what God is doing in the world?
How do we keep that dream that Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. so eloquently painted in our minds moving forward? Where do we find the strength we need? What is our calling in this time and this place?
And here I come back to that German carol I can still sing today. It’s so important to read and recite passages of Scripture. It’s so important to read and recite words from the great prophets of our own times. It’s so important to have those images and melodies bouncing around our minds and written on our hearts and lifting up our spirits. I think that is why so many of us were so moved by Mr. Jan’s rendition of “Amazing Grace (My Chains are Gone)” and by singing “We shall overcome” holding hands with one another, last week. We hold onto the promise of these words, even when it seems far away. We hold onto the hope that the seeds for a better world are being sown by each and every one of us. We hold onto the love that we encounter in the Spirit that we ask to fall upon us again and again and again.
All of that can be encapsulated in one phrase—a phrase that caught my attention this week. And it isn’t from Luke or Isaiah. It is from Nehemiah. From governor Nehemiah—the governor of the Jewish people who have been allowed to come back to Israel after exile. The governor of the people who have had to rebuild the temple, and their lives, after years, generations of captivity and sorrow. The governor who with the high priest Ezra has reminded the people of the words of God, words of the law, by reading it to them for hours on end. What one phrase did Nehemiah say?
“The joy of the Lord is your strength.”
And what is God’s joy? I imagine that it is watching God’s people when they find ways to do justice and love mercy and walk humbly with God. I imagine it is every time that good news is preached to and practiced with the poor, every time there is healing, every time there is new-found freedom, every time the world is in balance. God’s joy is our joy. And that joy is our strength.
That joy is why Mary could sing her song even in the midst of the unknown future of her life. That joy is why Jesus could preach to the people of his hometown even when he knew there would be pushback. That joy is why Martin King could hope for a future even if he didn’t think he would get to see it. That joy is how Bishop Mary Ann Budde could stand in the pulpit at the national prayer breakfast this Tuesday and look at the most powerful people in our nation and quietly but strongly point them towards mercy. That joy is what we need to rest in over the coming days. That joy is what we lean on when we don’t think we can carry on. That joy is our refuge. May it become the song that echoes in every breath we take. “The joy of the Lord is my strength.”
Because there is so much work to do. I know Jesus said, “Today, this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” He didn’t mean: “Go home, God has it all taken care of—there’s nothing more for you to do.” He didn’t mean: “Don’t worry, all that God has promised us will come true in the by and by.” No, he was doing Hebrew time travel speak. He was speaking as if the future was the present. That’s hard for us to understand. For us he might have said “This Scripture speaks truth. It will come true. In fact, it already is true in God’s eyes. It has already been signed, sealed and delivered. Its promise has been fulfilled. The reign of God has started and will never be stopped. So you can trust that it is so. You can begin to live as if it were so, because it is so in God’s view of the world.”
Instead of letting us off the hook, it asks of us to work doubly hard to live into the truth of Isaiah’s vision, of Jesus’ mission statement, of God’s work fulfilled. It asks of us to be the body of Christ in the world. To stand with those who may end up losing something vital, like health insurance. To stand with those who are fearful of ICE showing up when they are standing in line at the food pantry, or stepping inside our schools to question their children.
To stand with those who are feeling unseen and hurt because our federal government has declared that they will acknowledge only binary terms when it comes to identifying oneself.
It asks of us to widen our view to include the whole world around us. When Jesus talks about jubilee, the “year of the Lord’s favor”—he was inciting an often mentioned ideal (although no one has any proof that it ever was enacted)—every 50 years slaves would be freed, land (stolen) or sold because of debt would be returned, and the land itself would get a rest. You can imagine why the powers that be never actually got around to a year of jubilee. It would have resulted in loss of capital and property for those who had benefited from the intervening years.
Jesus is calling in the chips. It has been fulfilled in your hearing means that Jesus is saying that the year of the Lord’s favor, the year of jubilee has come. Not that he had the power to make people give freedom to their slaves, or return land they had acquired, or stop farmers from planting crops. But he started to sing the old, old song about all those things. He did that time travel thing again. Reminding people that: All people, all property, all land, all of it belong to God. And God is declaring a jubilee. God is setting all free. God is declaring a rest from oppression and servitude and injustice and hatred, from evil in all its forms. Yes, evil may still totter on its legs for a while—but the death blow has been struck. The time is fulfilled. The kingdom of God has arrived. God is on the move in our land.
May God give us eyes to see.
May God give us ears to hear.
May God give us voices to sing.
May God use us, even us.
For the Spirit of the Lord continues to fall, continues to anoint, continues to press us. How are we going to live in this new world of God’s fulfillment? I can see it clearly: we are marching in the light of God, hand in hand, and the joy of the Lord is our strength. Alleluia, Amen.