Thursday after Epiphany, January 9, 2026

Luke 4, 14-22

Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news of him spread throughout the whole region. He taught in their synagogues and was praised by all. He came to Nazareth, where he had grown up, and went according to his custom into the synagogue on the sabbath day. He stood up to read and was handed a scroll of the prophet Isaiah. He unrolled the scroll and found the passage where it was written: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.” Rolling up the scroll, he handed it back to the attendant and sat down, and the eyes of all in the synagogue looked intently at him. He said to them, “Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.” And all spoke highly of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth.

St. Luke tells us that after Jesus was baptized by John in the Jordan River, he immediately went out into the Judean wilderness where he fasted and prayed and overcame the temptations of the devil. St. John, in his Gospel, reports that Jesus spent some time, perhaps months or longer, living near the place where John continued to baptize. He could have sheltered in one of the innumerable niches and small caves which nature had cut out of the rock that abounded there. He met there during that time first Andrew and John the son of Zebedee, then Peter and later other men whom he would name Apostles such as Philip and Bartholomew. He then returned to Galilee and went about teaching that the Kingdom of Heaven was drawing near, meeting with a solid response: “He taught in their synagogues and was praised by all.” And then he came back to Nazareth, the town where he was raised. 

Calling Nazareth a “town” possibly gives it too much credit. Only a couple of hundred people dwelled there at that time. Little profitable work could be done there so laborers were obliged to hire themselves out at some of the larger towns in the west. Joseph and Jesus, as a young man, would have done so. It was a backwater and a byword even among other Galileans. But the inhabitants had their own civic pride, as people in such places do.

Jesus had preached and taught in many Galilean synagogues about the Kingdom, but here, in his hometown, surrounded by people who had known him all his life, he chose to reveal the truth about himself for the first time, quoting Isaiah 61, 1-2, a verse held to be messianic by the Pharisees: ““The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.” 

We note here that the Lord Jesus did not proclaim himself to be the Son of God, in as many words, nor the King who was to come, nor even a prophet. He reveals himself as a servant — a dedicated and chosen servant of the Most High who came to serve the poor, captives, the blind, and the oppressed. He came to help those who could not help themselves. And when he had made this announcement, he rolled up the scroll and handed it back to the attendant as a sign that he had revealed his mission in its broadest terms and that there was no more to say.

Nazareth signifies for us the world in which we live, poorer than we like to think, and more lowly than we want to admit. We are its citizens, wrapped up in little concerns and thinking that what we see around us is all there is. We are provincial and pleased with our own wisdom. The Lord Jesus comes among us through his Church and tells us not only who he is, but who we are: the poor, captives, blind, and oppressed whom he has come to save. At first we nod in agreement because we have heard his words before though without thinking very much about what he meant. But now, he has told us and we understand. How will we take his words, and will we receive the service he offers?