Second Sunday after Christmas

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Liberation, what thoughts, memories, and emotions are provoked in you by this word? Perhaps it stirs up memories of leaving home and heading off to college, or to an apprenticeship, where you could begin to pursue your life’s ambitions in a career you dreamed about. Perhaps the word ‘liberation’ evokes memories of paying off an overdue and oppressive debt you owed or perhaps it reminds you of that day that you finally found healing from a chronic illness or injury. — Whatever the case may be, the word ‘liberation,’ the word means to be set free from a restraint or confinement. — For Louie Zamperini, liberation could not have come too soon. Actually, she took her sweet time, as Louie spent twenty months as a POW in Japanese internment camps during WWII. And if that was not intense enough, before being taken captive and locked in a cell at Camp 4B, also at Naoetsu, Japan, Louie and one of his peers had survived fifty days on a raft in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. These men were left stranded without food or water after their B-24 Liberator aircraft crashed 900 miles south of Hawaii, during a rescue mission. The crash killed the other nine American airmen onboard, and it was a miracle that anyone survived the accident. — Louie’s story is immortalized in a 2010 book by Laura Hillenbrand and a major motion picture entitled Unbroken. 

Louie and thousands of other Americans would become POWs of the Imperial Japanese Army during the war. Louie’s story was immensely interesting, though not necessarily unique, especially because he was an Olympic track and field star, who, because he was a near sub-four-minute-miler, met Adolf Hitler at the 1936 Olympic Games in Munich, Germany. Louie Zamperini’s story is also unique, because it highlights the brutality of wartime interpersonal relationships between enemies, the resilient perseverance of the indomitable human spirit, and the Grace of GOD to bring peace and reconciliation between human beings who raged to kill one another for years…and in Louie’s case, a decade.  

When liberation day finally came for Louie (a function of the Japanese Emperor’s surrender to the Americans after the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki), 28-year-old Louie Zamperini’s 5’ 10” frame weighed 130 pounds; thirty pounds less than when his B-24 crashed a little less than two years prior. More importantly, Louie was suffering from an aggressive case of Beriberi, and he knew he was not going to live much longer if he did not receive proper nutrition and hydration. When it was officially announced at the camp in Naoetsu by the Japanese leadership that the war ‘had come to a cessation’, “Louie stood on wavering legs, emaciated, sick, and dripping wet with sweat. In his tired mind, two words were repeating themselves, over and over. I’m free! I’m free! I’m free!”¹  

There were countless other American POWs liberated from captivity during WWII, and their sense of being emancipated from confinement must have been equally astonishing – a reality somewhat unbelievable at first hearing. It would have been a tremendous physical relief on the one hand, and unimaginably spiritual on the other. The reality of their liberation would have required faith and trust that what was happening to them was real and not imaginary. — There is actually a scene in Hillenbrand’s book where the guards come to tell the POWs of the war’s ending, and the men under their guard did not believe their captors. At best, they thought it was a ruse – at worst, they thought it was a scheme to provoke the prisoners so that the guards would have just cause to physically abuse them.  

Imagine then, what must it have been like when the local boy, JESUS, the son of Joseph and Mary, told His neighbors in Nazareth that He had come to liberate them – surely, they must have been astonished, wondering if JESUS was really saying what He was saying. — As he sat in the synagogue where He had been brought up, JESUS read aloud the passage from Isaiah 61 that we just heard, which goes: “The Spirit of the LORD GOD is upon me; because the LORD hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound; to proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD…” And then JESUS commented: “Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4.21). It must have been something akin to what those POWs felt in September of 1945, when they were told they were going to be liberated and sent home – shock, awe, and disbelief. 
JESUS’ calling as the Messiah was not to be a political or military Liberator. This was unsettling to many of the people, because they were being physically oppressed by the Romans. — Indeed, there are times when the human body needs to be liberated from incarceration, especially when that incarceration is unjust or prolonged. Yet, the greater need is the liberation of the human soul from those confining restraints (addiction, anger, lust, doubt, and fear) that chain the soul down in darkness. — The Liberator of the human soul from restraint, this is who JESUS was claiming to be, and what He was claiming to be about. And like the American P0Ws at Camp 4B in Naoetsu, the people of Nazareth did not readily believe JESUS when He proclaimed their liberation. 

After getting past the shock of His statement, the people would have had to understand its implications. JESUS was implying that He and His mission were directly connected to the Messianic promises of the new order that would come to Israel in the Acceptable Year of the LORD. — The people plainly knew what the passage from Isaiah meant, and they would have been eager for its promises to come to pass at the arrival of YHWH GOD’s special Servant – a prophet and liberator, greater in character and acclaim than even Moses. — Isaiah’s language, as the people knew, was poetical and colorful, but it was not fanciful. YHWH GOD promised that His Messiah would come to the aid and liberation of the Remnant of Israel from their bondage. And in this promise, the key phrase is called out to trigger the hope of the people: The Acceptable Year of the LORD, which is otherwise called The Year of Jubilee – The phrase would have clued the people into the fact that GOD’s Messianic, covenant climax with Israel was at hand, such that all His faithful people might soon expect to say, with confidence, like Captain Zamperini: ‘I’m free!’ – ‘I’m free!’ – ‘I’m free!’  

What is it about this phrase that would have made Israel so glad? — The Year of Jubilee is a fascinating covenantal promise! Jubilee means ‘ram’s horn’, and a ram’s horn was to be blown as an announcement of liberation in the Old Covenant on the year following a period of forty-nine years, which encompassed seven cycles of sabbath years. The Year of Jubilee, the fiftieth year, by GOD’s edict, was proclaimed on the Day of Atonement, and it liberated the people from   all sorts of constraint and confinement. The Jubilee freed those concerned from their financial debts and any dispossession of their lands due to liens. — In fact, debts of all kinds were to be forgiven, indentured servants freed, and all lands returned to their original owners. The Jubilee was a sacramental sign, a shadow, if you will, of what was to come in the work and mission of the Messiah as expressed in the Scriptures like Isaiah 61, and this is what the Hebrews in JESUS’ day were awaiting. The Jubilee pointed towards the good tidings of spiritual solvency that were to be preached to the poor in spirit; healing that was to be given to the brokenhearted; comfort provided to those who mourned for justice’s sake; and the Kingdom of Heaven was to be given to those who were being persecuted, constrained, or imprisoned for upholding GOD’s righteousness. 

Deeply embedded in the theology of The Year of Jubilee was YHWH GOD’s desire that His people concern themselves with returning to faithful covenantal worship and relationship with Him alone, especially over and above their infatuation with material and commercial concerns. — To affect this reality, and to draw His people back to Himself – back to Jerusalem and to the Temple (the center of life and fellowship with GOD), the LORD promised to send His Servant as a precursor, to proclaim and to enact the spiritual year of the ram’s horn. This is what JESUS meant when He said, ‘Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.’ — The challenge, dear church, is for us to heed JESUS’ claim and trust Him to bring about The Acceptable Year of the LORD, as the Messiah (the Christ) in our lives. In a word, to bring us liberation in the coming year from all spiritual constraints that bind us – impede us – and imprisons us.  

The readings in the weeks building up to Christmas in the Advent Season, and Christmas Day itself, are all tokens pointing to a new year’s beginning in the life of the Church.  — On Christmas Day, and the subsequent Sundays after Christmas, we are reminded of the many signs that point toward JESUS as the Coming One, who would enact the year of the ram’s horn. — On the First Sunday in Advent, we are presented with the text from Matthew 21, where JESUS triumphantly processes into Jerusalem as the King of Israel, riding the foal of a donkey and embodying a royal eminence of peace over judgment. As such, the people cried out, ‘Hosanna in the highest – blessed is He that cometh in the name of the LORD.’ — On Advent Three Sunday, John the Baptist sits idle in Herod’s prison in Matthew 11, wondering if JESUS is the One anointed with power by the Spirit, or if he and his disciples should look for another. JESUS asks John to recall the promises of Isaiah 35, and how GOD comes to save through His Servant the Messiah, by causing the deaf to hear, the blind to see, the lame to walk, and the dead to be made alive again. All of which was happening on the ground in JESUS’ ministry. — And on the Fourth Sunday in Advent, John tells the acolytes of the Pharisees that he is not the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet greater than Moses. Instead, he points them to JESUS as the One they are looking for, for He will baptize with the Holy Ghost and with fire, John says. — These biblical passages, plus many other readings during Christmas-tide, make every effort to convince us that we are to trust the One whom the Angel Gabriel said must be named JESUS, to be the Coming One, the Messiah, “the true Light that lighteth every man which cometh into the world” (John 1.9) in The Year of Jubilee.   

Today this reading has been fulfilled in your hearing, dear brothers and sisters – The Year of Jubilee is now. For since the Incarnation of Christ, JESUS has gone about, (either in His earthly ministry or through the ministry of the Holy Spirit in and through His Church), “doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil” (Acts 10.38). — To this day, for those who put their trust in Him, JESUS proclaims “comfort to all who mourn; He gives beauty for ashes and oil of joy for mourning; He clothes with the garment of praise for those who have a spirit of heaviness. (cf. Isaiah 61.3) The Jubilee keeps expanding and encompassing more people and time with its code of grace and mercy. 

The Acceptable Year of the LORD – The Year of Jubilee – the year that the ram’s horn is blown, is the year that all things are made new – the year that the people build and occupy – plant and eat – pray and are heard. It is the year that the wolf and the lamb feed together, and that the lion eats straw like the bullocks. — In Moses’ time, The Year of Jubilee was a shadow of the good things to come to those who trust GOD for His goodness and grace. In the Incarnation of JESUS, dear church, The True Jubilee has come and is repeatedly proclaimed in the Christmas message to those with ears to hear, eyes to see, and hearts to believe: “No more let sins and sorrows grow, nor thorns infest the ground; for He comes to make His blessings flow, far as the curse is found – far as the curse is found.”² Amen  

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1 Hillenbrand, Laura, Unbroken, (New York: Random House, 2010), 307. 

2 Book of Common Praise, “Joy to the World!”, (Newport: Anglican House Press, 2019), 30.