Jesus Brought a New Ethic

1 The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners; 2 to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn;

We read in this passage, from Isaiah, God’s announcement of divine intention to act decisively through Jesus.  So that everything — everything — would be radically transformed.  Everything! Every nation individuals, systems, traditions, rituals and most surely heart, needed an overhaul.  Jesus came bring a new ethic to a non-ethical world.  

This new ethic would be  non-violent, non-aggressive.  A humble way of living together!  Where God’s kind of justice would be done!  

The “Good News”  that Jesus brought was resisted by the powers that currently existed in his day.  

It is even today offensive to those who seek to live in disregard of other’s need and wants.  

Yet might say — and I have — that Jesus was a radical when he walked among his people in those days.  He bucked the well established Roman and Jewish rulers.  He came to broaden their extremely limited vision of God’s possibility.

The objection?

Those leaders didn’t like being called into question by this carpenter’s son! 

Because! 

Jesus brought an in-depth inquisition into, what I call, the eight-by-ten-glossy personality’s attempt to schmooze the general public. Those who prance around in fine clothes proclaiming one thing and doing another.  Jesus looked closer — much deeper — into the true integrity of the heart that beats under the fine clothes and eloquent words.

What we witness, as we read the Gospels of Jesus Christ, is a mission of cultural transformation.  Beginning at the very top!  An immense alteration in all “nations”, all individuals, all systems, all old traditions, all rituals back to God’s original design in the beginning.  Which was a design that created all things to  be “very good.”

Jesus, the skin in which God came to live and move and have his being.  Was the one to bring this “very good” back to the present day mess.