The moment Jesus reads in the temple from the Prophet Isaiah everything changes. "The Spirit of the LORD is upon me," Jesus says, "for he has anointed me to bring Good News to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released... (Luke 4:18)."
We may need a change in our thinking because we likely believe the ‘oppressed’ (NRSV) or the ‘poor’ (NLT and NIV) speak about our sadness and sorrows. We can all admit that life isn't easy.
Martin Luther may change things even more. He asserts that we all wear a spiritualized cloak of wretchedness. Luther and many who theologically align with him suggest the ‘poor’ as being the spiritually corrupt.1 We cover too quickly and too well just how poor we are in Spirit because we are too comfortable in our longstanding sinful nature.
Spiritually corrupt? Who, us? That's a like getting coal in your stocking after it has been hung by the chimney with care. As we look at joy in and through the lens of being God's blessed children by his grace not our plans of self-constructed goodness, being spiritually corrupt (that is, being manipulative to what we want when we want it) does apply to all of us. Whenever we call the shots, or the more we try to call the shots, the more we are likely to experience joylessness.
Carry the words 'spiritually corrupt' as we begin the journey to lighting the joy candle this Sunday There may be some realigning we have to do before that flame, that glow of joy, can genuinely and inexhaustibly shine in and through us.
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1The “afflicted” in LW 17.330f.