COMMENTARY

Old Testament: Isaiah 61:1-11
How dear this passage is to Christian hearts, echoed as it was from the lips of Jesus (Luke 4:17-19). These words are, in many ways, as timely today as they were to those disappointed people returning to Israel from their long exile. Excited, they were filled with high expectations when they began to arrive. But social and political disappointments quickly followed. Bone-weary, discouraged, deprived of hope, they trudged in thousands to their fields, probably finding little gain from the drudgery of the exile. No less today, our world is filled with people who see little hope. Homeless men and women, lacking coping skills, lacking direction, lacking hope; ghetto-dwelling boys and girls who see no way but that of violence. Newsweek magazine told of …