Jesus’ Inaugural Adress
Luke 4:14-21
Illustration
by Mickey Anders

Every four years the new president of the United States gives his inaugural address. In it, he articulates his program or his plan of action for his term of office. See if you recognize who these inaugural address lines are from, which president said:

"With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations." - Abraham Lincoln, 1865.

"This great nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself--nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance." - Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1933.

"And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you -- ask what you can do for your country. My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man." - John F Kennedy, 1960.

Today's Scripture is Luke's version of the opening moments of Jesus' public ministry. We might call this his inaugural sermon: "The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."

ChristianGlobe Networks, Inc., Jesus' Mission and Ours , by Mickey Anders