After more than a generation in exile, the Israelites returned. In Jerusalem and the surrounding countryside of Judah they began to rebuild. Nehemiah records an early memory of their return.

The people had finally accomplished enough to begin thinking of more than building shelters and growing food. It was autumn, and the harvest was in. A good time to reflect and celebrate.

So they came together in Jerusalem and asked their priest Ezra to bring out the most important thing they possessed. The Book. The book of Moses. Read it to us, they said, and Ezra began to read.

It was a large gathering organized into groups. Ezra read from a raised platform in the open air. The Temple was still largely in ruins.

The book was read in Hebrew. The peoples’ common language had evolved into Aramaic and few people had much education. So Levites were appointed to interpret the reading, and help the people understand what they were hearing.

If that day began in hope, it soon turned to grieving. The people wept. There were many reasons to weep. Life was hard in those early days of return. The fabric of their community had been torn apart both in their exile and in their return. It was just…so much loss. But it seems these things were not the source of the peoples’ tears.

Perhaps we can understand that it was God’s voice that broke their hearts that day. God speaking through the Book, the Torah. The scroll of the Book was not some dry old religious document. It was the whole record of their existence before God. Every blessed thing.

This was the peoples’ origin, their history, their genealogy. The road map of where their ancestors had been for generations. Their journeys as migrants, settlers, exiles, and back through all these things, again and again. This is who you are, said God.

The Book was God calling to them and speaking to them in life and in death. Even when God spoke words of rebuke they still heard God’s abiding love, concern, and promise of restoration.

Through years of exile they had held on to the Book. And with their return from Babylon they had brought it home to Judah. When you have wept for so long, it’s hard to remember joy.

Yet, do not be sad, said the Ezra and the Levites. With every bone and fiber of your body, with voices and instruments, celebrate God’s voice! To this day at the autumn festival Jewish people read, and sing, and dance with God’s Book, the Torah.

Now, consider Jesus, at the synagogue in Nazareth. A son of Galilean soil, of their own town, making them proud with his brilliant scholarship, a popular teacher. Welcome! Welcome! Here is the scroll of Isaiah. Read it to us!  

Jesus stood. He handled the scroll with tender respect. There was silence, expectation, perhaps even awe. They not only turned their ears toward Jesus, they watched him intently. They were ready to hear God’s voice come alive.

Jesus read. Beloved prophetic words from Isaiah. Silence followed as he reverently rolled up and returned the scroll. Then he began to teach. “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

There are two possible ways we can hear what Jesus said. One of them, the most obvious, is that he was revealing himself as the servant anointed by God. And certainly in hindsight we can claim the truth of that.

Another way to hear Jesus’s teaching is that in his proclamation, Jesus was God’s word. This was a moment of actual and transformative engagement with God. In this synagogue God was speaking and acting.

They were the poor, hearing good news. They were captives being released. They were the blind being given sight. They were the oppressed being set free. They were people in debt receiving God’s word of forgiveness.

Next week we will hear the reaction of the people to Jesus that day. But for now it is perhaps enough to leave us in contemplation of our own moment. The voice of God is still heard and proclaimed. Today. Here. In the testaments old and new of the Book, in prophets and teachers old and new, and in Jesus, eternally.

So. Is God’s gracious and amazing word being fulfilled now? As we hear it, can we look around and see that it is good news to the poor? Is oppression being addressed and freedom increasing? Is vision being restored or does blindness persist? Is this the year of God’s favor where every living thing will experience an end to debt, and be restored?

And, as Paul might put it, what are we doing with all our gifts, to respond to God’s Word? As people who hear God’s voice and receive God’s instruction with joy, how are we being addressed and sent out today? For, are we not people whose eyes and ears are set on Jesus, the last and best Word God has yet spoken?