Skipping the Day of Vengence

The Rev. Rob Courtney

Fr. Rob is the Rector of St. Paul's Episcopal Church & School

This past Sunday I preached about how nice it would be if we knew and understood our purpose and mission in life as well as Jesus understood and proclaimed his. This sermon is the third installment in our series Epiphany: A Season of Self-Discovery​, and you can listen to it here.

Jesus quotes from the prophet Isaiah, and the quote is really a mash-up of two different passages. He says, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me. He has sent me to preach good news to the poor, to proclaim release to the prisoners and recovery of sight to the blind, to liberate the oppressed, and to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." This comes mostly from Isaiah 61:1-2, but also a little from Isaiah 58:6. During a discussion with clergy colleagues about this passage, one of them brought up that Jesus leaves off the second part of verse 61:2, which says, "to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor, and a day of vindication for our God." The Common English Bible uses "vindication," but other translations translate it as "vengeance." My colleague wondered aloud that it's interesting that Jesus "proclaims the year of the Lord's favor," but skips the part about God's vengeance. 

For all the fire and brimstone that exists over the course of Church history, and in many churches even today, my colleagues and I find it interesting that Jesus isn't so worried about this--both in this passage, and elsewhere for that matter. Jesus easily could have kept this part of the verse in, but he didn't. Jesus is far less condemnatory than we his followers. While I'm conflating the gospels a bit here, the Gospel of John makes this plain. Everyone loves to quote John 3:16, "For God so loved the world . . . ." I believe it's important also to proclaim loudly v. 17: "For God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him." All this is to say, I think it's beautiful that Jesus is eager to proclaim salvation, and seemingly less eager to pronounce judgment. It goes to show how much God loves us. While we all have much that we could point to in our lives that reveals our brokenness, it's Jesus desire to bring us healing, wholeness, and forgiveness.

Rather than shaming ourselves as many of us are wont to do, what if we could simply allow ourselves to accept that we're loved? Unconditionally loved. That doesn't mean we can't feel appropriate guilt, and seek to do a new thing when we've fallen short. It doesn't mean God's fine with it when we sin. It does mean that God is much more ready to love than to punish. We do well to remind ourselves that Jesus is eager and willing to skip the day of vengeance.