“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me
to bring glad tidings to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty
to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed
go free, and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.” (Lk 4, 18-19)
The spirit of the Lord is upon me: THIS IS THE SECRET
This passage, in Luke’s gospel, is just after his Baptism and Temptation.
At Baptism:
‘the holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove’. (Lk 3, 22)
At Temptation:
‘Filled with the holy Spirit, Jesus returned from the Jordan and
was led by the Spirit into the desert’ (Lk 4,1)
Jesus has seen the presence of the spirit in his life in the two
major events of his life before he began his public ministry.
At Baptism, the spirit comes down upon him and anoints him
for his public ministry. His ministry was to be the beloved son
of GOD. This is what the voice confirmed when he was baptized.
So, the anointing at the Baptism (the presence of the Holy Spirit)
was to make his life, a life of the son of GOD.
At the Temptation, the presence of the spirit guides him to say:
- that man does not live on bread alone
- you shall worship the Lord your God
- you shall not put the Lord your God to the test
So at the temptation, Jesus takes the side of God.
By consequence his public ministry also begins with
the spirit of God. That is why he says that ‘the spirit of the
Lord is upon me.’ Since the spirit is present his public
ministry is going to be that of the messiah as said by
prophet Isaiah.
His work will be that of rescuing, redeeming, liberating
rather than protecting and safe-guarding.
We believe in a redeeming God, who enters into our
life situation and redeems us out of the evil situations
thus making the situations also healed.
Do we find the same Holy Spirit of our Baptism active and
alive in our life situations and our mission.
