Luke 4:17-19 -- On the Acceptable Year of the Lord

"And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written,
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,
To preach the acceptable year of the Lord."
Luke 4:17-19


The phrase "the acceptable year of the Lord" here was interesting to me so I looked it up on Biblehub, and one of the commentaries there tells us "the allusion, as before observed, is to the year of jubilee, when there was a proclamation of liberty; of release of debts; of restoration of inheritances, and of cessation from work; all which must make it an acceptable year: and this proclamation was made on the day of atonement; and Jarchi interprets the phrase here of a 'year of reconciliation.'"

So, basically God is telling us that it's okay to come back and repent and rejoin him... nothing of the past will be held against us, and we can go forward starting over.  ... And of course it refers to the year discussed in the Old Testament, but the cool part is that this "acceptable year" that Christ preaches isn't merely a year... it's all of what he offers us, the whole gospel, for our lifetimes.  We can come back to him and start over clean, and he'll forgive us and help us to do better and be better.

Today, whether we are bruised and brokenhearted or not, let's look to the Lord, and remember that we can return to him and start again.  With his help we can change and grow and be free to become who we want again, no matter how far away from that we feel right now.  Let's work with God to find the liberty that he offers us.