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Jesus Our Lord, September 22
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 4:18, 19
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Christ spoke no words revealing His importance, or showing His supe-
riority; He did not ignore His fellow beings. He made no assumption of
authority because of His relation to God, but His words and actions showed
Him to be possessed of a knowledge of His mission and character. He spoke
of heavenly things as one to whom everything heavenly was familiar. He
spoke of His intimacy and oneness with the Father as a child would speak of
its connection with its parents. He spoke as one who had come to enlighten
the world with His glory. He never patronized the schools of the rabbis; for
He was the teacher sent by God to instruct mankind. As one in whom all
restorative power is found, Christ spoke of drawing all men unto Him, and of
giving the life everlasting. In Him there is power to heal every physical and
every spiritual disease.
Christ came to our world with a consciousness of more than human
greatness, to accomplish a work that was to be infinite in its results. Where
do you find Him when doing this work? In the house of Peter the fisherman.
Resting by Jacob’s well, telling the Samaritan woman of the living water. He
generally taught in the open air, but sometimes in the Temple, for He attended
the gatherings of the Jewish people. But oftenest He taught when sitting on
a mountainside, or in a fisherman’s boat. He entered into the lives of these
humble fishermen. His sympathy was enlisted in behalf of the needy, the
suffering, the despised; and many were attracted to Him.
When the plan of redemption was laid, it was decided that Christ should
not appear in accordance with His divine character; for He could not then
associate with the distressed and the suffering. He must come as a poor
man. He could have appeared in accordance with His exalted station in the
heavenly courts; but no, He must reach to the very lowest depths of human
suffering and poverty, that His voice might be heard by the burdened and
disappointed.—
The Signs of the Times, June 24, 1897
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