Observe the breadth and comprehensiveness of this great announcement. It includes all forms and classes of sorrow: "the poor" the world's sad and uniform majority; "the brokenhearted" all the children of sorrow; "the captives" all upon whose soul ignorance or sin had bound fetters; "the blind " all who were insensible to the light and joy with which Christ's mercy had filled the world. He came to teach all who needed teaching, to heal all who needed healing, to liberate all who were deprived of freedom. The misery that selfish men traded on, that sentimental pity turned away from because it could not bear to look upon it, His strong, healthy compassion went amongst; His hand was firm as His heart was tender. He had no professional narrowness that excluded the pariahs of life. He assumed no Pharisaic superiority. He seemed as if unconscious of Himself a pure, ministering angel of God, bent only upon pitying and saving others. Let us distinctly note His principles and motives.
I. Can we suppose that His natural tastes and sympathies were not hurt by such association? He had no preference for squalor and poverty and misery for their own sakes. We may be sure that all the human sensibilities and refinements of our Lord would be jarred and pained by His contact with the poor, and yet we never hear of Him borrowing an excuse from His sensibilities.
II. Nor can we think of Him as insensible to the vices, the moral loathsomeness, of those to whom He ministered. His sinless sensitive soul came into direct contact with the world's reprobates, whose every word was a blasphemy and every act a sin. He subjected Himself to the unspeakable moral anguish of this: "endured the contradiction of sinners against Himself."
III. Nor did He throw the glamour of romance about the vices of the poor. He spake to them, and of them, with a calm, clear, righteous judgment, without favour and without partiality. They were not interesting because they were wicked. His pity was perfectly holy. Their misery touched not His sentimentalism, but His deep, strong, holy compassion.
IV. In proclaiming His mission to the poor, our Lord began at the root of the world's misery and sin. All the mightiest social influences come from beneath, upwards. If we would make the tree good, we must mend its root, not its upper branches. The religious system which is strong enough and purifying enough to sanctify the poor will thereby most effectually influence the rich.
H. Allon, Sermons at the Dedication of Union Chapel, Islington,p. 175.
I. The text declares that the true ministry is always inspired and directed by the Holy Ghost. "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me." The minister does not speak in his own name, or work in his own strength. A ministry without the Holy Ghost is a cloud without water; a Church without the Holy Ghost is a tree twice dead, that cannot too soon be plucked up by the roots. That our service may be animated by the Holy Spirit, and should express Divine ideas and purposes, is clear from the consideration that ours is not an earthly ministry contemplating earthly matters. When we are working not for this world only, but for worlds we have never seen, and which have been revealed to us by a Spirit which is not of this world, we have to be careful that we work not in our own strength or after our own imagination, but clearly, steadily, and constantly along the line of Divine inspiration.
II. The text shows us that the true ministry is animated by the sublimest benevolence. If you read the statement given by the prophet, you will find throughout the statement a tone of kindliness, benevolence, sympathy, gentleness, pity, for all human sorrow. Therein may be known the true ministry of the Gospel. Suspect every ministry that is gloomy. The keynote of the Gospel is joy; the watchword of the Gospel is liberty. Any ministry, public or private, that increases our gloom is a ministry that never came out of yonder central Light that is the light of the universe.
III. The text shows that the true ministry, whether public or private, never shrinks from its more awful functions. Observe this sentence in the midst of the declarations of the text: "To proclaim the day of vengeance of our God." There must yet be a day of vengeance in human history. Without a day of vengeance human history would not be merely poetically incomplete, but morally imperfect.
Parker, City Temple,1870, p. 397.
References: Isaiah 61:2. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xxiii., No. 1369; Preacher's Monthly,vol. v., p. 44, and vol. ix., p. 50.