On the first day of September we begin the church year, the cycle of feasts and fasts of the Orthodox Church. In the Synaxarion for the month of September, we find that this day is also called the Indiction, from the Roman custom of numbering the days of the year beginning on September 1. Also on this day we remember the entrance of our Lord Jesus Christ into the synagogue in Nazareth (Luke 4:16-30). Taking the book of Isaiah, He read, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord” (Luke 4:18-19). Closing the book, Christ interprets for those present the verses they have heard, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4:21). The verses from Isaiah were well known by the Jews to refer to the Messiah, the One who would bring liberation to captives, sight to the blind, freedom to the oppressed. Christ clearly tells the synagogue worshippers that these words have been fulfilled. But if at the beginning “all spoke well of him, and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth,” by the end of his discourse “they were all filled with wrath... and they rose up and put him out of the city.” They could not accept the fact that the son of Joseph, the carpenter, could be the Messiah predicted by the prophets.
The Savior clearly reveals Himself, from the very beginning of his activity, as Messiah. He announces here “the acceptable year of the Lord.” At the beginning of every church year, we remember these words and our mission in the year we are entering: to listen to the scriptural message, to receive it, and to understand it. This message reveals God Himself. Therefore, we must receive it, like the Jews in the synagogue in Nazareth. But then we must strive to understand it, knowing well that the Word itself works in us and brings us to understanding. We must allow ourselves to be penetrated by the word, and not to oppose our human logic to it, as did the Jews here in the synagogue. “How can the son of the carpenter claim to be the Messiah?” And they changed from hearers of the word to persecutors of the one who preached the word, thus earning condemnation for themselves.
May it not be so with us! Let us allow the Word to bring about a change in us; let us allow the Spirit to work freely, and not smother Him with the letter of the law. The entire church year is a succession of feasts which present the Word of God to us. At every feast, the Word addresses us personally. God reveals his will to each of us individually—for our entire life, but also for each and every moment of it. God has a word for every instant of our lives. It behooves us to hear it, to receive it, and to understand it.
Let us ask our Good God to bless this beginning of the church year! May He grant us His peace, increase in our families and parishes, and may He protect us from all the works of the enemy! May He show us all to be worthy fulfillers of His Word!
† Metropolitan Nicolae
