Read the passage and respond to these questions:
1.  What was the task given to the Lord’s Servant, Jesus? List his assignments.
2.  How have you (or could you) experienced God’s favor, His kingdom and grace, in your life?
Poor. Broken hearted. Captive. Prisoners of darkness. Grieving. Desperate. Ashes. This was the world to which Isaiah spoke the prophetic word of the Lord over 2600 years ago.  In many ways this is our world today:
            Poverty and AIDS in Africa.
            Addiction to whatever seems to take away the pain of broken and disappointed hearts.
Captives to the darkness of sin in its many forms.
Grief and mourning over the loss of beauty, innocence, and goodness in a world bent and broken by evil.

God spoke through Isaiah that sometime in the future He would make the world right in a time He called ‘the year of the Lord’s favor’. Do you sometimes feel like the year of God’s favor is still in the future? Between Isaiah’s time and ours, a man who was something of a traveling rabbi, trained as a carpenter, and thought by some to be the long awaited Christ of God, stood in His hometown synagogue and read Isaiah’s prophecy. When He sat down, He declared that this scripture had been fulfilled in their hearing. The year of the Lord’s favor had come. How could this be?

The year is here because Jesus the Messiah has come. The coming of His kingdom, of His rule and reign as the King of kings, began the year of the Lord’s favor. He fulfilled this scripture in His life and ministry – setting people free, healing broken hearts and spirits, giving garments of praise (true worship), crowns of beauty (salvation), and the oil of gladness (the Holy Spirit) to those who received Him and His kingdom. He is still doing this today through all of us who belong to His Body, the Church, as we minister in His name. Because of the cross of Christ and the power of His resurrection, we can be confident that we and our world live in the year of the Lord’s favor. The time of God’s kingdom is both now and yet to be completed. Only the Lord knows whether we are living in April or August or December of His year. We know and live in the joyful reality that His kingdom has come and the year of the Lord has begun. Let us pray today that God’s kingdom and His favor would move towards fulfillment in our world, our valley, our churches, and our selves.
Prayer
Who in your life needs to experience God’s kingdom today?  Please pray for them.