In times like these, it is essential that we focus on what God has already done for us and look to the future with hope in our hearts.
When everything around us grows dark, when family members fall ill, when friends die, when we lose our jobs, when our freedom is restricted, when fear paralyses us, when the media bombard us all day with negative forecasts, when leaders collapse under the weight of corruption or their inability to tackle social challenges, what is the answer?
The only answer lies in Yeshua and his mission: God sent his Messiah to save us, redeem us and restore us to the destiny God has prepared for us. He has done it, and this is the good news!
In Isaiah 59:20, God promises a redeemer (called ‘ga’al’ in Hebrew) for those who would turn away from their transgressions.
In Isaiah 60:16, God says that his people would be restored and that he himself would be the promised Saviour and Redeemer (ga’al).
In Isaiah 61 (Luke 4:16–22), God reaffirms that the Messiah would be anointed by the Lord, for the Holy Spirit would rest upon him and consecrate him to proclaim the good news to the poor; he would be sent to heal the broken-hearted, set the captives and the oppressed free, restore sight to the blind, proclaim the beginning of a new era of grace and vengeance from our God, and comfort all who mourn.
The mission of the redeeming Saviour is to save, redeem and restore through powerful acts of liberation and healing.
We may be quite familiar with the word ‘saviour’
, which in Hebrew is ‘moshia’
, the participle form of the verb ‘yashah’, meaning to save. It refers to a person who saves someone or something from danger or difficulty.
But we may be less familiar with the word ‘redeemer
’, which in Hebrew is ‘ga’al
’. It is a word that belongs to legal language. It means someone who repays, recovers, saves or exchanges something for something else, restoring things to how they were before.
In the Torah, the ga’al is the close relative entitled to redeem any member of his family who had gone into slavery (Lev. 25:48), to avenge the blood of a family member who had been killed (Numbers 35:19), to buy back property that had been sold by any of his ‘brothers’ (Leviticus 25:25) and to carry on the family name by marrying his sister-in-law who had been left a widow and childless (Deuteronomy 25:5–10).
In short, the ga’al was the family member who had the legitimacy, the power and the responsibility to redeem and restore people, property and posterity. And it is noteworthy that he could do so only for those close relatives of his who had requested his intervention.
The ga’al had the legal power of redemption to restore. Our ga’al is Yeshua, the Messiah, the Saviour-Redeemer. He is our closest relative because he, the true God, became a true man, just like each one of us; and, through his completed work, we who have placed our trust in him have been saved from death and fully restored as children in God’s family!
Well over 700 years after Isaiah had written these prophecies in his book, it came to pass that one Sabbath Yeshua went to the synagogue in Nazareth, the village where he had grown up. He was given the task of reading the passage designated for that day, taken from the scroll of the prophet Isaiah. It was the passage where the prophet announced that one day the promised ga’al would come; that he would be sent by God with the Holy Spirit, who would anoint him as the long-awaited Messiah. Then he sat down and, amidst the general, silent embarrassment of those present, said that the words he had just read spoke of him and that he himself was therefore the ‘moshia and ga’al’ sent by God for the redemption of humanity. He claimed to be the promised Messiah, the Saviour and Redeemer who would restore people from poverty, affliction, captivity, exile, blindness, adversity, sickness and sin (Isa. 61:1–2).
Isaiah also wrote that, consequently, the following would happen to the Lord’s people:
– they would receive a crown, joy and praise so that they might be called righteous trees, planted by the Lord to glorify him (Isa. 61:3);
– they would rebuild the ancient ruins, restore the ancient devastations, renew the ruined cities, the devastations of many generations (Isa. 61:4);
– its members would be called priests of the Lord and ministers of God (Isa. 61:6);
– they would no longer suffer shame or disgrace, and theirs would be everlasting joy (Isa. 61:7);
– they would receive a reward and the everlasting covenant that God had promised to his people (Isa. 61:8).
The effect of redemption is also a complete apostolic restoration: the Messiah, the ga’al sent by God, has completely repositioned us in his kingdom as his representatives and agents to rebuild and renew what had fallen into ruin: cities, families and descendants.
In Nazareth, on that Sabbath, Yeshua raised the curtain on history and announced the beginning of the Lord’s holy jubilee, which had already been foreshadowed in Leviticus 25: the new era of God’s grace for humanity and vengeance upon the infernal enemy.
But Yeshua’s fellow townspeople, clouded by a deceptive inner turmoil, driven by an inexplicable, excessive, unnatural and illogical hatred, despised that anointed one, their ga’al sent by God, to the point of wanting to kill him. And they almost succeeded.
Some questions arise spontaneously for reflection: have we ever despised someone who had come to bring us consolation, liberation, revelation, healing or forgiveness because of our shared familiarity? Have we ever gone from being victims of life to becoming persecutors of those who offered to help us, simply because we saw them grow up alongside us or in our own town, neighbourhood or Christian community?
God is still at work, drawing human beings out of their quicksand
. Wherever one has strayed from their destiny, God wants to bring them back into it. But he needs a human being to bring into those situations the divine ga’al that carries with it the restorative power of the Holy Spirit to offer to those in need: are we willing to be those bearers, to face persecution and rejection? Are we even willing to pay a price to restore those who are afflicted and spiritually dying, as the Good Samaritan did when he left the man he had saved from death at the inn?
Over the last 2000 years, the church has been and still is God’s agent of restoration. Now more than ever, at a time like this, all ‘bearers of the Kingdom of God’ must be willing so that the Holy Spirit may continue to carry out Yeshua’s redemptive mission through them, within reach of all who repent and trust in him.
May God enlighten our minds so that we may see the truth. May God heal our hearts so that we may have gratitude and be freed from the selfishness and self-righteousness that make us slaves to the prince of this world. May God deliver us from the oppression of sin, sickness and the circumstances that make life bitter. May God restore us to the destiny He has planned for each of us in eternity!
Maurizio Tiezzi
Article published in English in the magazine “Thy Kingdom Carriers”, December 2020