Advent Day 17: Isaiah 61:1-11

Read Isaiah 61:1-11.

Ponder Isaiah 61:1-11

• As you read today’s passage, what examples of slavery and freedom did you notice? 

• These verses describe mourning being replaced with blessing, despair overshadowed by praise and even the restoration of long-ago ruined cities. How does this imagery help you better understand your own salvation? 

• How have you experienced God’s restoration? 

• Read over Isaiah 61:1 one more time. Jesus spoke these words in Luke 4:18-19 and applied them to his own ministry and mission. Why is that important? What does that reveal about why Jesus came? 

• How do you see your own story in Isaiah 61, a life ruined by sin being restored and put right by God’s salvation? 

Meditate on Isaiah 61:1-11

Centuries had passed since God had led the Israelites out of Egypt and away from slavery, but once again the people of Israel found themselves in crisis. The empire of Assyria, an old foe, had experienced a resurgence and was headed toward Egypt, making a conquest of every nation in between—which meant that Israel was in Assyria’s crosshairs. 

Assyria wanted total control, and the people who knew what it was to be freed from slavery were about to be taken captive again to live as vassals of an empire that didn’t value the things they did or worship the one true God. 

And, as Isaiah pointed out through his prophecies in Isaiah 1-39, the people of Israel weren’t completely blameless. Isaiah, like the other Old Testament prophets, sought to call the people to repentance, citing examples of their rebellion and inviting them back into lives of obedience. Judgment would come because of their sin, he warned, in the form of Assyria—but the God who brought them out of Egypt would one day fully restore them. 

In other words, they would be captives and prisoners, but one day, by God’s own power, they would be released. 

While a good two-thirds of Isaiah’s prophecy deals with repentance and judgment, the final third of the book of Isaiah (40-66) is devoted to God’s restoration. What had been broken would be put back together. Captives and prisoners would be freed. Ruins would be restored to glory. 

All that sin, disobedience and rebellion had destroyed would one day be put to rights, and the one true God would be the one to do it. 

We may not be political captives like the Israelites in Isaiah’s day, but we are captives just the same. Sin chains us up, constricts us and separates us from God. While we may try to manage our sin or find our own way out of bondage, we cannot free ourselves. 

True freedom only comes from the One True God, and he is still releasing captives today.