Grace Beyond Expectations
“When God’s Good News Disrupts Our Comfort”
January 26, 2025
The Third Sunday After Epiphany
Luke 4:14-21
Rev. Teer Hardy
When Jesus proclaimed “the year of the Lord’s favor,” he wasn’t just offering comfort; he was announcing a revolution. The poor would hear good news. The captives would be set free. The blind would see. The oppressed would be liberated. And that’s not a message everyone wants to hear—because it calls us to confront our own complicity in systems of injustice, to open our hearts to people we’d rather exclude, and to trust that God’s vision is better than our own.
This is the epiphany at the heart of Jesus’ message: He is the embodiment of God’s promises—God’s grace, healing, and justice come to life.
Pastor to pastors, Brian Zahnd, puts it like this:
God is like Jesus.
God has always been like Jesus.
There has never been a time when God was not like Jesus.
We have not always known what God is like—
But now we do.
Jesus doesn’t just tell us what God is like; he shows us. And in doing so, he reveals that God’s kingdom is not built on our desires or expectations but on God’s radical love. This is good news, even when it challenges us. It means that our worth isn’t determined by what we achieve, and our salvation isn’t earned through our efforts. It is God’s gift, freely given through Jesus Christ.
