Dear co-workers in Christ, I hope you are well.

As we celebrate the birth of our King, Jesus Christ, who came to this earth in human form, this season invites the saints, the local churches, and the global Jesus community to reflect on the purpose of His coming.

Today, I would like to focus especially on Jesus, who came to this earth as a Jew, the salvation of the Jews, and the salvation of the Gentiles. Let us look at Luke 4:16–21

He went to Nazareth, where He had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day He went into the synagogue, as was His custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to Him. Unrolling it, He found the place where it is written: "The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because He has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” Then He rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on Him.

This passage follows Jesus’ 40 days of fasting in the wilderness and His overcoming of the devil’s temptations. After this, He taught in various synagogues in Galilee, and on the Sabbath, He visited the synagogue in Nazareth and read these words.

This passage is Jesus' mission statement.

The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn.(Isaiah 61:1-2a)

As you well know, the Jews gathered in the synagogue noticed that Jesus stopped reading midway through verse 2 of Isaiah 61. When Jesus finished reading the passage and sat down, everyone’s attention turned to Him.

Then in verse 21, Jesus said:

Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.

The Messiah they were waiting for was expected to bring vengeance upon the Roman Empire and other nations and peoples that had conquered Israel, restoring Israel's glory as a king. However, Jesus stopped at the phrase, 'to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor,' in verse 19, and did not read the part about proclaiming the day of God's vengeance. Instead, He declared that the time to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor had now come. The Jews not only refused to accept Jesus as their Savior but also rejected Him, calling for Him to be crucified.

The Messiah who brings good news to the poor.

The Messiah who heals the brokenhearted.

The Messiah who proclaims freedom to the captives.

The Messiah who releases the prisoners—this is the purpose for which Jesus came to this earth.

The Jews questioned, 'Is this truly all that the Messiah, who came as our Savior, was meant to do?'

The Lord God is a God of abundance.

To Adam, God said in Genesis 1:28-29:

God blessed them and said to them, 'Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.' Then God said, 'I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food.'

God is not pleased when poverty, especially generational poverty, persists. Of course, Jesus clarified in the Sermon on the Mount that this does not refer solely to economic matters:

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

The brokenhearted desperately need healing. Living with a wounded heart can make life deeply painful. At times, it is impossible to escape this snare alone, and such brokenness can even be passed down through generations.

The Israelites likely deeply resonated with the idea of the Messiah proclaiming freedom for the captives, as they had endured the Babylonian exile and were currently living under Roman rule.

The Messiah who proclaims release for the prisoners finds its roots in the concept of the Jubilee Year. However, in the Old Testament, there are very few examples of the Jubilee being truly observed. The Book of Ruth, through the lives of Naomi, Ruth, and Boaz, gives us a glimpse of what Jubilee means.

Due to human greed, obeying God’s design for Jubilee has always been challenging. Especially in the capitalist society we live in today, the concept of Jubilee does not exist. It seems that modern systems of wealth redistribution have taken the place of Jubilee.

Jesus went to the temple, but He also visited synagogues to share His teachings. The temple during Jesus' time was the Second Temple, which had been rebuilt by Zerubbabel, Ezra, and Nehemiah after the Babylonian exile under the decree of King Cyrus. King Herod later expanded and enlarged this temple.

Synagogues began to be established during the Babylonian exile after the destruction of the Jerusalem temple, where Jews gathered to pray and learn the law. Synagogues became places for prayer, Bible study, preaching, education, and worship on the Sabbath or during specific holidays. During Jesus' time, it is believed that there were about 400 to 500 synagogues. Today, there are over 10,000 synagogues in Israel.

Jews who confess Jesus as their Savior are called Messianic Jews. According to the Messianic Jewish Alliance of America (MJAA), there are currently over 5,000 Jewish synagogues in the United States, and approximately 300 to 400 Messianic Jewish synagogues/churches. The MJAA introduces the current Messianic movement as follows: The Messianic Judaism itself dates back to the time of Yeshua's twelve apostles, but its "resurrection" is a relatively new phenomenon.

In the late 1800s, after several large "revivals" among Protestant Christians in the United States and Europe, many Christians sought to share Yeshua, that is, Jesus, with the Jews. When some Jews in Europe began to desire to return to the land of Israel and establish a permanent Jewish homeland there, the Lord prompted many Jews to directly examine the so-called "Christian Bible" or the New Testament.

For centuries, anti-Semitism in the name of Jesus caused the Jewish community to become skeptical. However, during this period, some Jewish men and women became followers of Yeshua. Over the following decades, a community of Jewish believers in Jesus was born. This movement came to be known as "Hebrew Christianity."

They are Israelites, to whom pertain the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the service of God, and the promises; of whom are the fathers and from whom, according to the flesh, Christ came, who is over all, the eternally blessed God. Amen! (Romans 9:4-5)

"Hebrew Christianity" later became known as "Messianic Judaism." Today, there are tens of thousands of Messianic Jews in the United States alone. Some estimate this number to be as high as 1.3 million. Messianic Jewish congregations are springing up in nearly every major city across the U.S., and Messianic Judaism is rapidly growing in North America, South America, Europe, Oceania, and other countries of the former Soviet Union.

How have you heard of this?

There are approximately 15.7 million Jews worldwide. Israel’s population is about 9.8 million, of which around 7.2 million are Jews, and among them, approximately 15,000 to 20,000 are Messianic Jews. In the United States, there are about 6.3 million Jews, and surprisingly, around a million of them are Messianic Jews, according to the MJAA. Israel and the United States are the top two countries with the largest Jewish populations. In Canada, there are approximately 10,000 to 20,000 Messianic Jews.

Jesus declared that He came not to overthrow the Roman Empire and become the king of the Jews to avenge them, as the Jews of that time had hoped. Instead, He proclaimed that He had come to announce the year of the Lord's favor, guiding their eyes from the empire to the Kingdom of Heaven as the gracious Savior. We are living in this year of grace today.

I grew up in a Christian household and accepted Jesus as my Savior at the age of 18 in 1974, when I was baptized. Since I had been baptized as a young, I was formally received into the church.

In 1974, I heard about Jews who followed Jesus, and I was very intrigued. I wanted to meet them, but at that time, it seemed impossible to meet Jewish Christians in Korea, so I eventually forgot about it.

Today, I would like to share the story of my experience with the Messianic Jewish community in the United States. After moving to the U.S., in 2004, when I went to live in Los Angeles, I was searching for a church. I learned that there were over five churches in the LA area affiliated with the EV Free Church denomination that were Messianic Jewish churches. I discovered that there were communities using the term "Messianic Jew," and I visited one of these churches to attend a service. The greeting from the elder who welcomed me there greatly surprised me.

“Welcome all, Jews and Gentiles. We are a Messianic Jewish church community established for the salvation of the Jewish people. Within a 30-mile radius of our church, there are 750,000 Jews, and they are the focus of our prayers.”

That one sentence left my mind in complete confusion. I had grown up learning that the church is the spiritual Israel, so although I am a Gentile, I believed I was part of spiritual Israel. But here, in front of me, I clearly saw that 99% of the congregation was Jewish, and I was undeniably a Gentile. This created a spiritual identity crisis for me.

As I participated in my first worship service, I came to the firm conviction that Jehovah, the God of Israel, is indeed the God of the Jews. In the sight of a sister dancing and praising, I saw the image of Miriam worshiping the Lord at Mount Sinai, and in the hands raised in prayer, I saw the hands of Moses and Aaron.

Although we cannot look directly at Jehovah, we praise Him by looking to the sky, dancing with our faces covered by our hands, reflecting the image of a sinner before God.

If Jehovah is their God, then who am I? I struggled to make sense of this. However, through the worship service, I found peace in the understanding that both Jews and Gentiles, like me, are one in Christ. The sermon helped me realize that the understanding and faith in the gospel are the same for all, and through this conviction, I became a member of that church for the next four years.

I participated in small group activities, and when the church requested that I share my entire life story as a new member, I was able to do so openly. I shared not only my sins but also the flaws I was ashamed of.

It was an interview night. The senior pastor, who was a rabbi but asked to be called pastor, and three elder members of the church came to listen to my life story. They shared their own lives as well, and through this exchange, I came to deeply understand the grace of Jesus, who forgives our flaws and sins. The four elders spent over three hours with me, welcoming me, and after this time, I was able to become a member of the community.

I learned the following three purposes during the new member orientation at my Messianic Jewish church:

1. The church, as the body of the Messiah, is a family.

2. God desires for you to be a member of the church community.

3. A believer without a church community is like an orphan.

After serving in the community for four years, I moved my membership to a Korean church to engage in SWM ministry. Although it was a bittersweet farewell, I still carry those memories in my heart. At that time, the senior pastor, Rabbi Luis Lapides, shared his testimony in the Fall 2021 edition of SWM Report, and our fellowship has continued positively since then. The article, titled "From Ben Hur to Jesus," can be read on the SWM mission website.

After Pastor Lapides finished his exposition on Romans chapters 9-11, he briefly spoke about the story of Jews returning to God. Messianic Jews desire to share the gospel with Jews, but they say that Jews refuse to listen. The reason is that they see Christianity as a heretical religion, separate from Judaism. However, when we hear the stories of Jews who come to church or come to believe in Jesus, many of them say that they started thinking about Jesus after hearing about Him from Gentiles. Regarding this, Paul says in Romans 11:13-14:

For I speak to you Gentiles; since I am the apostle of the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry, if by any means I may provoke to jealousy those who are my flesh and save some of them.

For I speak to you Gentiles; since I am the apostle of the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry, if by any means I may provoke to jealousy those who are my flesh and save some of them.

We can see the heart of the Apostle Paul, who desires to provoke the Jews to jealousy in hopes of saving some of them.

Pastor Louis Lapides was a hippie in the 1970s. He was living as a nominal Jew during a time of wandering, and his life was described as desolate. He majored in photography in college, and after serving in the Vietnam War, he left the cold East Coast and moved to the warm, glamorous Sunset Strip area of Los Angeles.

There, he encountered a Baptist evangelist protesting outside a nightclub on Sunset Strip, carrying a 7-meter cross. Through this evangelist, he heard unfamiliar names like Isaiah, Micah, Jeremiah, and Zechariah. After having a long conversation with the evangelist, Pastor Lapides began reading the Old and New Testaments and became convinced that the Messiah prophesied in the Old Testament was Jesus Christ. The evangelist, who was a Baptist pastor, invited him to attend a church in Beverly Hills, where he began learning about the God of Israel and became interested in salvation. Through reading both the Old and New Testaments, Pastor Lapides accepted Jesus as the Christ and began living as a disciple of Jesus.

The salvation of Gentiles provoking Jews to jealousy is certainly a sign of the last days, pointing to the return of the Jews to God. During that time, the elders made a request of me. They asked me to reach out to a Korean church in Los Angeles, to pray for the salvation of the Jews, and to share the gospel with them. They explained that Jews are still hardened in their hearts and do not listen to the gospel when it is preached by other Jews. This request remains a heavy burden in my heart.

There are many signs of the end times, but I would like to share a few Bible verses as I conclude today:

1. The gospel being preached to all nations

And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.(Matthew 24:14)

2. The number of martyrs being completed

Then each of them was given a white robe, and they were told to wait a little longer, until the full number of their fellow servants, their brothers and sisters, were killed just as they had been.(Revelation 6:11)

3. The fullness of the Gentiles and the return of Israel

For if you were cut off from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and grafted contrary to nature into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these, the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree. Brothers, I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, so that you may not be wise in your own sight: that a partial hardening has come upon Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. (Romans 11:24-25)

We, who have been grafted into the good olive tree contrary to nature, should humbly pray for Israel, the original branches of the true olive tree, that they may repent and return to the Lord. This is because now is the time of grace.

When our Lord returns, the second part of Isaiah 61:2 will be fulfilled:

To proclaim the year of the Lord's favor, and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn.

The book of Revelation speaks of this as follows:

Now I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse. And He who sat on him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and makes war. His eyes were like a flame of fire, and on His head were many crowns. He had a name written that no one knew except Himself. He was clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called The Word of God. And the armies in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, followed Him on white horses. Now out of His mouth goes a sharp sword, that with it He should strike the nations. And He Himself will rule them with a rod of iron. He Himself treads the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. And He has on His robe and on His thigh a name written: KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS. (Revelation 19:11-16)

Dear fellow workers,

The Creator God, who came as the King of the Jews and preached the gospel to His people but was not received, chose the Apostle Paul as the apostle to the Gentiles and delivered the good news to us. Having received that life and grace, we must pray for Israel, the natural branches, to repent and return to the Lord. We must also not ignore our responsibility to share the blessed news of the Lord with them. May the Holy Spirit guide and empower all of us to obey His voice.