Welcome back to my story.

I first went on my mission when I was a grown man. I came from Nazareth, a small village in Galilee in Palestine.

I was the son of Joseph the carpenter and my mother Mary, and it was a happy life, although we were poor like all the other people in the village. We didn’t know why we were always so poor.

Then one day when I was praying alone, the words of Micah the prophet came to me:

Hear, all you peoples!

Listen, O earth, and all that is in it!

Let the Lord GOD be a witness against you.

The Lord from His holy temple.

For behold, the LORD is coming out of His place;

He will come down and tread on the high places of the earth.

All this is for the transgression of Jacob.

And for the sins of the house of Israel.

My eyes were opened to the sins of Israel, which were sins against the poor. The rich and powerful oppressed the poor and ignored the sick and neglected people while they, the rich, lived in luxury in palaces and grew rich on the hard labor of the oppressed people. The priests were abusing the temple, making it a money-making business. The people were crushed with strict religious laws and fear of terrible punishments if they did not obey, and although innocent, they were branded outcasts and sinners and were condemned. Priests were hypocrites; they had fake piety, loved to lord it over others, dressed in gold-trimmed robes, and abused the weak and vulnerable.

I had a spiritual insight and enlightenment that the occupation of Palestine by the Romans created hardship by collecting taxes, but the priests, elders, and rulers in Jerusalem did worse. They were more cruel and served themselves, not the people, and did not follow the will of my father in heaven. I was filled with a great desire to right this wrong, and I decided that I would start, as did Micah the prophet, and challenge the rulers of society.

I would offer them another way to follow and love God by loving and serving the poor and downtrodden. I wanted to make the poor and the children the most important in a new community that would emerge when the rulers accepted the truth. Then I went to the local synagogue in the village, and I read the words of the Prophet Isaiah, where he had felt the spirit of the Lord upon him as I was feeling and experiencing within me a call from God to teach and to serve and to save.

I stood there and read the scripture to all in the synagogue.

“The spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has chosen me to bring the good news to the poor,

He has sent me to bring freedom to the captives.

The recovery of sight to the blind set free the oppressed. and to announce that the time has come when the Lord will free his people.

This was and is still my mission today, and I invite you to embrace it today for your life and work.

We can, with the help of our friends and followers, save the poor and the downtrodden.

They need lifting up, support, justice, and help in overcoming the social injustice of a very unequal society.

Come again and think for yourself, with your mind and good heart. Jesus.