Isaiah 61:1 Meaning The Lord Yahweh’s Spirit Is on Me

Anointed means smeared with oil and set apart for a job, and the one speaking is himself the Anointed, sent by the Father and carried by the Spirit. All three act together here, which is how God always works.

The captives are not people behind bars. Sin and death are the cell, and the opening is actual rather than a comforting thought. Everyone this rescue aims at is already broken in some way, so no one has to muster strength first, and the baptized receive the same oil in order to carry a share of the work.

The prison is not made of stone. It is made of thought, of the restless stream of mind that tells you who you are, that binds you to past and future and calls that captivity your life.

Yet awareness is already upon you, quietly present beneath the noise. The good tidings for the meek, for those no longer defended by ego, is this: you are not the voice in your head. The moment you notice a thought instead of being lost in it, the prison door stands open, and you step into the freedom of this present moment.

The spirit spoken of is the awareness in every man that can conceive a better state and, by dwelling in it, bring it to pass. To be anointed is to wake up to this power. The good news for the meek, the teachable, is that no outer jailer holds them. The captives, the brokenhearted, the prisoners are all one person, held not by walls but by a state of mind kept as though nothing else were possible.

Liberty comes by a shift of dwelling. A man leaves the condition of lack and takes up residence in the fulfilled wish, and the prison opens because it was made of assumption and nothing else. The rescue is inward and shows itself plainly outside. A person imprisoned by his own imagining is set free by the same imagining, the moment he chooses to occupy the freedom instead.