NOTES for Luk 4:16-22
The Lord proclaimed the fulfillment of the prophecy. The acceptable year of the Lord had come. But where is it? Why do we see the opposite, that the world still lies in evil, that the unjust are exalted and the just are trampled down? Then it is not so. The prophecy did not come true. How can we accept the thought that the Lord's prophecy did not come true?!
Two things can be said in response to these doubts. The first, and apparently very important, is that the concept of "prophecy" must not be understood narrowly or in a utilitarian way. Fortune-tellers claim to tell you your fate, "what will happen." It would be more accurate to call prophecy a revelation of God's will. But there is also human will. God is not a conductor, and the world is not a stage, because everything happens in the complex interaction of two wills: the human and the divine. The Lord took His step and fulfilled what He had promised; after that, it was up to our will to accept it or not accept it. We did not accept it. And if we had accepted it, without question everything described in Isa. 61 would already have reigned on earth for two thousand years. But we did not accept it; we ourselves did not want to, or more precisely, we were not yet ready.
And second: there were people who did accept it. Yes, and precisely for that reason the prophecy did come true after all. That is why Theophan the Recluse writes: "The Lord came not only to announce the acceptable year, but also brought it. Where is it? In the souls of believers."