Our Journey Continues. Today, we begin the third Gospel—Luke—reading only the first chapter.
We live in an age of excess. From every direction, the message we receive is that more is better. We’ve supersize our meals and beverages. As a child, a 12 oz. can of soda was a treat. My family would sometimes have a quart of some beverage that we would pour into glasses with ice, and that would be enough for five children. Today, we have half-gallon servings with free refills!
The message in Luke 1 is the opposite. It asks: What if God were enough? Then answers it: He is!
Just the Facts
The author is Luke, a physician who had traveled with Paul (Colossians 4:14). He was brilliant. He investigated all the details, which we see in how he writes. His writing has a purpose. Like Lee Strobel(1) or Josh McDowell(2), he is looking at facts over emotions. You don’t get the sense of wonder that Mark has or the passion of John. Instead, this is a report of the details, written to Theophilus (Luke 1:3), a Roman official or someone in Rome with influence or wealth. His name would imply that he loved God, but this Gospel reads as a report on the facts. It is clinical. As the old television series and movie Dragnet would say, “Just the facts!”(3)
Luke is not trying to dazzle Theophilus with the mystical or the promise of what Jesus could provide. He begins his message speaking about a couple of servants.
The Impossible
Although Zechariah was of the priestly division of Abijah (Luke 1:5), making him a likely descendant of Solomon, and Elizabeth had royal lineage too, they were humble servants who had grown old without having a child. It would be fair to assume that years had passed since they had prayed for a child. That ship had passed. Those days were over.
God answers our prayers, but that answer might be no, or yes. Many times the answer is wait. For this couple, they had waited so long that it would seem to be impossible. God’s greatest working conditions are the impossible.
He does this, I believe, because it eliminates the possibility of our thinking it was any other cause. Our sinful, skeptical nature drives us to look for a more plausible explanation. Here, as with Mary, there is no other explanation.
Mary’s Favor
Mary had found favor with God (Luke 1:28–30), I presume, because she had done without. Denying her flesh, she had remained a virgin. We like to assume that past generations had higher moral standards than we do today, and to some extent that is true. But the natural sex drive has caused people throughout history to behave similarly. We know this when we read of the rapes, and multiple wives, etc. Bottom line: men have always been dogs, and women have always been receptive to this.
Since Zechariah and Elizabeth did not have a child, and Mary denied herself and Joseph. God honored this.
The Wilderness
Then we mix in John, who spent his time in the wilderness (Luke 1:80) and, like Elijah (Luke 1:17), lived ascetically. God honors the meek and the humble. Today, a preacher might try to draw someone with a message of God taking away pain or providing an abundance. Luke, in this letter to Theophilus, is saying the opposite.
He is painting a picture of sacrifice and suffering. Of living with nothing other than Jesus. Stating that Jesus is God — and that is all we need. But he does it in great detail and with one purpose, as stated in verse 4:
“So that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.” (Luke 1:4, NIV)
Eighteen Inches
God wants us to have life, and life in abundance, as John will state in John 10:10. But it is not an abundance of the world—it is an overflowing abundance of Him.
When we know the facts, we have no reason to doubt. As a former atheist, the details Luke provided were compelling. But it is said many people will miss heaven by eighteen inches.(4) That is the average distance between the head and the heart. People will know who Jesus is without ever knowing Jesus.
Luke gives us the facts to know who Jesus is. That He is God incarnate. My suspicion is that when Paul was on trial in Rome (Acts 25–28), Theophilus—if he is a person, or maybe even a group of people who loved God—heard this defense, and Luke did due diligence to provide them the facts so that they too would know.
Do You Know Him?
My question as we read this Gospel is: Do you know who Jesus is? Or do you know Jesus? Do you have a relationship with the living Lord?
He is more than a character in a book. He is the Lord, whether or not we believe it. But is He your Lord?
