On Tuesday, January 7, 2025, we will continue our journey through the Gospel of Luke with a discussion of Luke 3:1-4:17. Please join us on our journey. The only provision you will need is a Bible.
Luke ends Jesus’ Nativity with the words “And Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature, and in favor with God and man.” Luke 2:52. In the readings for this week, we first encounter Jesus as an adult. Our readings will take us through John’s Ministry, Jesus’ Baptism, Jesus’s Genealogy (Luke and Matthew are very different), and Jesus’ Temptation in the Desert.
Political Context: (vv.1-2)
Luke once more begins a section of his Gospel by telling us the political context. If we look back at the end of the Song of Zechariah, John’s father sings of “giving light to those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the ways of peace.” Luke 1:79. Empire is generally a dark place. Think back to our reading of Walter Bruggermann’s The Prophetic Imagination and we see how the ways of the governments of this world are often opposed to God’s vision for this world. The names Luke gives us are important. The Emperor Tiberius, like Nero or Caligula after him, was a very violent and perverse individual. And Herod, Pilate, and the chief priests will come together at the end of the gospel to rid themselves of Jesus. Luke 23:12-13.
In naming names, Luke juxtaposes the message of the Empire and the religious establishment with John’s message and the coming of Jesus. Luke tells us the powers of the world are dark, but that the light has come. The “voice crying in the wilderness” will be more powerful than all the politicians and priests sitting on their thrones and in their temples. Luke tells us that the gospel is political (in fact the word “gospel” was first widely used regarding the ascension of Ceasar Augustus), but that its politics transcends and overcomes the world. See, Gal. 1:4.
Isaiah’s Message: (vv. 3-6)
Luke begins his description of John’s message with the quote from Isaiah 40:1-3: “. . . Prepare the way of the Lord . . . fill every valley and make low every hill and mountain. . . .” For Isaiah’s audience, the prophet is foretelling of a time when they will be able to leave their exile in Babylon to return to Jerusalem. Here, however, Luke is taking Isaiah’s quote as leading God’s people out of their exile in this dark world overcome by the shadow of the empire of death. (Luke will later tell us that the early church first called themselves “Followers of the Way. Acts 9:2.
The ”way of the Lord” as described in the second half of the Isaiah quote should also remind us of the Magnificat in Luke 1:46-55. There, Mary sings that “He has brought down the power from their thrones and lifted up the lowly.” v.52. In Luke, therefore, the geographical leveling foretold by Isaiah (valleys lifted up and mountains made low) as being the way, has been transformed into a social leveling (the lowly lifted up and the exalted made low) as being indicative of the Way.
John’s Message: (vv. 7-21)
In his work, The Antiquities of the Jews, the first-century Jewish historian Flavius Josephus (37AD-100AD) describes John the Baptist as “a good man, and commanded the Jews to exercise virtue; both as to righteousness towards one another, and piety towards God; and so to come to baptism. For that the washing [with water] would be acceptable to him, if they made use of it, not in order to the putting away, [or the remission] of some sins [only,] but for the purification of the body: supposing still that the soul was thoroughly purified beforehand by righteousness.” Book 18.5.2.
John’s baptism as an outward and visible washing signifying an internal and personal change would not have been foreign to his Jewish audience. The Old Testament often speaks of an internal washing of sin. Ps. 51:2, Isa. 1:16, Ezek. 36:25. Here, John is simply combining the Jewish practice of washing to cleanse ritual impurity (mikveh) with a person’s return (repentance/metanoia) to internal cleanliness.
Luke also adds an eschatological dimension to John’s preaching concerning the immediacy of the coming of the Kingdom of God. John’s call to righteousness is heightened by the coming of another who will baptize with the Spirit and with Fire. How someone can be physically immersed into the Holy Spirit and Fire, however, is left undefined by John and will not be fully understood until Pentecost in Acts 2. It is this baptism of the Holy Spirit from which the Church springs. For Luke (like his mentor Paul), Jesus cannot be fully understood in isolation from the Church – the two are inseparable.
Luke ends his narrative of John’s ministry by simply noting that John gets arrested by Herod. v.20. Only later will Luke write that Herod murders John. Luke 9:9. (As an aside, Josephus writes that most Jews believed that Herod’s defeat by Aretas, the king of Arabia, was God’s punishment for John’s murder.)
Jesus’s Baptism: (vv.21-22)
Unlike Matthew’s telling of Jesus’ baptism that we discussed last year, Luke’s telling of Jesus’ baptism is quite brief and placed in the passive voice. Luke tells us that Jesus prayed after his baptism. v.21. As we read through Luke’s orderly account, he will continuously show us Jesus at prayer. Specifically, here, Jesus does not receive the Holy Spirit at the moment of his baptism, but during his post-baptismal prayer. For Luke, it is prayer, not the ritual, that causes the Holy Spirit to come. Acts 4:37.
Luke’s short baptism narrative ends with the voice from Heaven proclaiming “You are my son, my beloved, in whom I am well pleased.” v.22. This voice echoes the voice of God in Psalm 2:7 and Isaiah 42:1 and gives us the foundation for the Trinity. Whether anyone else saw the Spirit or heard the voice is not known.
Dinner is at 6. The menu is German New Year’s (pork and sauerkraut). Discussion about 6:45. Compline around 8. Hope to see you here for the beginning of our fifteenth year together!
Behold my servant, whom I uphold,
my chosen, in whom my soul delights;
I have put my Spirit upon him,
he will bring forth justice to the nations.
Isaiah 41:1