Advent with Luke #2 – What’s special about Luke?
And so we plunge into Luke! – but there’s no hurry. God loves it, and we get far more out of it, when we read slowly. We’ve got months! So read a bit at a time, then more, pondering, digesting, questioning, re-reading, meditating.
{Note I’m doing an in person multimedia session on Luke’s Christmas story, featuring art, music, archaeology, and history this Wednesday at 11; video to come later!}
When way down the road we get to the last verse of Luke, we’ll plunge into Acts – as Luke has given us a 2 volume work. Acts begins by referring to volume 1, this Gospel, as “the things Jesus began to do.” Acts is what Jesus will continue to do through his church – a hint that the point of reading Luke and then Acts is for us to be Jesus’ body here on earth.
Luke is, to our knowledge, the only non-Jewish author of a New Testament book (Colossians 4:10-14). His Greek is more elegant than the rest. I admire Elizabeth Scalia’s introduction (in The Word on Fire Bible) where she calls Luke “intelligent” and “deeply read,” “because what Luke delivers is the sort of highly engaging and lasting chronicle that can only come from someone who understands how to build a story and sustain interest.”
Luke knows how to build an introductory sentence! Graham Stanton calls Luke 1:1-4 “probably the most carefully honed sentence in the Bible.” Open a Bible or google it and read it! Luke wasn’t dictated by God. He acknowledges other narratives about Jesus have been attempted, and he doesn’t dismiss or criticize them! Luke had a copy of Mark in front of him as he wrote. He and Matthew knew of another bio with many of Jesus’ words which they both repeated. Luke has his own unique moments found nowhere else – thankfully, as they are some of our most treasured, memorable moments in Scripture.
Luke didn’t know Jesus, but sorted through stories that were “delivered” or “handed down,” word of mouth from “eyewitnesses.” Many were still alive; you could find them and question them! Luke raises the question of “truth,” knowing some will be skeptical.
Be sure, Luke isn’t writing a dispassionate documentary, although he would take every word of it as something that really happened. He knows that this story is about the invasion of God into human history, that a divine plot was unfolding, and he’s bothering to write, yes to get “an orderly account,” but also so you will hear, be moved, believe, and then act, not merely to be amused or entertained.
Scalia again is spot on: “The great strength of Luke’s Gospel is how accessibly, rationally and convincingly he presents a narrative that must necessarily challenge, even defy, reason.” He’s talking about God and us, heaven and earth, unseen forces! – but he does this so convincingly because in every scene he shows us real people responding quite plausibly to what would blow anybody’s mind! There’s no quick swooning of amazed believing, no triumphant declarations, no double-daring us to believe. Characters around Jesus are puzzled, upset, confused, questioning, doubting – understandably! – leaving us room to do the same and hence honoring our place to make up our own minds and believe because we’re drawn in, not clobbered or forced to accept things.
Real people. Real life. Interactions. We can’t be sure what’s next. We haven’t quite found our place in the story yet, but you sense you will. That’s how God comes among us and walks with us. I love the way Luke does this – and so much more. Be on the lookout for how accessible are his words, how people react to Jesus in very human ways – and then some, not all, manage to see, understand, and accept. And then nothing is ever the same.