Jesus Heals a Man With Leprosy
12 While Jesus was in one of the towns, a man came along who was covered with leprosy. [b] When he saw Jesus, he fell with his face to the ground and begged him, "Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean."
13 Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. "I am willing," he said. "Be clean!" And immediately the leprosy left him.
14 Then Jesus ordered him, "Don't tell anyone, but go, show yourself to the priest and offer the sacrifices that Moses commanded for your cleansing, as a testimony to them."
15 Yet the news about him spread all the more, so that crowds of people came to hear him and to be healed of their sicknesses. 16 But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.
Dig Deeper
My wife is truly one of the most amazing people that I have ever known in my entire life. She works as a registered nurse in an ICU unit and I’m always amazed at what she sees and experiences on a regular basis at work. A few weeks ago she came home a little bit sad because she had a patient who had decided to have his tubes pulled which likely meant certain death for him. The patient was a quadriplegic and had basically decided that he no longer wanted to struggle through his medical care and he was, in essence, giving up. This saddened my wife because she truly cared about his welfare and had put a lot of effort into caring for him. The day before this was to happen he had someone come in and write down a note for my wife in which he thanked her for caring him. He noted that he felt like she was the first person in a long time that had actually paid attention to him and really took care of him. She had made him feel special and, in reality, feel human and alive for the first time in a long, long time. It was small little acts of love and humanity from my wife that so deeply affected him. In fact, in large part due to the hope that she had restored to his life, he later decided not to have his care pulled and fight on. He is currently doing well and will continue to live.
It is simply amazing when we think of how important it can be to treat someone in a humanizing and caring way, and how equally devastating it can be to treat someone in a dehumanizing manner. The simple touch of another human being, for instance, can have huge effects on a person. Studies among orphans in the 1970’s have shown that babies who were taken care of in every other way but were almost never touched and were never held, had many problems, including stunted growth and serious ongoing social and mental issues throughout their life. Some researchers even suggest that a baby who is cared for by being fed but who is never touched by a human will die within weeks. On the other hand, recent research has shown that premature babies who are simply gently rubbed on their head and their back will grow and heal much faster than babies who are not touched in that manner. I don’t know why human interaction and touch are so important and vital but I know that they are, and it seems apparent that God made humans that way. We cannot be fully human if we are treated inhumanly by others. We were made to live in community. We have a vital need to be accepted and treated like human beings by others.
The biblical word for “leprosy” could cover a variety of diseases but it was a much feared prognosis in the ancient world. Leprosy was considered to be highly contagious and thus, dangerous to the society around them. Because of this they were routinely ostracized and were not accepted in normal society, often being herded into leper’s colonies. What was even worse, in many respects, was that lepers during these times were considered unclean by the Jewish people. This meant that they were eternally unable to take part in any religious ceremony or ever go to the Temple. Even to appear in public was not really acceptable and those who had leprosy were expected to yell “unclean, unclean” to anyone that they were approaching so that those healthy people could avoid them. The harsh reality was that this man with leprosy that Luke describes in this account had likely been cut off from human contact for years and had probably not been touched by another human being for a long, long time.
As Jesus continued going through different towns he came along a man that Luke tells us was covered in leprosy. This was no doubt intended by Luke to let us know that this man was not just suffering from leprosy but had been suffering from it for a long time and was deep in the throes of the disease which also meant that he it was visibly obvious to others that he was leprous. This man had surely suffered some of the most severe effects of being socially ostracized that were possible at the time. At every turn this man would have been cast aside and dehumanized. Just coming into a social center enough so that he could come into contact with Jesus on any level would have taken either a great deal of courage or a great deal of desperation. But despite the disapproval of the culture around him and even the danger of making such a move, this man risked being rejected soundly by Jesus and made his way to him. Once there, the man threw himself at Jesus feet and took the position of submission and humility to beg Jesus for mercy.
It is quite interesting to note that when this man appealed to Jesus he absolutely had no question about Jesus’ ability to heal him and make him clean. The question was not if Jesus had the authority or power for this man believes already. Surely that is what Luke wants us to notice. It is equally significant that this man does not even appeal to Jesus to unleash the power of God. He apparently knew enough of Jesus to believe that Jesus possessed within himself the type of authority and power to alter the natural laws of the universe without having to appeal directly to the Father. Again, it is very unlikely that this man understood in any way the full divinity and theological significance of Christ, but certainly he understood that something was special about this man.
Jesus demonstrated that this man’s faith in his power was not misplaced. But Jesus did far more than just heal this man of his leprosy. He first “reached out his hand and touched the man.” This would have been technically against the law and would have, in theory, made Jesus unclean himself. But Jesus knew that love and mercy are often more important than religion and rules (this is the point of passages like Hos. 6:6). Jesus did something that no one had likely done in a long, long time. He touched this man. He humanized him. He took notice of him and treated him like a special human being. We may not have the healing ability that Jesus had but we can certainly all follow his example of loving the unlovable and bringing a much-needed touch of humanity to those who have been treated inhumanly. Jesus certainly had the incredible power of the Holy Spirit at his disposal to heal the sick, but just as importantly, he had the life-giving power of the love of God. He reached out with his heart in a way that others simply would not have.
But Jesus’ care and concern for this man went even beyond the initial touch. It went even beyond the fact that the minute Jesus touched him the leprosy left his body and he was made completely whole. Jesus’ concern for this man is also demonstrated in his command to the man to go show himself to the priest and offer the proper sacrifices. Leviticus 13 and 14 had laid out the lawful way for someone with leprosy to be handled but it also described how someone would be restored to the community in the event that they were healed of the disease. For someone who had been cut off from society and completely ostracized, simply making a claim of healing wouldn’t accomplish much in the way of restoring someone’s place in the community. In fact, a claim of healing would likely have been met with distrust and even persecution. So, the priests would serve as the ones who would verify that someone had been healed and along with the proper sacrifices, they could then restore them to their place within the community life. Jesus didn’t just give the man a moment of human concern and love and heal him. Jesus wanted to restore this man’s life. He wanted to make him whole. This is another reminder that the miracles that Jesus performed pointed to a spiritual depth and reality beyond just the physical impact of the miracle itself. They were designed to teach about the kingdom of God. Jesus wants to not just heal the broken lives of individuals but also to restore and create healed communities within the tent of obedience to the way of life of the kingdom of God.
The fact that Jesus was quite willing to have this man checked out according the customs and standards of the society so that the miracle could be verified and that the man could be accepted back into the society is quite instructive for many religious groups today. It is easy to turn the TV on these days and see “faith healers” all over the place. What is interesting about these so-called healers is that they are quite often hesitant to have their miracles verified. They claim that requests for evidence of verification of these miracles is a demonstration of a lack of faith but Jesus had no such hesitation. He wanted this man to go and have the priests examine him and be able to testify to his healing and allow him to be admitted back into the full life of the community.
Again Luke tells us that Jesus wanted to keep what was going on quiet to some extent but he doesn’t give us the precise reasons for Jesus’ hesitancy. He may have wanted the man to wait until the priests could verify his healing, he may have wanted to keep things as quiet as possible so that deadly opposition would not heat up until he could fulfill his vocation of preaching the coming of the kingdom of God to all the regions of Israel, or he may have had other reasons. What we do know is that despite his requests to keep things quiet, word about Jesus got out. Jesus did not seek fame or big crowds. He was merely trying to do God’s will, but the crowds came nonetheless.
But what allowed Jesus to deal with the constant crush of those in need and those seeking to hear Jesus, to see him, or to be healed by him? As a buffer and an explanation to that question Luke inserts a brief scene between this latest miracle and the one that he will turn to in the next passage. It was nothing more than the simple art of quiet prayer that allowed Jesus to meet the incredible demands that would be increasingly made of him throughout his life. He withdrew for time alone with God. It should really cause us pause to think of how often we try to face things on our own strength without truly going to God repeatedly in urgent prayer. If Jesus found it necessary why don’t we?
Devotional Thought
What do you need to most learn from Jesus through this passage? Do you need to take time to reach out and touch someone and make them feel noticed and humanized again? Or are you more challenged by his constant commitment to prayer? Which area is the Spirit challenging you to address in your own life today? Or is it both?
Friday, February 26, 2010
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Luke 5:1-11 Commentary
Jesus Calls His First Disciples
1 One day as Jesus was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret, [a] the people were crowding around him and listening to the word of God. 2 He saw at the water's edge two boats, left there by the fishermen, who were washing their nets. 3 He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little from shore. Then he sat down and taught the people from the boat.
4 When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, "Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch."
5 Simon answered, "Master, we've worked hard all night and haven't caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets."
6 When they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break. 7 So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them, and they came and filled both boats so full that they began to sink.
8 When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus' knees and said, "Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!" 9 For he and all his companions were astonished at the catch of fish they had taken, 10 and so were James and John, the sons of Zebedee, Simon's partners.
Then Jesus said to Simon, "Don't be afraid; from now on you will fish for people." 11 So they pulled their boats up on shore, left everything and followed him.
Dig Deeper
A few years ago Hollywood produced a film called “Remember the Titans.” The film was based on a true story of an American high school football team in the late 1960’s or early 1970’s. This was during the time when America was intentionally integrating schools and trying to eliminate the existence of all-white and all-black schools. It was decided that an all-black high school would be combined with an all-white school and that they would start the process even before the school year began by combining the football teams during those few weeks when high school teams start practicing before the school year starts. As the movie depicts, the process of combining the white players with the black players was not an easy thing. The players didn’t like each other and didn’t really want to play with each other. There is one scene in the movie in particular that is an amazing scene. One of the star black players on the team, Julius, was upset because one of the white offensive lineman was clearly, intentionally not blocking for the black quarterback and allowing him to get nailed on play after play. So, the player confronts the white captain of the team, Gary, while at the same time the white player derided Julius for not playing as hard as he could. Julius retorted that there was no way he would play hard for the team when the white players wouldn’t even protect their own quarterback. Gary responded by saying that he couldn’t believe how much of a bad attitude that Julius had and was disgusted by the way that Julius refused to show respect to his authority and play hard. Julius’ response was priceless. He looked at the captain of the football team, Gary, and said “attitude reflects leadership, captain.” In other words, he wouldn’t follow Gary’s leadership because he didn’t respect his authority and wouldn’t submit to it. That left Gary speechless and with much to ponder about the fact that he hadn’t been doing what he should have done as captain to bring the team together.
Luke has carefully shown us Jesus’ identity and his right to be considered the Messiah, the Son of God, in both the earthly sense and in the deeper theological sense. He picked up on that identity and showed that Jesus had more than just the right to be Messiah, he also had an incredible authority that was noticed by those around him readily. His authority was so obvious and strong that even demons and illnesses respected the authority he possessed. But authority doesn’t mean much if people don’t respect it and submit to that authority. The football captain discovered that. Authority without submission to that authority is meaningless. That is exactly why, I believe, Luke has decided to give us this account immediately on the heels of several stories demonstrating Jesus’ authority. If Jesus has authority, and Luke has demonstrated that, then he will need followers who are also going to respect his authority, submit to it, and obey him.
Luke’s intent is not to give a blow-by-blow account of Jesus’ life so we have no specific idea in most cases as to how much time passed between the last scene and the present one but we do know that Jesus’ notoriety was increasing and people were coming to see and hear him in increasingly larger crowds. Local experts say that, to this day, if you get into a boat and push out a little from the shore that the slopes surrounding Lake Gennesaret act like a natural amphitheater of sorts, and actually allow the audience to hear the speaker better from the boat than if he was on the shore right in front of the audience. Jesus took advantage of this so that the crowd could hear him as he spoke of the kingdom of God. Luke doesn’t tell us what Jesus taught on this occasion but is more interested in the object lesson that Jesus would provide after he was done talking. Jesus was about to, once again, demonstrate that the significance of his miracles go beyond just the physical realm but that they also display spiritual truths behind the act itself.
It is an important detail that we can deduce from Luke’s details that this event took place in the morning. Simon Peter and the others with whom he was working had been out fishing all night. This is the most effective time to fish in this area so it is no minor detail that they weren’t able to catch much of anything all night. If they were out during the prime hours and couldn’t get anything, then why on earth would they think that they could catch anything during the day. In fact the thought of a carpenter/ handyman turned teacher giving orders to fishermen regarding their craft is a bit amusing on it’s own.
A great spiritual truth is revealed here in Simon Peter’s response to a man whom they likely knew of to some degree or another but whom they hadn’t yet been chosen by to follow. The other Gospel writers tend to just tell the basic facts of Jesus calling Simon Peter and the others to be his disciple but Luke adds some important details as he is showing not just the call to discipleship but the very grounds on which their discipleship and submission to his authority rest. It all boils down to obedience. Obedience to the word of God is perhaps the key element in being a true disciple of Jesus Christ anywhere at any time. Jesus’ request to let down their nets makes no sense at all from a practical point of view. They had fished all night and caught nothing, and everything they knew about fishing told them that it was pointless to try again. But Peter, even though he gently alludes to the fact that this would be an exercise in futility, obeys at nothing more than Jesus’ word. That is his only interview and his sole qualification for discipleship and it is so instructive for us. Much of the Christian life in general, and many of the specific things that we believe that God calls us to do on a more individual basis, make no sense from a worldly point of view. God’s will is often not just counter-cultural but can seem downright crazy. But it is up to us to have the same response that Simon Peter did. It may not make sense, ‘but because you say so.”
When Simon Peter obeyed wholeheartedly he discovered what so many disciples since then who have found themselves obeying Jesus despite the seemingly crazy things he is asking of us. He found that his obedience paid off in a way greater than he could have imagined. When they let down the nets, “they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break.” Obedience to Jesus’ word doesn’t always have such tangible and immediate results but we will always receive a harvest for obedience that is given out of true faith in Jesus. They caught so many fish, in fact, that they nearly submerged both boats that were out there. Jesus was clearly teaching them a lesson about submission and obedience to his word. He offered them no pre-obedience explanation of why he would be telling them to let their nets down right there. He didn’t try to persuade them at all. He simply gave the command at it was up to them to obey or not. But they found that when they did obey Jesus, things can happen that are beyond natural explanation. The same principle is as true for us today as it was for them nearly 2,000 years ago.
Simon Peter’s response to the miraculous haul of fish again shows his submission and humility. He likely had no comprehension of Jesus’ full identity yet, even though he addressed him as Lord, but he clearly recognized Jesus as the agent through whom the power of God was breaking into the present age. When an unclean and sinful man feels that he is in the presence of God’s power, his response is exactly Peter’s. He wants the Lord to leave. Peter immediately recognized that Jesus had an authority that no one else on earth possessed. He also knew that he was sinful and had no claim or right to be in the presence of such a man. His obedience combined with his humility were the very reason that Jesus deemed him worthy to not just be in his presence but to follow him and be among his first disciples.
Jesus wasn’t just showing off to Simon Peter and the others, though. He wasn’t just trying to give their business a little boost. He was teaching them what it would take to follow him on his mission and what that mission would be about. If they follow him they would experience a radical change in vocation. No longer would they be mere fishermen. They would be fishers of men. That would be the mission. But it would require the same sense of obedience, submission to God’s will, and humility to bring in a harvest of men like the one of fish that they had just experienced. They would fish for men but they would have to continue to hold to Jesus’ word no matter how crazy and contrary to good judgment that might seem. To be Jesus’ disciple and to truly experience the success of sharing with him in his mission takes the utter conviction to hold Jesus’ words above all else (Jn. 8:31-32).
But there was just one more thing that they would have to learn before they could truly follow Jesus. These weren’t a bunch of guys out on a weekend fishing trip. These were lifelong fishermen who worked that lake for a living. It was likely that their family had been fishermen on that lake for many generations. This was a family business and it would have been the expectation that they would make the business as profitable as possible and pass it on to their children. But Jesus issued to them the same challenge that he does to anyone who would follow him as a disciple. They must drop everything and follow him immediately. Notice that they not only dropped their nets but they also left the bonanza of fish that they had just caught. The call to follow Jesus would surely mean that they laid down their lives and left everything to follow him. The call to follow Jesus today is different in that we don’t physically need to give up our physical possessions in most cases, but the call to die to ourselves and give up everything in our hearts (Lk. 9:23-26) is just as real as it was for Simon Peter.
Devotional Thought
Are you willing to obey Jesus just because his word said so regardless of how crazy it may seem? To what is God calling you to do right now that requires the same sort of submission and obedience to his word? Go in prayer and determine to obey God’s word with the same immediate obedience that Simon Peter demonstrated.
1 One day as Jesus was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret, [a] the people were crowding around him and listening to the word of God. 2 He saw at the water's edge two boats, left there by the fishermen, who were washing their nets. 3 He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little from shore. Then he sat down and taught the people from the boat.
4 When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, "Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch."
5 Simon answered, "Master, we've worked hard all night and haven't caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets."
6 When they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break. 7 So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them, and they came and filled both boats so full that they began to sink.
8 When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus' knees and said, "Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!" 9 For he and all his companions were astonished at the catch of fish they had taken, 10 and so were James and John, the sons of Zebedee, Simon's partners.
Then Jesus said to Simon, "Don't be afraid; from now on you will fish for people." 11 So they pulled their boats up on shore, left everything and followed him.
Dig Deeper
A few years ago Hollywood produced a film called “Remember the Titans.” The film was based on a true story of an American high school football team in the late 1960’s or early 1970’s. This was during the time when America was intentionally integrating schools and trying to eliminate the existence of all-white and all-black schools. It was decided that an all-black high school would be combined with an all-white school and that they would start the process even before the school year began by combining the football teams during those few weeks when high school teams start practicing before the school year starts. As the movie depicts, the process of combining the white players with the black players was not an easy thing. The players didn’t like each other and didn’t really want to play with each other. There is one scene in the movie in particular that is an amazing scene. One of the star black players on the team, Julius, was upset because one of the white offensive lineman was clearly, intentionally not blocking for the black quarterback and allowing him to get nailed on play after play. So, the player confronts the white captain of the team, Gary, while at the same time the white player derided Julius for not playing as hard as he could. Julius retorted that there was no way he would play hard for the team when the white players wouldn’t even protect their own quarterback. Gary responded by saying that he couldn’t believe how much of a bad attitude that Julius had and was disgusted by the way that Julius refused to show respect to his authority and play hard. Julius’ response was priceless. He looked at the captain of the football team, Gary, and said “attitude reflects leadership, captain.” In other words, he wouldn’t follow Gary’s leadership because he didn’t respect his authority and wouldn’t submit to it. That left Gary speechless and with much to ponder about the fact that he hadn’t been doing what he should have done as captain to bring the team together.
Luke has carefully shown us Jesus’ identity and his right to be considered the Messiah, the Son of God, in both the earthly sense and in the deeper theological sense. He picked up on that identity and showed that Jesus had more than just the right to be Messiah, he also had an incredible authority that was noticed by those around him readily. His authority was so obvious and strong that even demons and illnesses respected the authority he possessed. But authority doesn’t mean much if people don’t respect it and submit to that authority. The football captain discovered that. Authority without submission to that authority is meaningless. That is exactly why, I believe, Luke has decided to give us this account immediately on the heels of several stories demonstrating Jesus’ authority. If Jesus has authority, and Luke has demonstrated that, then he will need followers who are also going to respect his authority, submit to it, and obey him.
Luke’s intent is not to give a blow-by-blow account of Jesus’ life so we have no specific idea in most cases as to how much time passed between the last scene and the present one but we do know that Jesus’ notoriety was increasing and people were coming to see and hear him in increasingly larger crowds. Local experts say that, to this day, if you get into a boat and push out a little from the shore that the slopes surrounding Lake Gennesaret act like a natural amphitheater of sorts, and actually allow the audience to hear the speaker better from the boat than if he was on the shore right in front of the audience. Jesus took advantage of this so that the crowd could hear him as he spoke of the kingdom of God. Luke doesn’t tell us what Jesus taught on this occasion but is more interested in the object lesson that Jesus would provide after he was done talking. Jesus was about to, once again, demonstrate that the significance of his miracles go beyond just the physical realm but that they also display spiritual truths behind the act itself.
It is an important detail that we can deduce from Luke’s details that this event took place in the morning. Simon Peter and the others with whom he was working had been out fishing all night. This is the most effective time to fish in this area so it is no minor detail that they weren’t able to catch much of anything all night. If they were out during the prime hours and couldn’t get anything, then why on earth would they think that they could catch anything during the day. In fact the thought of a carpenter/ handyman turned teacher giving orders to fishermen regarding their craft is a bit amusing on it’s own.
A great spiritual truth is revealed here in Simon Peter’s response to a man whom they likely knew of to some degree or another but whom they hadn’t yet been chosen by to follow. The other Gospel writers tend to just tell the basic facts of Jesus calling Simon Peter and the others to be his disciple but Luke adds some important details as he is showing not just the call to discipleship but the very grounds on which their discipleship and submission to his authority rest. It all boils down to obedience. Obedience to the word of God is perhaps the key element in being a true disciple of Jesus Christ anywhere at any time. Jesus’ request to let down their nets makes no sense at all from a practical point of view. They had fished all night and caught nothing, and everything they knew about fishing told them that it was pointless to try again. But Peter, even though he gently alludes to the fact that this would be an exercise in futility, obeys at nothing more than Jesus’ word. That is his only interview and his sole qualification for discipleship and it is so instructive for us. Much of the Christian life in general, and many of the specific things that we believe that God calls us to do on a more individual basis, make no sense from a worldly point of view. God’s will is often not just counter-cultural but can seem downright crazy. But it is up to us to have the same response that Simon Peter did. It may not make sense, ‘but because you say so.”
When Simon Peter obeyed wholeheartedly he discovered what so many disciples since then who have found themselves obeying Jesus despite the seemingly crazy things he is asking of us. He found that his obedience paid off in a way greater than he could have imagined. When they let down the nets, “they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break.” Obedience to Jesus’ word doesn’t always have such tangible and immediate results but we will always receive a harvest for obedience that is given out of true faith in Jesus. They caught so many fish, in fact, that they nearly submerged both boats that were out there. Jesus was clearly teaching them a lesson about submission and obedience to his word. He offered them no pre-obedience explanation of why he would be telling them to let their nets down right there. He didn’t try to persuade them at all. He simply gave the command at it was up to them to obey or not. But they found that when they did obey Jesus, things can happen that are beyond natural explanation. The same principle is as true for us today as it was for them nearly 2,000 years ago.
Simon Peter’s response to the miraculous haul of fish again shows his submission and humility. He likely had no comprehension of Jesus’ full identity yet, even though he addressed him as Lord, but he clearly recognized Jesus as the agent through whom the power of God was breaking into the present age. When an unclean and sinful man feels that he is in the presence of God’s power, his response is exactly Peter’s. He wants the Lord to leave. Peter immediately recognized that Jesus had an authority that no one else on earth possessed. He also knew that he was sinful and had no claim or right to be in the presence of such a man. His obedience combined with his humility were the very reason that Jesus deemed him worthy to not just be in his presence but to follow him and be among his first disciples.
Jesus wasn’t just showing off to Simon Peter and the others, though. He wasn’t just trying to give their business a little boost. He was teaching them what it would take to follow him on his mission and what that mission would be about. If they follow him they would experience a radical change in vocation. No longer would they be mere fishermen. They would be fishers of men. That would be the mission. But it would require the same sense of obedience, submission to God’s will, and humility to bring in a harvest of men like the one of fish that they had just experienced. They would fish for men but they would have to continue to hold to Jesus’ word no matter how crazy and contrary to good judgment that might seem. To be Jesus’ disciple and to truly experience the success of sharing with him in his mission takes the utter conviction to hold Jesus’ words above all else (Jn. 8:31-32).
But there was just one more thing that they would have to learn before they could truly follow Jesus. These weren’t a bunch of guys out on a weekend fishing trip. These were lifelong fishermen who worked that lake for a living. It was likely that their family had been fishermen on that lake for many generations. This was a family business and it would have been the expectation that they would make the business as profitable as possible and pass it on to their children. But Jesus issued to them the same challenge that he does to anyone who would follow him as a disciple. They must drop everything and follow him immediately. Notice that they not only dropped their nets but they also left the bonanza of fish that they had just caught. The call to follow Jesus would surely mean that they laid down their lives and left everything to follow him. The call to follow Jesus today is different in that we don’t physically need to give up our physical possessions in most cases, but the call to die to ourselves and give up everything in our hearts (Lk. 9:23-26) is just as real as it was for Simon Peter.
Devotional Thought
Are you willing to obey Jesus just because his word said so regardless of how crazy it may seem? To what is God calling you to do right now that requires the same sort of submission and obedience to his word? Go in prayer and determine to obey God’s word with the same immediate obedience that Simon Peter demonstrated.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Luke 4:31-44 Commentary
Jesus Drives Out an Evil Spirit
31 Then he went down to Capernaum, a town in Galilee, and on the Sabbath he taught the people. 32 They were amazed at his teaching, because his words had authority.
33 In the synagogue there was a man possessed by a demon, an evil [h] spirit. He cried out at the top of his voice, 34 "Go away! What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God!"
35 "Be quiet!" Jesus said sternly. "Come out of him!" Then the demon threw the man down before them all and came out without injuring him.
36 All the people were amazed and said to each other, "What words these are! With authority and power he gives orders to evil spirits and they come out!" 37 And the news about him spread throughout the surrounding area.
Jesus Heals Many
38 Jesus left the synagogue and went to the home of Simon. Now Simon's mother-in-law was suffering from a high fever, and they asked Jesus to help her. 39 So he bent over her and rebuked the fever, and it left her. She got up at once and began to wait on them.
40 At sunset, the people brought to Jesus all who had various kinds of sickness, and laying his hands on each one, he healed them. 41 Moreover, demons came out of many people, shouting, "You are the Son of God!" But he rebuked them and would not allow them to speak, because they knew he was the Messiah.
42 At daybreak, Jesus went out to a solitary place. The people were looking for him and when they came to where he was, they tried to keep him from leaving them. 43 But he said, "I must proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns also, because that is why I was sent." 44 And he kept on preaching in the synagogues of Judea.
Dig Deeper
I just finished watching the most recent Super Bowl between the New Orleans Saints and the Indianapolis Colts. The game was only so-so in terms of excitement, unless you’re a Saints fan, of course. But what I found far more compelling than the game itself was the new show that came on immediately following the game. It was a brand new show called “Undercover Boss.” Normally I absolutely despise reality shows and try to avoid them like the plague but this one looked a bit more interesting and it was already on, so I figured why not. In it, the President of a major corporation went around the country completely undercover working in different locations of his nationwide business, Waste Management. He worked in different locations doing different jobs for one day and was even fired once for not being able to cut the muster when it came to picking up debris in a landfill. What was compelling to both viewers and the boss was what he learned about the regular people that were working for him on the street level. He simply couldn’t believe how decisions that he made from corporate headquarters, decisions that seemed so good from that vantage point, were actually horrible and oppressive from the vantage point of his employees. One cost cutting measure that he had encouraged left one woman working at a waste management site to do the jobs of three or four people by herself. The boss simply could not believe how hard she worked all day, every day and was still making the same money that she did before the other employees, whose jobs she was now doing were let go. On top of that, she was in danger of losing her home because she could no longer afford the taxes on it. After seeing the impact that his decisions had, the CEO realized that he needed to do something immediately. He risked blowing his cover by meeting with the woman’s immediate boss and instructing him to give her a promotion and significantly increase her salary immediately. The on-site manager immediately agreed to do this, but if you didn’t see the show you might wonder why. The reason was that this manager knew who the President was and had been sworn to secrecy. So when they met to discuss this woman’s plight he immediately recognized the authority of the man with whom he was meeting, even if no one else did.
This present passage is all about authority. Authority is the key to getting things done. Do you have the authority to do that or not? The President of the company could make immediate changes based on what he found because he had the authority to do so. Luke has laid out that Jesus has come as the unique Son of God and is already setting about his business of revealing God in a way that no one expected. If Jesus is going to be the conduit through whom the kingdom of God is going to break into the present age and if he is going to challenge the preconceptions of nearly everyone, then the question that must be answered before we even begin reading is, “does he have the authority to do this?” Luke’s clear answer throughout this passage is that “yes,” he does have the authority. The question of Jesus’ authority will continue to hang in the minds of those who would have just as soon rejected his message but Luke has made the truth of his authority quite clear to his readers.
The common style of teaching for the spiritual teachers of Jesus’ day (at least from what history can tell us) was to not just teach what the Scriptures themselves said, but to focus on the interpretation of said Scriptures. The way they achieved that, however, was to constantly quote the interpretations and teachings of other Pharisees or rabbis and to appeal to precedent. Thus, their teaching was a constant appeal to things like “this Scripture says this and rabbi so-an-so says that this means this, thus what we need to know is this.” There is nothing inherently wrong with that style of teaching in so far as it can go, but Jesus’ style of teaching was different. He occasionally appealed to things that were written but generally he made few appeals to Scripture (and would actually adjust what was written in Scripture such as in passages like Matthew 5:17-42). Jesus never quoted other rabbis, he didn’t need to. Jesus rarely even made assertions like the Old Testament prophets who would declare that they were speaking the words of YHWH that had come to them. This is what amazed people. He simply said, “I tell you the truth.” The only one who had the authority to speak on his own authority without appeal to another witness was YHWH himself, the God of Israel.
How could a man speak with such authority? This is such a key issue for Luke because in the ancient world authority was the key to power. Attempting to usurp power without the proper authority was a quick way to get yourself killed. And in the Jewish mind, to usurp the power of God without the proper authority was the worst kind of offense.
The issue of authority is why Luke has placed the accounts of Jesus’ encounter with demons and sickness immediately following the description of the amazement over the authority of Jesus’ words. Someone speaking with the great authority and wisdom that Jesus was, was certainly amazing but that was one thing. To actually demonstrate that authority beyond mere words, though, that was a whole different level of authority. Luke doesn’t give us much detail about the demon or the ins and outs of demon possession here as we might like him to but none of that is his focus. The Bible gives precious little details about the origins of demons (although the early church was quite adamant that demons were the disembodied unclean spirits that were a result of the sinful union between fallen angels and human women as is described in Genesis 6). Nor does it ever draw a clear picture between things like mental illness and instances of demon possession when the symptoms seem very similar. As interesting as those topics may be, that was not Luke’s point, so we will stick to what he wanted to stress here.
As with teaching, the amazing thing was not so much what Jesus was doing but how he was doing it. It was not uncommon for rabbis or Pharisees to exorcise demons. There were many people, in fact, who claimed to do that. Whether they actually had the ability to do that is suspect, but whether they did or not, it was a common spectacle, complete with many formulas, incantations, etc. In other words, quite a show was put on when demons were “exorcised,” and it was usually done in someone else’s name, like Solomon. But Jesus was different. There was no show and no mumbo jumbo. He simply ordered these demons out and they obeyed. And he did it on his authority without the need to do it in someone else’s name (notice that his disciples would cast out demons in Jesus’ name rather than their own authority). They knew who he was and they understood his authority. They feared that he would send them to the Abyss, the the typical Jewish concept of the place of destruction for demons. Jesus’ authority was not recognized by those in his own hometown, but these demons recognized his authority.
The fact is that all of Jesus’ miracles, as already discussed in the previous passage, were a physical demonstration of a spiritual reality. The point of miracles and displays of Jesus’ power went beyond just the act itself and showed a deeper spiritual truth. Jesus cast out demons because he had authority over the forces of evil, sin, and death in the world. And he rebukes Peter’s wife’s mother to demonstrate his power and authority over the human condition. Yes, Jesus could heal a fever instantly, but more important was to learn that he had authority over all of nature.
In the final scene of this passage, Luke pictures throngs of people still coming to Jesus to help them with all kinds of illnesses. Again, there was no summoning up of powers or appealing to someone else’s name. Jesus needed no authority beyond himself. He touched, the sickness left. He spoke, the demons left. He taught, the Spirit of God moved. Everything that follows from here on out in Luke’s Gospel will rest on the identity of Jesus as the Son of God (although Luke will give constant hints that his identity was even far greater than his human distinctions as the Son of God and the Son of man) and the authority that the Godhood has given Jesus as the earthly Messiah, the one who was full of the Spirit (what Luke will only hint at, Paul made quite clear—in Jesus all the fullness of the deity dwelt in addition to him being fully human).
But if Jesus wanted to demonstrate the truth of the kingdom of God and the fact that it was breaking into the present age through his life and ministry why would he order the demons to not declare who he was? Why was he silencing them from declaring that he was the Son of God? Verse 41 makes it clear, incidentally, that the Son of God was an interchangeable term for Messiah during Jesus’ life. Later on, the Son of God would take on more significant meaning in the Christian community and come to describe the divinity of Jesus, but at this point in Jesus’ life, when the term Son of God was used, we can rest assured that all that was understood was that he was the Messiah. But isn’t that what he wanted people to know? In one sense, we cannot ever know definitively why Jesus kept his identity a secret at various times and places, all we can do is speculate. The most likely answer, however, is that Jesus was constantly dealing with misperceptions of what the Messiah was and who he would be, so quite often it was more accurate and helpful to simply avoid the distinction and let his actions define who he was. There was also the reality that directly stating that he was the Messiah would fan up the flames of his opposition who wanted him dead far quicker than he wanted.
What Luke has made clear was that God’s kingdom was breaking into the present age in a new way that no one expected through the life of Jesus the Messiah. It certainly hadn’t come in the way that anyone expected and that’s why the issue of authority was so vital. Everything that Jesus did went against the expectations of the people of his day, but he had the authority to do it. Those of us who have committed our lives to following in the Messiah’s footsteps should not miss the fact that Jesus transferred a certain amount of his authority to us to continue his mission and carry his kingdom throughout our world. We should constantly be asking ourselves what we are really doing with that authority.
Devotional Thought
It might have been easier for Jesus to stay in one place but he was determined to order his life based on his desire to spread the message of the kingdom of God. What about you? Are you equally committed to determine where you live, what you do, and how you spend your time based on what is God’s will for your life and what will be most effective in advancing his kingdom?
31 Then he went down to Capernaum, a town in Galilee, and on the Sabbath he taught the people. 32 They were amazed at his teaching, because his words had authority.
33 In the synagogue there was a man possessed by a demon, an evil [h] spirit. He cried out at the top of his voice, 34 "Go away! What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God!"
35 "Be quiet!" Jesus said sternly. "Come out of him!" Then the demon threw the man down before them all and came out without injuring him.
36 All the people were amazed and said to each other, "What words these are! With authority and power he gives orders to evil spirits and they come out!" 37 And the news about him spread throughout the surrounding area.
Jesus Heals Many
38 Jesus left the synagogue and went to the home of Simon. Now Simon's mother-in-law was suffering from a high fever, and they asked Jesus to help her. 39 So he bent over her and rebuked the fever, and it left her. She got up at once and began to wait on them.
40 At sunset, the people brought to Jesus all who had various kinds of sickness, and laying his hands on each one, he healed them. 41 Moreover, demons came out of many people, shouting, "You are the Son of God!" But he rebuked them and would not allow them to speak, because they knew he was the Messiah.
42 At daybreak, Jesus went out to a solitary place. The people were looking for him and when they came to where he was, they tried to keep him from leaving them. 43 But he said, "I must proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns also, because that is why I was sent." 44 And he kept on preaching in the synagogues of Judea.
Dig Deeper
I just finished watching the most recent Super Bowl between the New Orleans Saints and the Indianapolis Colts. The game was only so-so in terms of excitement, unless you’re a Saints fan, of course. But what I found far more compelling than the game itself was the new show that came on immediately following the game. It was a brand new show called “Undercover Boss.” Normally I absolutely despise reality shows and try to avoid them like the plague but this one looked a bit more interesting and it was already on, so I figured why not. In it, the President of a major corporation went around the country completely undercover working in different locations of his nationwide business, Waste Management. He worked in different locations doing different jobs for one day and was even fired once for not being able to cut the muster when it came to picking up debris in a landfill. What was compelling to both viewers and the boss was what he learned about the regular people that were working for him on the street level. He simply couldn’t believe how decisions that he made from corporate headquarters, decisions that seemed so good from that vantage point, were actually horrible and oppressive from the vantage point of his employees. One cost cutting measure that he had encouraged left one woman working at a waste management site to do the jobs of three or four people by herself. The boss simply could not believe how hard she worked all day, every day and was still making the same money that she did before the other employees, whose jobs she was now doing were let go. On top of that, she was in danger of losing her home because she could no longer afford the taxes on it. After seeing the impact that his decisions had, the CEO realized that he needed to do something immediately. He risked blowing his cover by meeting with the woman’s immediate boss and instructing him to give her a promotion and significantly increase her salary immediately. The on-site manager immediately agreed to do this, but if you didn’t see the show you might wonder why. The reason was that this manager knew who the President was and had been sworn to secrecy. So when they met to discuss this woman’s plight he immediately recognized the authority of the man with whom he was meeting, even if no one else did.
This present passage is all about authority. Authority is the key to getting things done. Do you have the authority to do that or not? The President of the company could make immediate changes based on what he found because he had the authority to do so. Luke has laid out that Jesus has come as the unique Son of God and is already setting about his business of revealing God in a way that no one expected. If Jesus is going to be the conduit through whom the kingdom of God is going to break into the present age and if he is going to challenge the preconceptions of nearly everyone, then the question that must be answered before we even begin reading is, “does he have the authority to do this?” Luke’s clear answer throughout this passage is that “yes,” he does have the authority. The question of Jesus’ authority will continue to hang in the minds of those who would have just as soon rejected his message but Luke has made the truth of his authority quite clear to his readers.
The common style of teaching for the spiritual teachers of Jesus’ day (at least from what history can tell us) was to not just teach what the Scriptures themselves said, but to focus on the interpretation of said Scriptures. The way they achieved that, however, was to constantly quote the interpretations and teachings of other Pharisees or rabbis and to appeal to precedent. Thus, their teaching was a constant appeal to things like “this Scripture says this and rabbi so-an-so says that this means this, thus what we need to know is this.” There is nothing inherently wrong with that style of teaching in so far as it can go, but Jesus’ style of teaching was different. He occasionally appealed to things that were written but generally he made few appeals to Scripture (and would actually adjust what was written in Scripture such as in passages like Matthew 5:17-42). Jesus never quoted other rabbis, he didn’t need to. Jesus rarely even made assertions like the Old Testament prophets who would declare that they were speaking the words of YHWH that had come to them. This is what amazed people. He simply said, “I tell you the truth.” The only one who had the authority to speak on his own authority without appeal to another witness was YHWH himself, the God of Israel.
How could a man speak with such authority? This is such a key issue for Luke because in the ancient world authority was the key to power. Attempting to usurp power without the proper authority was a quick way to get yourself killed. And in the Jewish mind, to usurp the power of God without the proper authority was the worst kind of offense.
The issue of authority is why Luke has placed the accounts of Jesus’ encounter with demons and sickness immediately following the description of the amazement over the authority of Jesus’ words. Someone speaking with the great authority and wisdom that Jesus was, was certainly amazing but that was one thing. To actually demonstrate that authority beyond mere words, though, that was a whole different level of authority. Luke doesn’t give us much detail about the demon or the ins and outs of demon possession here as we might like him to but none of that is his focus. The Bible gives precious little details about the origins of demons (although the early church was quite adamant that demons were the disembodied unclean spirits that were a result of the sinful union between fallen angels and human women as is described in Genesis 6). Nor does it ever draw a clear picture between things like mental illness and instances of demon possession when the symptoms seem very similar. As interesting as those topics may be, that was not Luke’s point, so we will stick to what he wanted to stress here.
As with teaching, the amazing thing was not so much what Jesus was doing but how he was doing it. It was not uncommon for rabbis or Pharisees to exorcise demons. There were many people, in fact, who claimed to do that. Whether they actually had the ability to do that is suspect, but whether they did or not, it was a common spectacle, complete with many formulas, incantations, etc. In other words, quite a show was put on when demons were “exorcised,” and it was usually done in someone else’s name, like Solomon. But Jesus was different. There was no show and no mumbo jumbo. He simply ordered these demons out and they obeyed. And he did it on his authority without the need to do it in someone else’s name (notice that his disciples would cast out demons in Jesus’ name rather than their own authority). They knew who he was and they understood his authority. They feared that he would send them to the Abyss, the the typical Jewish concept of the place of destruction for demons. Jesus’ authority was not recognized by those in his own hometown, but these demons recognized his authority.
The fact is that all of Jesus’ miracles, as already discussed in the previous passage, were a physical demonstration of a spiritual reality. The point of miracles and displays of Jesus’ power went beyond just the act itself and showed a deeper spiritual truth. Jesus cast out demons because he had authority over the forces of evil, sin, and death in the world. And he rebukes Peter’s wife’s mother to demonstrate his power and authority over the human condition. Yes, Jesus could heal a fever instantly, but more important was to learn that he had authority over all of nature.
In the final scene of this passage, Luke pictures throngs of people still coming to Jesus to help them with all kinds of illnesses. Again, there was no summoning up of powers or appealing to someone else’s name. Jesus needed no authority beyond himself. He touched, the sickness left. He spoke, the demons left. He taught, the Spirit of God moved. Everything that follows from here on out in Luke’s Gospel will rest on the identity of Jesus as the Son of God (although Luke will give constant hints that his identity was even far greater than his human distinctions as the Son of God and the Son of man) and the authority that the Godhood has given Jesus as the earthly Messiah, the one who was full of the Spirit (what Luke will only hint at, Paul made quite clear—in Jesus all the fullness of the deity dwelt in addition to him being fully human).
But if Jesus wanted to demonstrate the truth of the kingdom of God and the fact that it was breaking into the present age through his life and ministry why would he order the demons to not declare who he was? Why was he silencing them from declaring that he was the Son of God? Verse 41 makes it clear, incidentally, that the Son of God was an interchangeable term for Messiah during Jesus’ life. Later on, the Son of God would take on more significant meaning in the Christian community and come to describe the divinity of Jesus, but at this point in Jesus’ life, when the term Son of God was used, we can rest assured that all that was understood was that he was the Messiah. But isn’t that what he wanted people to know? In one sense, we cannot ever know definitively why Jesus kept his identity a secret at various times and places, all we can do is speculate. The most likely answer, however, is that Jesus was constantly dealing with misperceptions of what the Messiah was and who he would be, so quite often it was more accurate and helpful to simply avoid the distinction and let his actions define who he was. There was also the reality that directly stating that he was the Messiah would fan up the flames of his opposition who wanted him dead far quicker than he wanted.
What Luke has made clear was that God’s kingdom was breaking into the present age in a new way that no one expected through the life of Jesus the Messiah. It certainly hadn’t come in the way that anyone expected and that’s why the issue of authority was so vital. Everything that Jesus did went against the expectations of the people of his day, but he had the authority to do it. Those of us who have committed our lives to following in the Messiah’s footsteps should not miss the fact that Jesus transferred a certain amount of his authority to us to continue his mission and carry his kingdom throughout our world. We should constantly be asking ourselves what we are really doing with that authority.
Devotional Thought
It might have been easier for Jesus to stay in one place but he was determined to order his life based on his desire to spread the message of the kingdom of God. What about you? Are you equally committed to determine where you live, what you do, and how you spend your time based on what is God’s will for your life and what will be most effective in advancing his kingdom?
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Luke 4:14-30 Commentary
Jesus Rejected at Nazareth
14 Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about him spread through the whole countryside. 15 He was teaching in their synagogues, and everyone praised him.
16 He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. He stood up to read, 17 and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:
18 "The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
19 to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." [f]
20 Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. 21 He began by saying to them, "Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing."
22 All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his lips. "Isn't this Joseph's son?" they asked.
23 Jesus said to them, "Surely you will quote this proverb to me: 'Physician, heal yourself!' And you will tell me, 'Do here in your hometown what we have heard that you did in Capernaum.' "
24 "Truly I tell you," he continued, "prophets are not accepted in their hometowns. 25 I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah's time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. 26 Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon. 27 And there were many in Israel with leprosy [g] in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed—only Naaman the Syrian."
28 All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. 29 They got up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him off the cliff. 30 But he walked right through the crowd and went on his way.
Dig Deeper
I really love to eat pizza. I mean I really love to eat pizza. Almost any kind of pizza will do. I do, however, have a favorite pizza place in Milwaukee, the city in which we used to live for over ten years. Not too far from where we lived the last few years that we lived there is a pizza place named Ballisteri’s. The pizza there is absolutely incredible and is still well worth the nearly two-hour drive to go back there to get it whenever we can. When we lived there, though, we got to eat pizza from there a couple times a month. I actually always wished that we could have eaten there more often but we weren’t made of money so we had to limit our visits. A bout a mile further away from Ballistreri’s was another place owned by the same family called the Ballistreri Inn or something along those lines. One night we were coming home from the other side of town and happened to be driving right by the other Ballistreri’s. We were in a bit of a hurry and noticed that this one was less crowded than the other Ballistreri’s usually is so we decided to stop and get pizza from there and take it home to eat. All night I had been anticipating having Ballistreri’s pizza and so we got our pizza from the other location and went home. I opened up the pizza, with my mouth dripping in eager anticipation for one of my great joys in eating, and I took a bite waiting for the bliss that was sure overwhelm my palate. Suddenly, I noticed something horrible. This was not the same Ballistreri’s pizza that I loved so much. This was not the same at all. I was so disappointed and disillusioned that I couldn’t even eat that pizza, even though it wasn’t bad. I went to the refrigerator and got some leftovers instead. I had so built up my expectations that any variation from those expectations were met with complete rejection. I just refused to alter what I was expecting and what I wanted.
We can do something like this on a much more profound scale when it comes to our religious beliefs. It is easy to build up expectations of what God should do or what his word should say that we simply will not accept if we somehow find it different than what we expected. The Jews of Jesus’ day were certainly as guilty of that as so many humans since then have continued to be. We know the kind of God we want and when he doesn’t match up with our expectations we have a choice. We can either humble ourselves and embrace who God says he is and who he has revealed himself to be or we can angrily reject that and shove him back in the box in which we want him to stay and go get our own religious leftovers out of our refrigerator of comfortability. The Jews that went to the synagogue the day that Jesus walked in certainly had many expectations of what God was going to do, when he was going to do it, and how he was going to do all of this through his Messiah. Yet, Jesus walked in and gave them something very different from what they wanted or expected and they were faced with that same choice to embrace the new thing that God was revealing or to reject it and keep their own preconceived notions. The big difference between this and the pizza analogy was that, in this case, the new thing was infinitely better than their expectations.
Luke doesn’t give us much for details as he begins this passage but does draw attention to two things. The first is that as he returns to Galilee, he returns full of the power of the Spirit. The second is that news about him spread quite quickly which tips us off to the fact that Jesus did many miracles in addition to his powerful teaching while at Capernaum. Thus, Luke has stressed that Jesus’ experience with John through his baptism and his time of testing in the wilderness have confirmed that Jesus is walking in the full power of the Spirit. Everything that follows should be viewed in that light with that knowledge.
Jesus followed his normal custom of going to the synagogue on the Sabbath (something that, after his death, his followers would only do to announce the message of his gospel as they immediately switched their day of worship to Sunday). He went in and took the scroll from the prophet Isaiah to read and choose his passage. His reading came from Isaiah 61, a passage that was all about the coming of the Messiah. The Messianic signs of proclaiming the good new to the poor, setting the prisoners free, and giving sight to the blind was finally here, says Jesus. This was the year of the Lord’s favor and Jesus would bring miracles of physical healing to those groups of people so as to announce that the kingdom of God was breaking into the present. The point of the physical miracles was to point to the larger spiritual truths. The spiritually poor, blind, and oppressed were being set free.
The people at the synagogue that day had already heard that Jesus had been doing incredible things and performing signs and wonders and they were surely expectant that he was there to do these same sorts of things for them. Yet , they were skeptical. How could he be the promised Messiah when they all knew him and knew his Father? The initial reaction was a positive one, but still one of great surprise. They were amazed that he was speaking of God’s grace being poured out and had questions. How could Joseph’s son be the one to announce this? At the point of their question, though, it seems that they were seeing this with some skepticism but still as more of a possibly pleasant surprise.
Their expectation was that he would do the same things for them that he had done in Capernaum. They wanted to be convinced rather than believe. Jesus’ response was not what they were expecting nor what they wanted. They wanted him to do what he did in Capernaum but Jesus hints that the miracles won’t be coming. He seems to imply that even if he did miracles there, they would not believe. He would not, in the long traditions of the prophets of God, be accepted by his own people in his own town. The irony is that verse 19 literally reads that Isaiah was proclaiming the “acceptable year of the Lord.” The acceptable year of the Lord would not be acceptable to his own people.
To make his point clear, Jesus tells two stories from Israel’s past involving Elijah and his protégé Elisha. In both cases these men saved, not members of God’s people Israel, but foreigners. Elijah wasn’t sent to the many Israelite widows but to a woman that was not of Israel. It was she who received the saving power of Israel’s God. In the same way, Elisha didn’t bring God’s healing power to the many Jewish people who had leprosy. Instead he healed the Syrian, Naaman. For Jesus, these were more than coincidental details, they were pointing to something important.
This was not what the people of Galilee wanted to hear at all. They were furious, as Jesus’ point was obvious. The miracles that he had been performing which pointed to the coming of the Messiah, the year of the Lord’s favor, would not be done among Jesus’ own people, which in itself was pointing to the fact that God’s outpouring would eventually, in large part, not be focused on Israel but on the people of the whole world. It was one thing to remind them that Elijah had ministered to a poor Gentile widow but to bring up that Elisha had healed a Syrian soldier while they were awaiting freedom from Roman oppression and then to imply that in those acts that God’s healing and freeing ministry would include Gentiles, and even be focused on them. Well, this was just too much. They were expecting a Messiah that would come and free them and crush Israel’s enemies, not minister to them, and not pour out God’s Spirit on the despised pagans.
The passage that Jesus quoted from in Isaiah 61:1-2 skipped one important line that spoke of the “day of vengeance.” The assumption of most Jews was that the parts about God’s favor being poured out was for them while the vengeance stuff would be for the pagan nations. But Jesus flipped that all around by only quoting the portions about God’s grace and connecting it to his own ministry, and then connecting that to the precedent that had been set by the two prophets who poured God’s grace out to Gentiles. The implication was that if the prophets gave God’s blessings to Gentiles and if Jesus was also a prophet who would not be honored in his hometown, then the reason that he had left out the part about God’s vengeance was because it was being reserved for Israel who had rejected the prophets and would, in large part, reject Jesus. The Messiah had not come to inflict vengeance on the nations but to bring God’s mercy to them. The punishment would be meted out to Israel who had been called to be a light to the nations and to pour the blessings of Israel’s God out to all people, but had rejected that vocation and instead attempted to turn the light and the blessing in on themselves.
Jesus’ declaration was so counter to their deeply held expectations and beliefs of who he was going to be and how he was going to work that they didn’t consider adjusting their own beliefs. Rather, their response was to remove the contradiction at any cost, even including the willingness to kill him. In the previous passage, Satan had taken Jesus to a high point and urged him to jump off to show that he was the Messiah. Jesus wasn’t willing to go outside of God’s will and his timing and refused, but now he finds himself in the same situation by doing God’s will. And God did protect him from being thrown to his death not because he was trying to take the sensational path of exalting himself but because he followed God’s will. Perhaps Luke wants us to see that when Jesus really stayed true to God’s will, then the Scriptures would indeed be fulfilled.
Jesus would stay true to God’s will but would his countrymen? If they didn’t abandon their own conceptions and expectations of who God should be and how he should work then they would indeed be left out of God’s favor. This is a stinging reminder for us to constantly go back to God’s word as our guiding light. Tradition and expectation have a far more likely result of leaving us outside of God’s will rather than leading us to it. This is something of which we must always be aware and be on guard against.
Devotional Thought
Are you more committed to who Jesus is and his revelation of God coming to us in the flesh or are you hanging onto your own expectations of who God should be and how you would have like him to work? Are you willing to go wherever Jesus’ leads and embrace the kingdom that he called us to? What does that mean for you today?
14 Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about him spread through the whole countryside. 15 He was teaching in their synagogues, and everyone praised him.
16 He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. He stood up to read, 17 and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:
18 "The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
19 to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." [f]
20 Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. 21 He began by saying to them, "Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing."
22 All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his lips. "Isn't this Joseph's son?" they asked.
23 Jesus said to them, "Surely you will quote this proverb to me: 'Physician, heal yourself!' And you will tell me, 'Do here in your hometown what we have heard that you did in Capernaum.' "
24 "Truly I tell you," he continued, "prophets are not accepted in their hometowns. 25 I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah's time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. 26 Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon. 27 And there were many in Israel with leprosy [g] in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed—only Naaman the Syrian."
28 All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. 29 They got up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him off the cliff. 30 But he walked right through the crowd and went on his way.
Dig Deeper
I really love to eat pizza. I mean I really love to eat pizza. Almost any kind of pizza will do. I do, however, have a favorite pizza place in Milwaukee, the city in which we used to live for over ten years. Not too far from where we lived the last few years that we lived there is a pizza place named Ballisteri’s. The pizza there is absolutely incredible and is still well worth the nearly two-hour drive to go back there to get it whenever we can. When we lived there, though, we got to eat pizza from there a couple times a month. I actually always wished that we could have eaten there more often but we weren’t made of money so we had to limit our visits. A bout a mile further away from Ballistreri’s was another place owned by the same family called the Ballistreri Inn or something along those lines. One night we were coming home from the other side of town and happened to be driving right by the other Ballistreri’s. We were in a bit of a hurry and noticed that this one was less crowded than the other Ballistreri’s usually is so we decided to stop and get pizza from there and take it home to eat. All night I had been anticipating having Ballistreri’s pizza and so we got our pizza from the other location and went home. I opened up the pizza, with my mouth dripping in eager anticipation for one of my great joys in eating, and I took a bite waiting for the bliss that was sure overwhelm my palate. Suddenly, I noticed something horrible. This was not the same Ballistreri’s pizza that I loved so much. This was not the same at all. I was so disappointed and disillusioned that I couldn’t even eat that pizza, even though it wasn’t bad. I went to the refrigerator and got some leftovers instead. I had so built up my expectations that any variation from those expectations were met with complete rejection. I just refused to alter what I was expecting and what I wanted.
We can do something like this on a much more profound scale when it comes to our religious beliefs. It is easy to build up expectations of what God should do or what his word should say that we simply will not accept if we somehow find it different than what we expected. The Jews of Jesus’ day were certainly as guilty of that as so many humans since then have continued to be. We know the kind of God we want and when he doesn’t match up with our expectations we have a choice. We can either humble ourselves and embrace who God says he is and who he has revealed himself to be or we can angrily reject that and shove him back in the box in which we want him to stay and go get our own religious leftovers out of our refrigerator of comfortability. The Jews that went to the synagogue the day that Jesus walked in certainly had many expectations of what God was going to do, when he was going to do it, and how he was going to do all of this through his Messiah. Yet, Jesus walked in and gave them something very different from what they wanted or expected and they were faced with that same choice to embrace the new thing that God was revealing or to reject it and keep their own preconceived notions. The big difference between this and the pizza analogy was that, in this case, the new thing was infinitely better than their expectations.
Luke doesn’t give us much for details as he begins this passage but does draw attention to two things. The first is that as he returns to Galilee, he returns full of the power of the Spirit. The second is that news about him spread quite quickly which tips us off to the fact that Jesus did many miracles in addition to his powerful teaching while at Capernaum. Thus, Luke has stressed that Jesus’ experience with John through his baptism and his time of testing in the wilderness have confirmed that Jesus is walking in the full power of the Spirit. Everything that follows should be viewed in that light with that knowledge.
Jesus followed his normal custom of going to the synagogue on the Sabbath (something that, after his death, his followers would only do to announce the message of his gospel as they immediately switched their day of worship to Sunday). He went in and took the scroll from the prophet Isaiah to read and choose his passage. His reading came from Isaiah 61, a passage that was all about the coming of the Messiah. The Messianic signs of proclaiming the good new to the poor, setting the prisoners free, and giving sight to the blind was finally here, says Jesus. This was the year of the Lord’s favor and Jesus would bring miracles of physical healing to those groups of people so as to announce that the kingdom of God was breaking into the present. The point of the physical miracles was to point to the larger spiritual truths. The spiritually poor, blind, and oppressed were being set free.
The people at the synagogue that day had already heard that Jesus had been doing incredible things and performing signs and wonders and they were surely expectant that he was there to do these same sorts of things for them. Yet , they were skeptical. How could he be the promised Messiah when they all knew him and knew his Father? The initial reaction was a positive one, but still one of great surprise. They were amazed that he was speaking of God’s grace being poured out and had questions. How could Joseph’s son be the one to announce this? At the point of their question, though, it seems that they were seeing this with some skepticism but still as more of a possibly pleasant surprise.
Their expectation was that he would do the same things for them that he had done in Capernaum. They wanted to be convinced rather than believe. Jesus’ response was not what they were expecting nor what they wanted. They wanted him to do what he did in Capernaum but Jesus hints that the miracles won’t be coming. He seems to imply that even if he did miracles there, they would not believe. He would not, in the long traditions of the prophets of God, be accepted by his own people in his own town. The irony is that verse 19 literally reads that Isaiah was proclaiming the “acceptable year of the Lord.” The acceptable year of the Lord would not be acceptable to his own people.
To make his point clear, Jesus tells two stories from Israel’s past involving Elijah and his protégé Elisha. In both cases these men saved, not members of God’s people Israel, but foreigners. Elijah wasn’t sent to the many Israelite widows but to a woman that was not of Israel. It was she who received the saving power of Israel’s God. In the same way, Elisha didn’t bring God’s healing power to the many Jewish people who had leprosy. Instead he healed the Syrian, Naaman. For Jesus, these were more than coincidental details, they were pointing to something important.
This was not what the people of Galilee wanted to hear at all. They were furious, as Jesus’ point was obvious. The miracles that he had been performing which pointed to the coming of the Messiah, the year of the Lord’s favor, would not be done among Jesus’ own people, which in itself was pointing to the fact that God’s outpouring would eventually, in large part, not be focused on Israel but on the people of the whole world. It was one thing to remind them that Elijah had ministered to a poor Gentile widow but to bring up that Elisha had healed a Syrian soldier while they were awaiting freedom from Roman oppression and then to imply that in those acts that God’s healing and freeing ministry would include Gentiles, and even be focused on them. Well, this was just too much. They were expecting a Messiah that would come and free them and crush Israel’s enemies, not minister to them, and not pour out God’s Spirit on the despised pagans.
The passage that Jesus quoted from in Isaiah 61:1-2 skipped one important line that spoke of the “day of vengeance.” The assumption of most Jews was that the parts about God’s favor being poured out was for them while the vengeance stuff would be for the pagan nations. But Jesus flipped that all around by only quoting the portions about God’s grace and connecting it to his own ministry, and then connecting that to the precedent that had been set by the two prophets who poured God’s grace out to Gentiles. The implication was that if the prophets gave God’s blessings to Gentiles and if Jesus was also a prophet who would not be honored in his hometown, then the reason that he had left out the part about God’s vengeance was because it was being reserved for Israel who had rejected the prophets and would, in large part, reject Jesus. The Messiah had not come to inflict vengeance on the nations but to bring God’s mercy to them. The punishment would be meted out to Israel who had been called to be a light to the nations and to pour the blessings of Israel’s God out to all people, but had rejected that vocation and instead attempted to turn the light and the blessing in on themselves.
Jesus’ declaration was so counter to their deeply held expectations and beliefs of who he was going to be and how he was going to work that they didn’t consider adjusting their own beliefs. Rather, their response was to remove the contradiction at any cost, even including the willingness to kill him. In the previous passage, Satan had taken Jesus to a high point and urged him to jump off to show that he was the Messiah. Jesus wasn’t willing to go outside of God’s will and his timing and refused, but now he finds himself in the same situation by doing God’s will. And God did protect him from being thrown to his death not because he was trying to take the sensational path of exalting himself but because he followed God’s will. Perhaps Luke wants us to see that when Jesus really stayed true to God’s will, then the Scriptures would indeed be fulfilled.
Jesus would stay true to God’s will but would his countrymen? If they didn’t abandon their own conceptions and expectations of who God should be and how he should work then they would indeed be left out of God’s favor. This is a stinging reminder for us to constantly go back to God’s word as our guiding light. Tradition and expectation have a far more likely result of leaving us outside of God’s will rather than leading us to it. This is something of which we must always be aware and be on guard against.
Devotional Thought
Are you more committed to who Jesus is and his revelation of God coming to us in the flesh or are you hanging onto your own expectations of who God should be and how you would have like him to work? Are you willing to go wherever Jesus’ leads and embrace the kingdom that he called us to? What does that mean for you today?
Monday, February 22, 2010
Luke 4:1-13 Commentary
Jesus Is Tested in the Wilderness
1 Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, 2 where for forty days he was tempted [a] by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them he was hungry.
3 The devil said to him, "If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread."
4 Jesus answered, "It is written: 'People do not live on bread alone.' [b]"
5 The devil led him up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. 6 And he said to him, "I will give you all their authority and splendor; it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to. 7 If you worship me, it will all be yours."
8 Jesus answered, "It is written: 'Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.' [c]"
9 The devil led him to Jerusalem and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. "If you are the Son of God," he said, "throw yourself down from here. 10 For it is written:
" 'He will command his angels concerning you
to guard you carefully;
11 they will lift you up in their hands,
so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.' [d]"
12 Jesus answered, "It is said: 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.' [e]"
13 When the devil had finished all this tempting, he left him until an opportune time.
Dig Deeper
From reading the historian Herodotus, among other sources, we know that In 490 BC the Persian King Darius launched an invasion into Greece. Despite the fact that Darius was a powerful king with a powerful army behind him, Darius failed miserably. His Persian forces were defeated by the Athenians in a great victory for the Greek city-state at Marathon. After Darius died, his son Xerxes came to power as the new ruler of Persia. Above all else, Xerxes seems to have been resolved to succeed where his father had failed. He would go to the very spot of his father’s defeat and gain a great victory that would both avenge his father and show him to be greater than his predecessor. In 480 BC Xerxes invaded Greece with an army that probably numbered around 150-200,000 (although Herodotus claimed that the number was 2.5 million soldiers). He was briefly stalled at the battle of Thermopylae by 300 Spartan soldiers and about 4,000 other Greek soldiers, but he eventually broke through and seized Athens. Xerxes then turned his attention to defeating the Greek navy as his fleet outnumbered them about 3 to 1 but the Greeks drew him into a clever trap and he was defeated at the battle of Salamis. Xerxes was forced to retreat with his army and end the invasion. He had failed in the very same spot that his father had failed.
Luke has just finished telling us that Jesus is the Son of God. We know that for Jesus, his father never fails so the comparison to Xerxes isn’t exactly precise. Yet, Jesus was on a mission as clear as the one the Xerxes had picked up. God had not failed but the Old Testament scriptures describe the sad failure of two other sons of God, Adam and Israel. Jesus would follow in their footsteps and would go where they went. He would face what they faced and would succeed where they had failed. As Luke takes us into this stunning and inspiring scene of temptation that is so instructive for us as we face our own temptations through life from the same enemy, let’s take care to not lose site of the echoes throughout this story. Unless we hear the echoes we will miss the profound and true meaning of the initial victory that Jesus secures here in the wilderness. A victory that those who went before him couldn’t secure.
We would probably like to think that temptation only comes when we are straying from the will of God but this passage won’t allow us such simplistic thinking. Jesus, who never strayed from God’s will, was full of the Holy Spirit and was led directly by the Spirit into the wilderness where he would fast for forty days which would have left him in a physically weakened state. As we all have surely experienced, temptation seems all the more powerful when we are physically or emotionally weakened but Jesus was going exactly where the Spirit was guiding him. This means that it was God’s will for him to be tested in this way and that there was a specific purpose for this testing.
At the end of the forty days Jesus has an encounter with the devil. None of the gospel writers make it clear whether this episode with Satan was a physical meeting or whether Satan came to Christ in the realm of his own thoughts, a realm through which Satan usually approaches us. It is quite permissible in the texts that we have to either see this as a real, physical encounter or one of a more mental level in which Satan was offering these thoughts up and Christ had to deal with the thoughts and visions of these particular temptations. It is decidedly impossible to choose between those two option and probably unnecessary in the end.
As should be familiar by now, this passage in Luke is full of echoes of other passages from the Old Testament that point to this moment in Jesus’ life and help us gain the full significance of it. There are at least three biblical stories that are alluded to by this one that help us to see exactly what was going on here. Moses went on a forty day fast in the wilderness just before he received and proclaimed the word of God (Ex. 34:28; Deut. 9:9-18). In the same way, Jesus would go into the wilderness for a forty day’s fast where he would declare the word of God to Satan and prepare himself to proclaim it to all of Israel. But there was an even more specific purpose for this time of temptation. Adam had faced temptation from the tempter in the Garden of Eden and had failed, choosing to do his own will rather than God’s. Luke has adeptly planted the idea of Adam as the Son of God in the last passage, intentionally connecting it this one.
As we discussed in the last passage of Luke, God had another son after Adam had failed to do his will. God raised up the nation of Israel as his firstborn son (Ex. 4:22) and gave Israel the vocation of doing God’s will. God took Israel into the wilderness where they faced the temptations of Satan and failed just like Adam to do God’s will. As a result of their disobedience they wandered in the desert for forty years.
Jesus, as Luke has already demonstrated, was now the third of God’s sons sent into the world to succeed where the first two had failed. He would go to the wilderness, the place where Israel had failed and would succeed in doing God’s will. Jesus would be the Son of God that lived according to the will of God where the others before him had failed. In fact, each of the temptations that Jesus faced during his forty days echoes and reflects temptations that caused the fall of Israel during their wilderness wanderings for forty years.
As Israel moved into the wilderness they were told to “Remember how the LORD your God led you all the way in the wilderness these forty years, to humble and test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands” (Deut. 8:2). This was done to teach them “that people do not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD” (Deut. 8:3). A good part of that testing was their lack of food and need to rely on God to provide for them but the people did not trust God’s promises to care for them and instead grumbled against Moses and Aaron (Ex. 16:1-21). In the same way, Satan tried to convince Jesus that since he was God’s Son (the term translated “if” in this passage should almost certainly be translated “since” in this context, meaning that Satan was not questioning whether Jesus was God’s Son but was tempting him to be a different kind of Messiah than the one according to God’s will) he should not have to go without food and be hungry. God surely wouldn’t want him to go without. But Jesus refuted the temptation by turning to the word of God (all of Jesus’ quotes come from Deuteronomy which is further proof that Jesus intentionally meant to connect his own experience with the failure of Israel in the wilderness). Jesus affirmed that he relied on nothing to provide for him apart from God’s will, the precise thing that Israel and Adam had failed to do.
The second temptation connects with Israel’s constant tendency to engage in idolatry. As Israel prepared to enter into the promised land and take up their vocation as the firstborn son of God, they were reminded to “Fear the LORD your God, serve him only and take your oaths in his name. Do not follow other gods, the gods of the peoples around you” (Deut. 6:13-14). Satan offers Jesus the kingdoms of the world if he will only bow to him and serve the devil. Satan often works this way through temptation in that he offers us things that are not his to give and it always turns out to be nothing more than allusion. False gods (in whatever form they take whether it be a statue or money or something else) can seem comfortable but always turn out to be an allusion. Satan offers Jesus another way to realize his mission of ruling over the kingdoms of the world other than through God’s will. Throughout all of the temptations, though, Satan is not offering Jesus just strength or comfort but primarily he offers independence. The Israelites were constantly ensnared by idolatry and Adam was swayed by the prospect of reaching something that he desired through his own will rather than God’s but Jesus stood resolutely loyal to God’s will and the fear of God. He would succeed in following Deut. 6:13 where Israel and Adam had failed.
The third temptation involved putting God to the test. While in the wilderness, Israel complained and argued with Moses over having no water. Rather than trusting God they demanded a response. Moses’ response was to rebuke them for putting the “LORD to the test” (Ex. 17:2; Deut. 6:16). Unlike Israel and Adam, Jesus would not put God to the test despite the temptation of Satan. Satan took Jesus (whether in a vision or in person) to the Temple, probably to the Royal Porch which looked over a cliff in the Kidron Valley and loomed about 450 feet above the bottom of the cliff (the historian Josephus reports that it made people dizzy to look down from that point because it was so high). The Jews of Jesus’ day expected that when the Messiah came he would renew the provision of manna, would defeat Israel’s enemies and exalt Israel, and would perform incredible signs and wonders that would convince the people that he was the Messiah. Satan was appealing to Jesus to act before his time but Satan also failed to understand that Jesus’ vocation and allegiance to God’s will did not mean that he would be kept from sacrifice, struggle, and death but that he would walk right into those things as part of his submission to God. We often think of the hard times in life as our temptations, and I suppose that sometimes they can be, but far more often it is the desire to avoid those trials that we need to help us grow in our walk in Christ (James 1:2-3) which brings us the temptations. The hard times are not the temptation, the desire to avoid them is the real temptation.
God’s first son Adam had failed to do God’s will. God’s firstborn son (a term that referred to role as the receiver of the inheritance rather than strictly birth order) Israel had failed to do God’s will in giving into temptation (note that Psalm 106 charges Israel with their failures in the same order that Luke gives: food, false worship, and putting the LORD to the test). Jesus succeeded where they failed. He was the true and eternal Son of God who demonstrated himself to be the Messiah not through spectacular signs and wonders but through self-sacrificial and quiet acts of humble obedience to God’s word. This was truly God’s unique (the true meaning of the word often translated “only begotten”) Son who would do what Israel had failed to do. Jesus wasn’t interested in public displays of power so much as he was in private obedience to God’s word. That is after all, when obedience really matters. That is when temptation is it’s most dangerous and powerful. Jesus responded the same way that we should learn to do. He didn’t entertain the ideas of temptation or even argue with them, which is often just an excuse to mull it around until we can’t resist it anymore. Jesus dwelt on the word of God and trusted in it alone to guide him to God’s will.
Devotional Thought
When you are tempted, and you will be, there are two important things to learn from this passage. The first is the realization that often times, the temptation is not the trial we face but the desire to avoid it. The second is our need to rely on the Word of God alone. When temptation comes do you rely on nothing but God’s Word to carry you through the tough times? Where are you being tempted right now? Are you applying God’s Word to that temptation?
1 Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, 2 where for forty days he was tempted [a] by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them he was hungry.
3 The devil said to him, "If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread."
4 Jesus answered, "It is written: 'People do not live on bread alone.' [b]"
5 The devil led him up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. 6 And he said to him, "I will give you all their authority and splendor; it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to. 7 If you worship me, it will all be yours."
8 Jesus answered, "It is written: 'Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.' [c]"
9 The devil led him to Jerusalem and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. "If you are the Son of God," he said, "throw yourself down from here. 10 For it is written:
" 'He will command his angels concerning you
to guard you carefully;
11 they will lift you up in their hands,
so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.' [d]"
12 Jesus answered, "It is said: 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.' [e]"
13 When the devil had finished all this tempting, he left him until an opportune time.
Dig Deeper
From reading the historian Herodotus, among other sources, we know that In 490 BC the Persian King Darius launched an invasion into Greece. Despite the fact that Darius was a powerful king with a powerful army behind him, Darius failed miserably. His Persian forces were defeated by the Athenians in a great victory for the Greek city-state at Marathon. After Darius died, his son Xerxes came to power as the new ruler of Persia. Above all else, Xerxes seems to have been resolved to succeed where his father had failed. He would go to the very spot of his father’s defeat and gain a great victory that would both avenge his father and show him to be greater than his predecessor. In 480 BC Xerxes invaded Greece with an army that probably numbered around 150-200,000 (although Herodotus claimed that the number was 2.5 million soldiers). He was briefly stalled at the battle of Thermopylae by 300 Spartan soldiers and about 4,000 other Greek soldiers, but he eventually broke through and seized Athens. Xerxes then turned his attention to defeating the Greek navy as his fleet outnumbered them about 3 to 1 but the Greeks drew him into a clever trap and he was defeated at the battle of Salamis. Xerxes was forced to retreat with his army and end the invasion. He had failed in the very same spot that his father had failed.
Luke has just finished telling us that Jesus is the Son of God. We know that for Jesus, his father never fails so the comparison to Xerxes isn’t exactly precise. Yet, Jesus was on a mission as clear as the one the Xerxes had picked up. God had not failed but the Old Testament scriptures describe the sad failure of two other sons of God, Adam and Israel. Jesus would follow in their footsteps and would go where they went. He would face what they faced and would succeed where they had failed. As Luke takes us into this stunning and inspiring scene of temptation that is so instructive for us as we face our own temptations through life from the same enemy, let’s take care to not lose site of the echoes throughout this story. Unless we hear the echoes we will miss the profound and true meaning of the initial victory that Jesus secures here in the wilderness. A victory that those who went before him couldn’t secure.
We would probably like to think that temptation only comes when we are straying from the will of God but this passage won’t allow us such simplistic thinking. Jesus, who never strayed from God’s will, was full of the Holy Spirit and was led directly by the Spirit into the wilderness where he would fast for forty days which would have left him in a physically weakened state. As we all have surely experienced, temptation seems all the more powerful when we are physically or emotionally weakened but Jesus was going exactly where the Spirit was guiding him. This means that it was God’s will for him to be tested in this way and that there was a specific purpose for this testing.
At the end of the forty days Jesus has an encounter with the devil. None of the gospel writers make it clear whether this episode with Satan was a physical meeting or whether Satan came to Christ in the realm of his own thoughts, a realm through which Satan usually approaches us. It is quite permissible in the texts that we have to either see this as a real, physical encounter or one of a more mental level in which Satan was offering these thoughts up and Christ had to deal with the thoughts and visions of these particular temptations. It is decidedly impossible to choose between those two option and probably unnecessary in the end.
As should be familiar by now, this passage in Luke is full of echoes of other passages from the Old Testament that point to this moment in Jesus’ life and help us gain the full significance of it. There are at least three biblical stories that are alluded to by this one that help us to see exactly what was going on here. Moses went on a forty day fast in the wilderness just before he received and proclaimed the word of God (Ex. 34:28; Deut. 9:9-18). In the same way, Jesus would go into the wilderness for a forty day’s fast where he would declare the word of God to Satan and prepare himself to proclaim it to all of Israel. But there was an even more specific purpose for this time of temptation. Adam had faced temptation from the tempter in the Garden of Eden and had failed, choosing to do his own will rather than God’s. Luke has adeptly planted the idea of Adam as the Son of God in the last passage, intentionally connecting it this one.
As we discussed in the last passage of Luke, God had another son after Adam had failed to do his will. God raised up the nation of Israel as his firstborn son (Ex. 4:22) and gave Israel the vocation of doing God’s will. God took Israel into the wilderness where they faced the temptations of Satan and failed just like Adam to do God’s will. As a result of their disobedience they wandered in the desert for forty years.
Jesus, as Luke has already demonstrated, was now the third of God’s sons sent into the world to succeed where the first two had failed. He would go to the wilderness, the place where Israel had failed and would succeed in doing God’s will. Jesus would be the Son of God that lived according to the will of God where the others before him had failed. In fact, each of the temptations that Jesus faced during his forty days echoes and reflects temptations that caused the fall of Israel during their wilderness wanderings for forty years.
As Israel moved into the wilderness they were told to “Remember how the LORD your God led you all the way in the wilderness these forty years, to humble and test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands” (Deut. 8:2). This was done to teach them “that people do not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD” (Deut. 8:3). A good part of that testing was their lack of food and need to rely on God to provide for them but the people did not trust God’s promises to care for them and instead grumbled against Moses and Aaron (Ex. 16:1-21). In the same way, Satan tried to convince Jesus that since he was God’s Son (the term translated “if” in this passage should almost certainly be translated “since” in this context, meaning that Satan was not questioning whether Jesus was God’s Son but was tempting him to be a different kind of Messiah than the one according to God’s will) he should not have to go without food and be hungry. God surely wouldn’t want him to go without. But Jesus refuted the temptation by turning to the word of God (all of Jesus’ quotes come from Deuteronomy which is further proof that Jesus intentionally meant to connect his own experience with the failure of Israel in the wilderness). Jesus affirmed that he relied on nothing to provide for him apart from God’s will, the precise thing that Israel and Adam had failed to do.
The second temptation connects with Israel’s constant tendency to engage in idolatry. As Israel prepared to enter into the promised land and take up their vocation as the firstborn son of God, they were reminded to “Fear the LORD your God, serve him only and take your oaths in his name. Do not follow other gods, the gods of the peoples around you” (Deut. 6:13-14). Satan offers Jesus the kingdoms of the world if he will only bow to him and serve the devil. Satan often works this way through temptation in that he offers us things that are not his to give and it always turns out to be nothing more than allusion. False gods (in whatever form they take whether it be a statue or money or something else) can seem comfortable but always turn out to be an allusion. Satan offers Jesus another way to realize his mission of ruling over the kingdoms of the world other than through God’s will. Throughout all of the temptations, though, Satan is not offering Jesus just strength or comfort but primarily he offers independence. The Israelites were constantly ensnared by idolatry and Adam was swayed by the prospect of reaching something that he desired through his own will rather than God’s but Jesus stood resolutely loyal to God’s will and the fear of God. He would succeed in following Deut. 6:13 where Israel and Adam had failed.
The third temptation involved putting God to the test. While in the wilderness, Israel complained and argued with Moses over having no water. Rather than trusting God they demanded a response. Moses’ response was to rebuke them for putting the “LORD to the test” (Ex. 17:2; Deut. 6:16). Unlike Israel and Adam, Jesus would not put God to the test despite the temptation of Satan. Satan took Jesus (whether in a vision or in person) to the Temple, probably to the Royal Porch which looked over a cliff in the Kidron Valley and loomed about 450 feet above the bottom of the cliff (the historian Josephus reports that it made people dizzy to look down from that point because it was so high). The Jews of Jesus’ day expected that when the Messiah came he would renew the provision of manna, would defeat Israel’s enemies and exalt Israel, and would perform incredible signs and wonders that would convince the people that he was the Messiah. Satan was appealing to Jesus to act before his time but Satan also failed to understand that Jesus’ vocation and allegiance to God’s will did not mean that he would be kept from sacrifice, struggle, and death but that he would walk right into those things as part of his submission to God. We often think of the hard times in life as our temptations, and I suppose that sometimes they can be, but far more often it is the desire to avoid those trials that we need to help us grow in our walk in Christ (James 1:2-3) which brings us the temptations. The hard times are not the temptation, the desire to avoid them is the real temptation.
God’s first son Adam had failed to do God’s will. God’s firstborn son (a term that referred to role as the receiver of the inheritance rather than strictly birth order) Israel had failed to do God’s will in giving into temptation (note that Psalm 106 charges Israel with their failures in the same order that Luke gives: food, false worship, and putting the LORD to the test). Jesus succeeded where they failed. He was the true and eternal Son of God who demonstrated himself to be the Messiah not through spectacular signs and wonders but through self-sacrificial and quiet acts of humble obedience to God’s word. This was truly God’s unique (the true meaning of the word often translated “only begotten”) Son who would do what Israel had failed to do. Jesus wasn’t interested in public displays of power so much as he was in private obedience to God’s word. That is after all, when obedience really matters. That is when temptation is it’s most dangerous and powerful. Jesus responded the same way that we should learn to do. He didn’t entertain the ideas of temptation or even argue with them, which is often just an excuse to mull it around until we can’t resist it anymore. Jesus dwelt on the word of God and trusted in it alone to guide him to God’s will.
Devotional Thought
When you are tempted, and you will be, there are two important things to learn from this passage. The first is the realization that often times, the temptation is not the trial we face but the desire to avoid it. The second is our need to rely on the Word of God alone. When temptation comes do you rely on nothing but God’s Word to carry you through the tough times? Where are you being tempted right now? Are you applying God’s Word to that temptation?
Friday, February 19, 2010
Luke 3:21-38 Commentary
The Baptism and Genealogy of Jesus
21 When all the people were being baptized, Jesus was baptized too. And as he was praying, heaven was opened 22 and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: "You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased."
23 Now Jesus himself was about thirty years old when he began his ministry. He was the son, so it was thought, of Joseph,
the son of Heli, 24 the son of Matthat,
the son of Levi, the son of Melki,
the son of Jannai, the son of Joseph,
25 the son of Mattathias, the son of Amos,
the son of Nahum, the son of Esli,
the son of Naggai, 26 the son of Maath,
the son of Mattathias, the son of Semein,
the son of Josek, the son of Joda,
27 the son of Joanan, the son of Rhesa,
the son of Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel,
the son of Neri, 28 the son of Melki, the son of Addi,
the son of Cosam,
the son of Elmadam, the son of Er,
29 the son of Joshua, the son of Eliezer,
the son of Jorim, the son of Matthat,
the son of Levi, 30 the son of Simeon,
the son of Judah, the son of Joseph,
the son of Jonam, the son of Eliakim,
31 the son of Melea, the son of Menna,
the son of Mattatha, the son of Nathan,
the son of David, 32 the son of Jesse,
the son of Obed, the son of Boaz,
the son of Salmon, [d] the son of Nahshon,
33 the son of Amminadab, the son of Ram, [e]
the son of Hezron, the son of Perez,
the son of Judah, 34 the son of Jacob,
the son of Isaac, the son of Abraham,
the son of Terah, the son of Nahor,
35 the son of Serug, the son of Reu,
the son of Peleg, the son of Eber,
the son of Shelah, 36 the son of Cainan,
the son of Arphaxad, the son of Shem,
the son of Noah, the son of Lamech,
37 the son of Methuselah, the son of Enoch,
the son of Jared, the son of Mahalalel,
the son of Kenan, 38 the son of Enosh,
the son of Seth, the son of Adam,
the son of God.
Dig Deeper
It’s funny how, at least in the American culture, when we meet someone among the first thing we want to know about them is what they do for a living. This can be discovered by the virtually interchangeable questions of “where do you work” or “what do you do”. Either question works just fine. I can’t help but notice that for many people, though, what they do becomes nearly synonymous for them with who they are. In fact, if you ask the somewhat odd question, “who are you” of someone you whom you have already met to the point that you know their name and they don’t think you’re having some disturbing lapse of memory, they will answer that question by giving you their vocation, such as “I’m a lawyer”. There is an important concept here that I discovered in college. There is a vital difference in understanding what you do, your vocation, and who you are. Whoever you are reading this, you are not a basketball player, or a college student, or a fireman, or a nurse, or a teacher. Those are things that you do, not who you are. When we lose sight of that we begin to take an unhealthy view, in many cases, of ourselves and what we do. Not to overstate the case and create a problem that’s not there for people, but it is important to understand the difference between who you are and what you do for a living.
I have seen many disciples struggle with this same misidentification which is why a passage like the baptism of Jesus is such an important reminder for us. Jesus came to do specific things on the earth as the Messiah. He came to seek and save the lost and to serve men by laying his life down for them. But what allowed Jesus, I believe, to accomplish those tasks so well was that he knew very well his identity. He knew very well who he was and it was that which kept him focused on his mission. If we begin to think of our identity in terms of what we do, it can be easy to lose site of who we really are and we can easily, as time goes on, lose sight of the true motivation that will keep us going in our vocation and keep us balanced in all areas of life.
For Luke, this passage is all about identity. Who is Jesus? Who did he know himself to be and who should we know him to be? Jesus came to John to be baptized by him, that much we know. But the question of why he did it is what puzzles many people. The primary reason that Jesus likely was baptized by John was to demonstrate the truth of John’s message. God was about to act on his promises to create his family of many nations and bring salvation to that family and so people had better get prepared just as John had suggested. At the same time, Luke likely saw this as an anointing of sorts. Just as kings of Israel were anointed by prophets, so was Jesus anointed officially as the Messiah by John through the means of this baptism.
Luke stresses that immediately following the baptism (he doesn’t indicate a time frame so it’s probable that Jesus was still in the water with John) Jesus began to pray. We are never told if Jesus’ prayer was quietly between he and the Father or louder for others to hear, so we don’t know if others also heard the voice that came from heaven. The text simply doesn’t indicate one way or the other. As he is praying, the Holy Spirit descends in bodily form like a dove. The connection here is difficult to ascertain as there are no direction connections in any other Scripture between the Holy Spirit and a dove. We should note that the text does not indicate that the Spirit was in the bodily form of a dove but was in bodily form and that form descended in a dove-like fashion. Some have suggested that the mention of the dove is because a dove was often seen as the herald of good news in this society. If there is a connection that can be made, I would suggest the connection between Noah’s flood and the dove that brought back evidence of life that was soon to come. What we shouldn’t miss as Jesus is anointed by the Holy Spirit, though, is the biblical connection between water and the Spirit. In Genesis 1 we are told that the Spirit was hovering over the water. During the Exodus, the Israelites were led across the Sea by the Spirit that was in the pillars of smoke and fire. Isaiah 44:3 foretold of a time when God would pour out his Spirit and water on the land. Similarly, in Ezekiel 36:25-27, the prophet declared that God would one day cleanse his people with water and give them a new Spirit. This, of course, all seems to lead up to and culminate in the act of being baptized into Christ to receive the gift of the indwelling Holy spirit (Acts 2:38). It seems that God has a long history of connecting water events with his Spirit and we would do well to take notice of it.
But it seems for Luke that this all is leading up to the declaration that Jesus is his Son, the one that he love, and with whom he is well pleased. It seems that each phrase here contains important allusions back to passages in the Old Testament. The mention of Jesus as Son is an allusion back to the messianic Son in Psalm 2:7. Psalm 2 does not imply that the Father was not the father of son until a certain day but rather that there would be a specific day where that relationship was revealed. There are obvious connections as well to the idea of Jesus being the Son of God, an idea we’ll return to shortly. The next allusion comes from Isaiah 42:1 where God promises to put his Spirit in a public and visible way on his servant so that he may bring justice to the nations. The best way to understand the “servant” mentioned throughout Isaiah 40-55 is that in some ways this was to be the role of Israel as God’s servant and son but Israel shirked that role and so the Messiah would come to fulfill it and complete it. The final allusion comes likely from Isaiah 41:8 where there is connection between the loved servant being the one who was chosen. Behind all of this, there are surely echoes of Genesis 22 where Abraham is asked to offer the one and only son whom he loved.
When we put all of those allusions together we begin to get a good idea of who Jesus was in the sense of his identity. He was the chosen Messiah who would fulfill the vocation of Israel as God’s servant. He would be the one that God loved and would be the Son of God. The phrase “Son of God” has thrown many people off over the years and is worth the time to consider briefly. There are two different strands of usage for the phrase “Son of God” in the Old Testament. The phrase was used on a few occasion to refer to angels (Gen. 6:2: Job 1:6; 2:1); although the term when applied to angels is always in the plural). The phrase was also used to describe Israel as God’s firstborn son (Ex. 4:22). The New Testament writers appropriated that title and applied it to Jesus who called himself the Son of God on several occasions who came to reveal YHWH of the Old Covenant as the Father, the Son and the Spirit. To add to matters, as we see here, in verse 38, Adam was also called the son of God.
But what did the phrase “Son of God” mean in first century Jerusalem and what does it tell us about Jesus’ identity? The first thing that we must do is rule out a few options. The identification of Israel and Adam as son rule out the possibility that the phrase refers only to angels. Yet, the phrase does not refer only to the nation of Israel so it cannot be just nations. The use of the phrase to describe angels and Israel rules out that the term can apply to any or all humans or those that were born through some specific fathering act of God.
We must look for something that ties all of these entities together. To put it succinctly, “Son of God” was a term that was given to one whose source was directly from God. The angels came directly from God. Israel was directly created by God as a people and a nation. Adam came directly from God as did Jesus, who was sent by the Father to be the Messiah, the Son of God. For the Jews of Jesus’ day, however, they had come to use the term almost exclusively to apply to the coming Messiah. For Jesus, though it meant more than that. Not only are Sons of God directly manifested from God, it is also an indication of being in the image of God. Adam was created in the image of God but lost some of that image when he sinned and so his own sons were born in his image (Gen. 5:3) and could no longer be called sons of God. Israel was created to be God’s firstborn son, the possessor of God’s promises and inheritance but they forfeited that position as a nation as well and never fulfilled the role of being the true son of God. Jesus, however, was the image of God (2 Cor. 4:4; Col. 1:15) and could rightly be called his Son. He would fulfill the role of the firstborn, meaning the one to whom the promises of inheritance would be passed. All that God had promised to Abraham would be given to Christ. What would soon become clear is that those who would trust Christ, die to themselves, and enter into his life through baptism into Christ (Acts 2:38; Rom. 6:1-10) would begin the process of being restored to the image of God (Col. 3:10; 2 Cor. 3:18; Eph. 4:21-24) and have the right to call God our Father (Rom. 8:15; Gal. 4:6; Jn. 20:17) and be called the sons of God (Matt. 5:9; Jn. 1:12; Rom. 8:14, 19, 21; Gal. 3:26; Phil. 2:15; 1 Jn. 3:1, 2, 10; 5:2; 19). Through the sacrifice of the Messiah, those who enter into his life can actually become sons of God as ones who have been reborn with God as our direct source.
The idea of identity leads in to the list of descent that Luke gives here. There is much more to be said here than can possibly be discussed in this format but suffice it to say that Luke’s primary purpose is to demonstrate that Jesus is not only the descendant of Abraham, and thus a rightful human heir to the promises of Abraham, but he goes beyond that (Luke likely felt that Abraham was so entrenched as being the father of the Jewish people that he wanted to go beyond that to connect with a universal heir) as a direct descendant of Adam and thus could serve as the savior of all people from all nations. Much has been made of the differences between Luke’s line and Matthew’s, more than we can consider here but we need only mention that we cannot ever be certain as to the reason for the differences but there are several reasonable solutions to explain the differences. Probably the most attractive explanation is that the differences are the result of one gospel writer tracing the physical descent while the other traces the legal descent caused by levirate marriages such as described in Deut. 25:5-10 (another much-argued explanation is that Matthew presents Joseph’s line while Luke presents Mary’s). What we must remember, though, is that Luke has already let us know that Jesus’ important identity is as the true Son of God whose true genealogy comes from the miraculous conception. The earthly descent listed here simply give him the legitimate status he needs from a human perspective to carry out his role as the Messiah.
To seek and save the lost and reconcile them into God’s family was what Jesus would do, that was his mission, but that was not who he was. As a man, he was positionally the Son of God. In the same way, we are called to be followers of Jesus and walk as he walked (1 Jn. 2:6) which means that are mission is also to seek and save the lost. But our mission must come from our identity and not become our identity. If we believe our purpose is to evangelize, we are in danger of having it become a grind and begin to question “who we are”. But if we know our identity as the sons of God brought into his family though the Messiah, then we will be spurred on by the gratitude of that gift to invite others into the family of God.
Devotional Thought
Have you ever thought of the differentiation between your identity in Christ and your mission in Christ? How does firmly knowing your identity change your perspective on the mission that we have been allowed to share in to seek and save the lost?
21 When all the people were being baptized, Jesus was baptized too. And as he was praying, heaven was opened 22 and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: "You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased."
23 Now Jesus himself was about thirty years old when he began his ministry. He was the son, so it was thought, of Joseph,
the son of Heli, 24 the son of Matthat,
the son of Levi, the son of Melki,
the son of Jannai, the son of Joseph,
25 the son of Mattathias, the son of Amos,
the son of Nahum, the son of Esli,
the son of Naggai, 26 the son of Maath,
the son of Mattathias, the son of Semein,
the son of Josek, the son of Joda,
27 the son of Joanan, the son of Rhesa,
the son of Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel,
the son of Neri, 28 the son of Melki, the son of Addi,
the son of Cosam,
the son of Elmadam, the son of Er,
29 the son of Joshua, the son of Eliezer,
the son of Jorim, the son of Matthat,
the son of Levi, 30 the son of Simeon,
the son of Judah, the son of Joseph,
the son of Jonam, the son of Eliakim,
31 the son of Melea, the son of Menna,
the son of Mattatha, the son of Nathan,
the son of David, 32 the son of Jesse,
the son of Obed, the son of Boaz,
the son of Salmon, [d] the son of Nahshon,
33 the son of Amminadab, the son of Ram, [e]
the son of Hezron, the son of Perez,
the son of Judah, 34 the son of Jacob,
the son of Isaac, the son of Abraham,
the son of Terah, the son of Nahor,
35 the son of Serug, the son of Reu,
the son of Peleg, the son of Eber,
the son of Shelah, 36 the son of Cainan,
the son of Arphaxad, the son of Shem,
the son of Noah, the son of Lamech,
37 the son of Methuselah, the son of Enoch,
the son of Jared, the son of Mahalalel,
the son of Kenan, 38 the son of Enosh,
the son of Seth, the son of Adam,
the son of God.
Dig Deeper
It’s funny how, at least in the American culture, when we meet someone among the first thing we want to know about them is what they do for a living. This can be discovered by the virtually interchangeable questions of “where do you work” or “what do you do”. Either question works just fine. I can’t help but notice that for many people, though, what they do becomes nearly synonymous for them with who they are. In fact, if you ask the somewhat odd question, “who are you” of someone you whom you have already met to the point that you know their name and they don’t think you’re having some disturbing lapse of memory, they will answer that question by giving you their vocation, such as “I’m a lawyer”. There is an important concept here that I discovered in college. There is a vital difference in understanding what you do, your vocation, and who you are. Whoever you are reading this, you are not a basketball player, or a college student, or a fireman, or a nurse, or a teacher. Those are things that you do, not who you are. When we lose sight of that we begin to take an unhealthy view, in many cases, of ourselves and what we do. Not to overstate the case and create a problem that’s not there for people, but it is important to understand the difference between who you are and what you do for a living.
I have seen many disciples struggle with this same misidentification which is why a passage like the baptism of Jesus is such an important reminder for us. Jesus came to do specific things on the earth as the Messiah. He came to seek and save the lost and to serve men by laying his life down for them. But what allowed Jesus, I believe, to accomplish those tasks so well was that he knew very well his identity. He knew very well who he was and it was that which kept him focused on his mission. If we begin to think of our identity in terms of what we do, it can be easy to lose site of who we really are and we can easily, as time goes on, lose sight of the true motivation that will keep us going in our vocation and keep us balanced in all areas of life.
For Luke, this passage is all about identity. Who is Jesus? Who did he know himself to be and who should we know him to be? Jesus came to John to be baptized by him, that much we know. But the question of why he did it is what puzzles many people. The primary reason that Jesus likely was baptized by John was to demonstrate the truth of John’s message. God was about to act on his promises to create his family of many nations and bring salvation to that family and so people had better get prepared just as John had suggested. At the same time, Luke likely saw this as an anointing of sorts. Just as kings of Israel were anointed by prophets, so was Jesus anointed officially as the Messiah by John through the means of this baptism.
Luke stresses that immediately following the baptism (he doesn’t indicate a time frame so it’s probable that Jesus was still in the water with John) Jesus began to pray. We are never told if Jesus’ prayer was quietly between he and the Father or louder for others to hear, so we don’t know if others also heard the voice that came from heaven. The text simply doesn’t indicate one way or the other. As he is praying, the Holy Spirit descends in bodily form like a dove. The connection here is difficult to ascertain as there are no direction connections in any other Scripture between the Holy Spirit and a dove. We should note that the text does not indicate that the Spirit was in the bodily form of a dove but was in bodily form and that form descended in a dove-like fashion. Some have suggested that the mention of the dove is because a dove was often seen as the herald of good news in this society. If there is a connection that can be made, I would suggest the connection between Noah’s flood and the dove that brought back evidence of life that was soon to come. What we shouldn’t miss as Jesus is anointed by the Holy Spirit, though, is the biblical connection between water and the Spirit. In Genesis 1 we are told that the Spirit was hovering over the water. During the Exodus, the Israelites were led across the Sea by the Spirit that was in the pillars of smoke and fire. Isaiah 44:3 foretold of a time when God would pour out his Spirit and water on the land. Similarly, in Ezekiel 36:25-27, the prophet declared that God would one day cleanse his people with water and give them a new Spirit. This, of course, all seems to lead up to and culminate in the act of being baptized into Christ to receive the gift of the indwelling Holy spirit (Acts 2:38). It seems that God has a long history of connecting water events with his Spirit and we would do well to take notice of it.
But it seems for Luke that this all is leading up to the declaration that Jesus is his Son, the one that he love, and with whom he is well pleased. It seems that each phrase here contains important allusions back to passages in the Old Testament. The mention of Jesus as Son is an allusion back to the messianic Son in Psalm 2:7. Psalm 2 does not imply that the Father was not the father of son until a certain day but rather that there would be a specific day where that relationship was revealed. There are obvious connections as well to the idea of Jesus being the Son of God, an idea we’ll return to shortly. The next allusion comes from Isaiah 42:1 where God promises to put his Spirit in a public and visible way on his servant so that he may bring justice to the nations. The best way to understand the “servant” mentioned throughout Isaiah 40-55 is that in some ways this was to be the role of Israel as God’s servant and son but Israel shirked that role and so the Messiah would come to fulfill it and complete it. The final allusion comes likely from Isaiah 41:8 where there is connection between the loved servant being the one who was chosen. Behind all of this, there are surely echoes of Genesis 22 where Abraham is asked to offer the one and only son whom he loved.
When we put all of those allusions together we begin to get a good idea of who Jesus was in the sense of his identity. He was the chosen Messiah who would fulfill the vocation of Israel as God’s servant. He would be the one that God loved and would be the Son of God. The phrase “Son of God” has thrown many people off over the years and is worth the time to consider briefly. There are two different strands of usage for the phrase “Son of God” in the Old Testament. The phrase was used on a few occasion to refer to angels (Gen. 6:2: Job 1:6; 2:1); although the term when applied to angels is always in the plural). The phrase was also used to describe Israel as God’s firstborn son (Ex. 4:22). The New Testament writers appropriated that title and applied it to Jesus who called himself the Son of God on several occasions who came to reveal YHWH of the Old Covenant as the Father, the Son and the Spirit. To add to matters, as we see here, in verse 38, Adam was also called the son of God.
But what did the phrase “Son of God” mean in first century Jerusalem and what does it tell us about Jesus’ identity? The first thing that we must do is rule out a few options. The identification of Israel and Adam as son rule out the possibility that the phrase refers only to angels. Yet, the phrase does not refer only to the nation of Israel so it cannot be just nations. The use of the phrase to describe angels and Israel rules out that the term can apply to any or all humans or those that were born through some specific fathering act of God.
We must look for something that ties all of these entities together. To put it succinctly, “Son of God” was a term that was given to one whose source was directly from God. The angels came directly from God. Israel was directly created by God as a people and a nation. Adam came directly from God as did Jesus, who was sent by the Father to be the Messiah, the Son of God. For the Jews of Jesus’ day, however, they had come to use the term almost exclusively to apply to the coming Messiah. For Jesus, though it meant more than that. Not only are Sons of God directly manifested from God, it is also an indication of being in the image of God. Adam was created in the image of God but lost some of that image when he sinned and so his own sons were born in his image (Gen. 5:3) and could no longer be called sons of God. Israel was created to be God’s firstborn son, the possessor of God’s promises and inheritance but they forfeited that position as a nation as well and never fulfilled the role of being the true son of God. Jesus, however, was the image of God (2 Cor. 4:4; Col. 1:15) and could rightly be called his Son. He would fulfill the role of the firstborn, meaning the one to whom the promises of inheritance would be passed. All that God had promised to Abraham would be given to Christ. What would soon become clear is that those who would trust Christ, die to themselves, and enter into his life through baptism into Christ (Acts 2:38; Rom. 6:1-10) would begin the process of being restored to the image of God (Col. 3:10; 2 Cor. 3:18; Eph. 4:21-24) and have the right to call God our Father (Rom. 8:15; Gal. 4:6; Jn. 20:17) and be called the sons of God (Matt. 5:9; Jn. 1:12; Rom. 8:14, 19, 21; Gal. 3:26; Phil. 2:15; 1 Jn. 3:1, 2, 10; 5:2; 19). Through the sacrifice of the Messiah, those who enter into his life can actually become sons of God as ones who have been reborn with God as our direct source.
The idea of identity leads in to the list of descent that Luke gives here. There is much more to be said here than can possibly be discussed in this format but suffice it to say that Luke’s primary purpose is to demonstrate that Jesus is not only the descendant of Abraham, and thus a rightful human heir to the promises of Abraham, but he goes beyond that (Luke likely felt that Abraham was so entrenched as being the father of the Jewish people that he wanted to go beyond that to connect with a universal heir) as a direct descendant of Adam and thus could serve as the savior of all people from all nations. Much has been made of the differences between Luke’s line and Matthew’s, more than we can consider here but we need only mention that we cannot ever be certain as to the reason for the differences but there are several reasonable solutions to explain the differences. Probably the most attractive explanation is that the differences are the result of one gospel writer tracing the physical descent while the other traces the legal descent caused by levirate marriages such as described in Deut. 25:5-10 (another much-argued explanation is that Matthew presents Joseph’s line while Luke presents Mary’s). What we must remember, though, is that Luke has already let us know that Jesus’ important identity is as the true Son of God whose true genealogy comes from the miraculous conception. The earthly descent listed here simply give him the legitimate status he needs from a human perspective to carry out his role as the Messiah.
To seek and save the lost and reconcile them into God’s family was what Jesus would do, that was his mission, but that was not who he was. As a man, he was positionally the Son of God. In the same way, we are called to be followers of Jesus and walk as he walked (1 Jn. 2:6) which means that are mission is also to seek and save the lost. But our mission must come from our identity and not become our identity. If we believe our purpose is to evangelize, we are in danger of having it become a grind and begin to question “who we are”. But if we know our identity as the sons of God brought into his family though the Messiah, then we will be spurred on by the gratitude of that gift to invite others into the family of God.
Devotional Thought
Have you ever thought of the differentiation between your identity in Christ and your mission in Christ? How does firmly knowing your identity change your perspective on the mission that we have been allowed to share in to seek and save the lost?
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Luke 3:9-20 Commentary
9 The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire."
10 "What should we do then?" the crowd asked.
11 John answered, "Anyone who has two shirts should share with the one who has none, and anyone who has food should do the same."
12 Even tax collectors came to be baptized. "Teacher," they asked, "what should we do?"
13 "Don't collect any more than you are required to," he told them.
14 Then some soldiers asked him, "And what should we do?"
He replied, "Don't extort money and don't accuse people falsely—be content with your pay."
15 The people were waiting expectantly and were all wondering in their hearts if John might possibly be the Messiah. 16 John answered them all, "I baptize you with [b] water. But one who is more powerful than I will come, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with [c] the Holy Spirit and fire. 17 His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire." 18 And with many other words John exhorted the people and proclaimed the good news to them.
19 But when John rebuked Herod the tetrarch because of his marriage to Herodias, his brother's wife, and all the other evil things he had done, 20 Herod added this to them all: He locked John up in prison.
Dig Deeper
Every year in the United States, tens of thousands of people make a long journey to fulfill the lifelong dream of millions of Americans. They pack their bags, get everything prepared, and board a flight to go see the Super Bowl, the championship game of American professional football. Of course, Americans don’t need me to tell them that, but it might surprise you to know that there are millions of people around the world who could not care less about American football and don’t know much about it. The people who go to the Super Bowl are considered quite fortunate by those who would like to go, as the usual way that a normal person can get tickets is to win a lottery which enables you to buy the extremely expensive tickets. There are always, however, other ways to go about getting tickets whether it be through a ticket agent, a scalper, or through online means. Every year, though, you hear stories of someone who buys a ticket and confidently packs their bags and makes the trip to the big game, only to get there and be stunned to find out that their ticket is a forgery. They put all of their faith and trust in believing that they were one of the few to be able to watch the game live, only to find out that they had put their trust in the wrong thing. They did not have the proper qualification (a legitimate ticket) to get into the game. So, do you think that the people who put on the Super Bowl have mercy on these people and will let them in after all? I hope you didn’t get your hopes up very high because there is no way that would ever happen. It’s simple when it comes down to it. You either have a legitimate ticket or you go home and do not get into the game.
John’s vocation is to make the way for the Messiah, to clear the path for the anointed one. He went symbolically into the wilderness, the place of the Exodus of God’s people, and called people to return to God. This is the big event that most Jews were waiting for. They had, in fact, been waiting for hundreds of years and John was declaring that the time had finally come. Yet, the last thing that John wanted the Jewish people to whom he was speaking to think was that they would automatically be part of the family that God had promised to Abraham so long ago. If they relied simply on the fact that they were already in the family tree of Abraham and had nothing to worry about they were sadly mistaken. That would be to rely on the wrong thing. It would be like thinking that a forged ticket would get you into the Super Bowl. There were expectations of what the people of God’s family would be and what kind of people they would need to be in order to be prepared to properly respond to the message of the Messiah once he came. For those in Israel who didn’t have a legitimate “ticket” by embracing the Messiah, would find themselves just like those poor folks at the Super Bowl; on the outside looking in.
John came to prepare the way for Jesus and that included the reality that judgment awaited those who did not respond. As Simeon had foretold, he would be the cause of the rising and falling of many in Israel. This is not the Jesus that our culture prefers as opposed to the Jesus who would never dare to judge anyone, but it is the real Christ that John was preparing people for. The ax was already at the tree, meaning that the time was near. The trees that lacked the good fruit of keeping God’s covenant would be cut down and thrown to the fire (Ps. 74:5-6; Jer. 2:21;22; 11:16; Ezek. 15:6-7; Hos. 10:1-2).
Many in the crowd understood the point that they had not held up to the covenant. They were not the kind of people that would be numbered among God’s family. So, they want to know, what can they possibly do? John was doing two important things as he answered them. The first was that he was calling people to the standard of being God’s family, God’s Israel. They didn’t need a bunch of lengthy rabbinical arguments and numerous rules to remember. They needed some basic principles to prepare themselves and show that they were serious about the desire to be God’s people. Being God’s people required a new way of life and a new way of thinking. There would be no more room in God’s family for thinking of only themselves. They needed to learn principles of serving and loving others and thinking of other’s interests even before their own. Even the reviled tax collectors would have to serve as example that they should not rip people off and gain benefit to themselves at the expense of others. Herod’s own soldiers (it’s unlikely that these were Roman soldiers) were listening too and will serve Luke’s purposes as another representative group. The soldiers, said John, needed to not use low pay as an excuse to extort and abuse others. They needed to be content with what they had.
John’s fiery message of needing to recognize your own falling short even extended to the dangerous ground of speaking against Herod Antipas in verse 19. Herod had created quite a scandal by having an affair with his brother Philip’s wife. She then divorced Philip (a Jewish woman getting a divorce from her husband was almost unheard of in Jewish law and would have been quite distressing for the people under Herod’s rule) and married Antipas. But John was doing more than just criticizing the moral failings of a ruler. His point was that if Herod were going to think of himself as the king of the Jews, something he was eager to do, then he, and they, had better think again. His behavior alone should demonstrate that he was not the one that would call people to a new way of life that was so needed. He was nothing more than a pretender to the throne.
The second thing that John was accomplishing is related to the first but importantly different. He was calling people to a new life rather than a set of rules but the gospel message would soon make clear that they could not actually live this life on their own and earn their way into God’s family. To do so would be to trust in themselves. What John’s call was really about was not to find people who could actually live consistently according to these aspects of God’s will, and indeed God’s will as a whole. What was necessary was to find people who wanted to live like this. God wanted people who would be humble and realize that they needed something beyond the way of life that they were currently conformed to. People who humbly embraced the types of values that John was espousing would be people that would be ready for the message of the coming Messiah.
John spoke so clearly, so definitively, and so differently that people began to wonder if he was the Messiah himself. Yet, John would have none of that. His vocation was not to think more highly of himself than he ought. That would be to go against the very values that he had just espoused. John was not even worthy to perform the most menial task of a slave in comparison to the Messiah. In stating as much, he demonstrated the very kind of humility that would be necessary for people to be ready for God’s true Messiah.
John was baptizing people symbolically and preparing them for the realization that they needed a new life but it was only a preparation not the real thing. He was the warm-up act but not the headliner. He baptized with water, but it was just water and merely symbolic. People would need a new life, but not one that they could bring about on their own. They would actually need a different life, the life that the Messiah would offer them. He would make hi own life available for people to die to themselves and enter into (Rom. 6:1-10; Gal. 2:20; 3:26-27 Eph. 4:21-24; John 3:17, etc.). The Messiah’s baptism would be the real thing that John’s only pointed to (those who knew John’s baptism would still need to be baptized into Christ as Acts 18:25-26 and Acts 19:1-5 demonstrate) in the same way that the life that John was calling people to could only point to the life in Christ that they would truly need to enter into God’s family.
The Messiah would, in one sense, bring two baptisms (We must be careful, though, in using such language because Ephesians 4:5 is clear that there is only one valid baptism for believers. Claiming that there is more than one baptism for believers is clearly false and must be rejected.). One of the Holy Spirit and one of fire. This would be the spirit of fire that the prophet Isaiah had prophesied about (Isa. 4:4). Many have speculated what the baptism of fire is but the context of verses 17 and 18 make it clear that the baptism of fire refers to the judgment that would come on those who rejected the Messiah. The Messiah’s vocation always involved dividing the wheat from the chaff, those that would embrace his life and those who would reject. His baptism would be into his life and not a symbolic baptism and it would involve the indwelling of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:38). Through this baptism, people could receive the Holy Spirit and have a renewed life, becoming the children of God. Paul stated this all quite clearly in Titus 3:5-7: “ he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life.” Baptism would come down to the dividing nature of the life of the Messiah. Those who would enter into his baptism with the Spirit would receive the life of the Messiah but those who rejected that would be baptized, so to speak, into the unquenchable fire of judgment. Thus there really is one baptism for each person: the baptism into Christ or the baptism of judgement.
John’s message, including his denunciation of Herod, had the same effect that the Messiah would have; it divided people. Some came to John and embraced his message but others, like Herod rejected his message. In fact, Herod did what so many of us can sadly do. He was given the dividing choice to repent or remain in his sin and he responded by trying to remove John, the source of his accountability, rather than removing the sin.
When the Messiah finally came, he would show himself committed to the same two things that John was. He would be fiercely dedicated to giving new life to those who would embrace God’s justice as it broke into the present age, but he would be just as fiercely dedicated to opposing and peacefully overthrowing those who set themselves up in opposition to God and his kingdom.
Devotional Thought
Are you fiercely dedicated to bringing God’s justice to bear in the world? Are you just as dedicated to respectfully but firmly opposing those who stand opposed to God’s justice? What does it mean for your life today to take up both of those vocations?
10 "What should we do then?" the crowd asked.
11 John answered, "Anyone who has two shirts should share with the one who has none, and anyone who has food should do the same."
12 Even tax collectors came to be baptized. "Teacher," they asked, "what should we do?"
13 "Don't collect any more than you are required to," he told them.
14 Then some soldiers asked him, "And what should we do?"
He replied, "Don't extort money and don't accuse people falsely—be content with your pay."
15 The people were waiting expectantly and were all wondering in their hearts if John might possibly be the Messiah. 16 John answered them all, "I baptize you with [b] water. But one who is more powerful than I will come, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with [c] the Holy Spirit and fire. 17 His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire." 18 And with many other words John exhorted the people and proclaimed the good news to them.
19 But when John rebuked Herod the tetrarch because of his marriage to Herodias, his brother's wife, and all the other evil things he had done, 20 Herod added this to them all: He locked John up in prison.
Dig Deeper
Every year in the United States, tens of thousands of people make a long journey to fulfill the lifelong dream of millions of Americans. They pack their bags, get everything prepared, and board a flight to go see the Super Bowl, the championship game of American professional football. Of course, Americans don’t need me to tell them that, but it might surprise you to know that there are millions of people around the world who could not care less about American football and don’t know much about it. The people who go to the Super Bowl are considered quite fortunate by those who would like to go, as the usual way that a normal person can get tickets is to win a lottery which enables you to buy the extremely expensive tickets. There are always, however, other ways to go about getting tickets whether it be through a ticket agent, a scalper, or through online means. Every year, though, you hear stories of someone who buys a ticket and confidently packs their bags and makes the trip to the big game, only to get there and be stunned to find out that their ticket is a forgery. They put all of their faith and trust in believing that they were one of the few to be able to watch the game live, only to find out that they had put their trust in the wrong thing. They did not have the proper qualification (a legitimate ticket) to get into the game. So, do you think that the people who put on the Super Bowl have mercy on these people and will let them in after all? I hope you didn’t get your hopes up very high because there is no way that would ever happen. It’s simple when it comes down to it. You either have a legitimate ticket or you go home and do not get into the game.
John’s vocation is to make the way for the Messiah, to clear the path for the anointed one. He went symbolically into the wilderness, the place of the Exodus of God’s people, and called people to return to God. This is the big event that most Jews were waiting for. They had, in fact, been waiting for hundreds of years and John was declaring that the time had finally come. Yet, the last thing that John wanted the Jewish people to whom he was speaking to think was that they would automatically be part of the family that God had promised to Abraham so long ago. If they relied simply on the fact that they were already in the family tree of Abraham and had nothing to worry about they were sadly mistaken. That would be to rely on the wrong thing. It would be like thinking that a forged ticket would get you into the Super Bowl. There were expectations of what the people of God’s family would be and what kind of people they would need to be in order to be prepared to properly respond to the message of the Messiah once he came. For those in Israel who didn’t have a legitimate “ticket” by embracing the Messiah, would find themselves just like those poor folks at the Super Bowl; on the outside looking in.
John came to prepare the way for Jesus and that included the reality that judgment awaited those who did not respond. As Simeon had foretold, he would be the cause of the rising and falling of many in Israel. This is not the Jesus that our culture prefers as opposed to the Jesus who would never dare to judge anyone, but it is the real Christ that John was preparing people for. The ax was already at the tree, meaning that the time was near. The trees that lacked the good fruit of keeping God’s covenant would be cut down and thrown to the fire (Ps. 74:5-6; Jer. 2:21;22; 11:16; Ezek. 15:6-7; Hos. 10:1-2).
Many in the crowd understood the point that they had not held up to the covenant. They were not the kind of people that would be numbered among God’s family. So, they want to know, what can they possibly do? John was doing two important things as he answered them. The first was that he was calling people to the standard of being God’s family, God’s Israel. They didn’t need a bunch of lengthy rabbinical arguments and numerous rules to remember. They needed some basic principles to prepare themselves and show that they were serious about the desire to be God’s people. Being God’s people required a new way of life and a new way of thinking. There would be no more room in God’s family for thinking of only themselves. They needed to learn principles of serving and loving others and thinking of other’s interests even before their own. Even the reviled tax collectors would have to serve as example that they should not rip people off and gain benefit to themselves at the expense of others. Herod’s own soldiers (it’s unlikely that these were Roman soldiers) were listening too and will serve Luke’s purposes as another representative group. The soldiers, said John, needed to not use low pay as an excuse to extort and abuse others. They needed to be content with what they had.
John’s fiery message of needing to recognize your own falling short even extended to the dangerous ground of speaking against Herod Antipas in verse 19. Herod had created quite a scandal by having an affair with his brother Philip’s wife. She then divorced Philip (a Jewish woman getting a divorce from her husband was almost unheard of in Jewish law and would have been quite distressing for the people under Herod’s rule) and married Antipas. But John was doing more than just criticizing the moral failings of a ruler. His point was that if Herod were going to think of himself as the king of the Jews, something he was eager to do, then he, and they, had better think again. His behavior alone should demonstrate that he was not the one that would call people to a new way of life that was so needed. He was nothing more than a pretender to the throne.
The second thing that John was accomplishing is related to the first but importantly different. He was calling people to a new life rather than a set of rules but the gospel message would soon make clear that they could not actually live this life on their own and earn their way into God’s family. To do so would be to trust in themselves. What John’s call was really about was not to find people who could actually live consistently according to these aspects of God’s will, and indeed God’s will as a whole. What was necessary was to find people who wanted to live like this. God wanted people who would be humble and realize that they needed something beyond the way of life that they were currently conformed to. People who humbly embraced the types of values that John was espousing would be people that would be ready for the message of the coming Messiah.
John spoke so clearly, so definitively, and so differently that people began to wonder if he was the Messiah himself. Yet, John would have none of that. His vocation was not to think more highly of himself than he ought. That would be to go against the very values that he had just espoused. John was not even worthy to perform the most menial task of a slave in comparison to the Messiah. In stating as much, he demonstrated the very kind of humility that would be necessary for people to be ready for God’s true Messiah.
John was baptizing people symbolically and preparing them for the realization that they needed a new life but it was only a preparation not the real thing. He was the warm-up act but not the headliner. He baptized with water, but it was just water and merely symbolic. People would need a new life, but not one that they could bring about on their own. They would actually need a different life, the life that the Messiah would offer them. He would make hi own life available for people to die to themselves and enter into (Rom. 6:1-10; Gal. 2:20; 3:26-27 Eph. 4:21-24; John 3:17, etc.). The Messiah’s baptism would be the real thing that John’s only pointed to (those who knew John’s baptism would still need to be baptized into Christ as Acts 18:25-26 and Acts 19:1-5 demonstrate) in the same way that the life that John was calling people to could only point to the life in Christ that they would truly need to enter into God’s family.
The Messiah would, in one sense, bring two baptisms (We must be careful, though, in using such language because Ephesians 4:5 is clear that there is only one valid baptism for believers. Claiming that there is more than one baptism for believers is clearly false and must be rejected.). One of the Holy Spirit and one of fire. This would be the spirit of fire that the prophet Isaiah had prophesied about (Isa. 4:4). Many have speculated what the baptism of fire is but the context of verses 17 and 18 make it clear that the baptism of fire refers to the judgment that would come on those who rejected the Messiah. The Messiah’s vocation always involved dividing the wheat from the chaff, those that would embrace his life and those who would reject. His baptism would be into his life and not a symbolic baptism and it would involve the indwelling of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:38). Through this baptism, people could receive the Holy Spirit and have a renewed life, becoming the children of God. Paul stated this all quite clearly in Titus 3:5-7: “ he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life.” Baptism would come down to the dividing nature of the life of the Messiah. Those who would enter into his baptism with the Spirit would receive the life of the Messiah but those who rejected that would be baptized, so to speak, into the unquenchable fire of judgment. Thus there really is one baptism for each person: the baptism into Christ or the baptism of judgement.
John’s message, including his denunciation of Herod, had the same effect that the Messiah would have; it divided people. Some came to John and embraced his message but others, like Herod rejected his message. In fact, Herod did what so many of us can sadly do. He was given the dividing choice to repent or remain in his sin and he responded by trying to remove John, the source of his accountability, rather than removing the sin.
When the Messiah finally came, he would show himself committed to the same two things that John was. He would be fiercely dedicated to giving new life to those who would embrace God’s justice as it broke into the present age, but he would be just as fiercely dedicated to opposing and peacefully overthrowing those who set themselves up in opposition to God and his kingdom.
Devotional Thought
Are you fiercely dedicated to bringing God’s justice to bear in the world? Are you just as dedicated to respectfully but firmly opposing those who stand opposed to God’s justice? What does it mean for your life today to take up both of those vocations?
Monday, February 15, 2010
Luke 3:1-8 Commentary
John the Baptist Prepares the Way
1 In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar—when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, Herod tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip tetrarch of Iturea and Traconitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene— 2 during the high-priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. 3 He went into all the country around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 4 As it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet:
"A voice of one calling in the wilderness,
'Prepare the way for the Lord,
make straight paths for him.
5 Every valley shall be filled in,
every mountain and hill made low.
The crooked roads shall become straight,
the rough ways smooth.
6 And all people will see God's salvation.' " [a]
7 John said to the crowds coming out to be baptized by him, "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? 8 Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not begin to say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our father.' For I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham.
Dig Deeper
The first time I went off to college, I remember having to go into this class that seemed rather ridiculous at the time. It was basically a prep class to orient us and prepare us for what we were going to experience as college students. As I recall, however, the things that they told us were helpful but I cannot say that they were particularly cheerful or encouraging in most respects. We were told of all the mistakes that incoming freshmen make and how likely we were to be one of those people if we didn’t make some serious changes in our work habits and character that most of us had brought with us from high school. Look to your right and to your left, we were told. Statistics show that one of those two people that we had just looked at were not going to make it. We were about to enter a whole new world and if we didn’t prepare ourselves in our hearts and minds for what was coming, we would never be ready for it when it actually came at us full force. The time was coming and the choice was ours. We had been warned and prepared so we could not claim that we were going to be caught off guard by the challenges that college life was going to bring.
The Jew’s of Jesus’ time were, for the most part, expecting God’s promised Messiah to come soon. There were many different ideas floating about as to what this messiah would be like and what he would accomplish when he came but nearly all Jews could be listed as expectant for a messiah to come. Some argued that he would be political in nature, some thought that he would be a king, others believed that he would be a mighty warrior that would drive out all of Israel’s enemies, and still others thought that there might even be two or three messiahs to encompass all the seemingly different types of prophecies that were written in the Old Testament about the coming Messiah. What nearly everyone agreed upon, besides the fact that there would be a messiah of some type, was that he would have a forerunner that would alert people to the coming of the Messiah. This thought came from, among other passages, Malachi 3:1, in which God promised, "’I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come,’ says the LORD Almighty.” The clear point was that one would come who would prepare people for the coming of the Lord, but as Malachi 3 goes on to make clear and as we will see in the next passage of Luke, this message wasn’t all grins and giggles. It was a message of challenge calling people to get themselves ready for a challenge that they wouldn’t have imagined and certainly wouldn’t be ready to meet unless they began to humble themselves and see their need for preparation and change immediately.
Luke takes special care to give us some important political markers so that we can have a better idea of when and where to place John’s ministry in the gamut of world events, so we would do well to take a moment and consider the information that he has given us. The opening two verses echo the introductions of other Old Testament prophets including those that describe the prophet in historical context with powerful leaders. But Luke is not so much trying to give us a list of the most important people of the time or even the clue to precisely triangulate the chronological beginning of John’s ministry. Luke is giving a sketch to those who would have been familiar with these names of the swirling socio-political landscape out of which John steps. Tiberius had become Caesar following the death of Augustus, in AD 14, and was already being worshiped as a god in many parts of the Roman Empire despite his well-deserved reputation for ruthlessness. Rome was ruling Israel but had set up two of Herod the Great’s sons, Herod and Philip, as rulers of the northern part of Israel, while Rome directly ruled the southern portion through the other tetrarchs mentioned. Yet, Rome’s influence went beyond just military might and political leaders. It stretched all the way to the high-priesthood. Caiaphas was high priest from AD 18-36 and was the son-in-law of Annas, who had been high priest from AD 6-15, but Annas was an ever-present and formidable figure who still wielded much power. Both men were in the hands of the Romans and only had power because Rome had put them in that position.
Pious Jews were longing for something to happen, something that would be nothing short of God acting to save his people. They had returned from the disastrous exile in to Babylon many hundreds of years ago, but now they were being oppressed and ruled by pagans, they were, in a very real way, in a new exile in their own land. The promises of the prophets were clung to as they had promised that some day God himself would return and restore Israel. Perhaps, they hoped, it would be a new Exodus. Something on the scale of the first Exodus when God raised Moses up to lead his people through the waters of the Red Sea and into freedom. In a sense, the whole nation needed to be returned from this exile and into the presence of God, because they had turned away from God, said the prophet Malachi. But what was the answer? How could they be restored in their relationship to God? Malachi, speaking for God, said that all they had to do was to return to God, and he would return to them (Mal. 3:7).
The people could know that this time of return was coming when the forerunner would come and prepare the people of Israel for what God was going to do. The prophet Isaiah had foretold that this messenger would be the voice of one crying in the wilderness, calling people to return to God and to prepare themselves to be his people once again. Luke wants us to see that John was the one spoken of by the prophets. He was the one that symbolically would be connected to the Exodus by living and having his ministry in the wilderness. John was preparing people for the coming of God’s glory and restoration, or as Luke interprets it, “God’s salvation.” This messenger, says Isaiah, would not just be preparing the way for another of God’s messengers, but for God himself to return, “See, the Sovereign LORD comes with power, and his arm rules for him. See, his reward is with him, and his recompense accompanies him. He tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young” (Isa. 40:10-11).
It is certainly unlikely that John’s listeners, and probably not even John himself, would have fully understood the implications of John’s call. Somehow he would be preparing the way for God to return to Israel and for the Messiah to come, but no one could have foreseen that God would fulfill both of those expectations in the same person of Jesus. Even the call for repentance, forgiveness of sins, baptism, and salvation would not have been understood fully for the things that John’s ministry was pointing to. In the context of the Old Testament these all would have been viewed as pieces of national repentance or turning back to God as a people. Baptism was what non-Jews did when they wanted to convert to Judaism and so John’s call for them to be baptized would have been calling them to embrace the idea that they had drifted from being God’s people. But if they returned to God and became his people once again, they would receive salvation, which they would have understood in it’s Old Testament context of being restored to God as his people.
It is important for us to understand that John was not fully enacting any of this but pointing to the reality of these things that was to come. John was preparing people with a symbolic change of heart for the ideas that they were not automatically part of God’s family simply because they had been born Jewish. He was preparing them for the idea of the need to be baptized into a new family and reconciliation with God for the ultimate salvation from sin death. Luke will make clear later in his narrative in Acts that the symbolic baptism of John was not adequate in restoring one to God’s family; that could only be accomplished by the very real (and not symbolic act like John’s was) of being baptized into the life of Christ (see Acts 18:25-26; 19:1-5).
But John’s ministry was not to prepare people for other first-century messianic movements. If they were simply coming out in droves looking for the next promising movement to which they could attach their wagons to and hope that this one would finally end Roman rule and make way for the presence of God to return to Israel, then they could forget that notion. His was not a movement of going along to hedge your bets that you might be on the right side if this was the movement of the promised Messiah, but if not, then just go back home and wait for the next one. This was not about power, politics, or personal benefit at all. This was about seeing that not just Israel as a nation was exiled from God but that you as an individual were also exiled from God. It was about realizing that you were not part of God’s family simply because you were a Jew. Simply being a physical descendant of Abraham would not bring you back to God. It was going to take a true changing of ways, a true allegiance to whatever God was sending next in order to be part of the promised family. Those that could see their need to be reconciled back to God and somehow brought into his family would be able to produce the genuine fruit of repentance and keeping the Covenant between God and his people. But there would also be those who wouldn’t see their need. There would be those who would not accept the possibility that they were not part of God’s family and who were simply waiting for God to work according to their expectations and in a way that was a benefit to them. If that response sounds frighteningly like the response of many today or even your own response to God’s call to salvation and reconciliation then the rest of John’s message will be of particular importance. Remember, he was preparing people for Jesus that was to come and if they didn’t heed that call seriously, they would never make it. John’s message of needing a heart open to repentance in order to accept Jesus as Lord is just as true today as it was 2,00 years ago.
Devotional Thought
We can learn a very serious lesson from John’s warning to the Israelites. We cannot presume that just because we have been brought through the waters of baptism to become God’s people that this is a magic formula for salvation if we don’t show the genuine fruit of real repentance in our life. Spend some time to reflect and pray about the true fruit of ongoing repentance that you have seen in your life as a Christian.
1 In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar—when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, Herod tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip tetrarch of Iturea and Traconitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene— 2 during the high-priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. 3 He went into all the country around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 4 As it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet:
"A voice of one calling in the wilderness,
'Prepare the way for the Lord,
make straight paths for him.
5 Every valley shall be filled in,
every mountain and hill made low.
The crooked roads shall become straight,
the rough ways smooth.
6 And all people will see God's salvation.' " [a]
7 John said to the crowds coming out to be baptized by him, "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? 8 Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not begin to say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our father.' For I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham.
Dig Deeper
The first time I went off to college, I remember having to go into this class that seemed rather ridiculous at the time. It was basically a prep class to orient us and prepare us for what we were going to experience as college students. As I recall, however, the things that they told us were helpful but I cannot say that they were particularly cheerful or encouraging in most respects. We were told of all the mistakes that incoming freshmen make and how likely we were to be one of those people if we didn’t make some serious changes in our work habits and character that most of us had brought with us from high school. Look to your right and to your left, we were told. Statistics show that one of those two people that we had just looked at were not going to make it. We were about to enter a whole new world and if we didn’t prepare ourselves in our hearts and minds for what was coming, we would never be ready for it when it actually came at us full force. The time was coming and the choice was ours. We had been warned and prepared so we could not claim that we were going to be caught off guard by the challenges that college life was going to bring.
The Jew’s of Jesus’ time were, for the most part, expecting God’s promised Messiah to come soon. There were many different ideas floating about as to what this messiah would be like and what he would accomplish when he came but nearly all Jews could be listed as expectant for a messiah to come. Some argued that he would be political in nature, some thought that he would be a king, others believed that he would be a mighty warrior that would drive out all of Israel’s enemies, and still others thought that there might even be two or three messiahs to encompass all the seemingly different types of prophecies that were written in the Old Testament about the coming Messiah. What nearly everyone agreed upon, besides the fact that there would be a messiah of some type, was that he would have a forerunner that would alert people to the coming of the Messiah. This thought came from, among other passages, Malachi 3:1, in which God promised, "’I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come,’ says the LORD Almighty.” The clear point was that one would come who would prepare people for the coming of the Lord, but as Malachi 3 goes on to make clear and as we will see in the next passage of Luke, this message wasn’t all grins and giggles. It was a message of challenge calling people to get themselves ready for a challenge that they wouldn’t have imagined and certainly wouldn’t be ready to meet unless they began to humble themselves and see their need for preparation and change immediately.
Luke takes special care to give us some important political markers so that we can have a better idea of when and where to place John’s ministry in the gamut of world events, so we would do well to take a moment and consider the information that he has given us. The opening two verses echo the introductions of other Old Testament prophets including those that describe the prophet in historical context with powerful leaders. But Luke is not so much trying to give us a list of the most important people of the time or even the clue to precisely triangulate the chronological beginning of John’s ministry. Luke is giving a sketch to those who would have been familiar with these names of the swirling socio-political landscape out of which John steps. Tiberius had become Caesar following the death of Augustus, in AD 14, and was already being worshiped as a god in many parts of the Roman Empire despite his well-deserved reputation for ruthlessness. Rome was ruling Israel but had set up two of Herod the Great’s sons, Herod and Philip, as rulers of the northern part of Israel, while Rome directly ruled the southern portion through the other tetrarchs mentioned. Yet, Rome’s influence went beyond just military might and political leaders. It stretched all the way to the high-priesthood. Caiaphas was high priest from AD 18-36 and was the son-in-law of Annas, who had been high priest from AD 6-15, but Annas was an ever-present and formidable figure who still wielded much power. Both men were in the hands of the Romans and only had power because Rome had put them in that position.
Pious Jews were longing for something to happen, something that would be nothing short of God acting to save his people. They had returned from the disastrous exile in to Babylon many hundreds of years ago, but now they were being oppressed and ruled by pagans, they were, in a very real way, in a new exile in their own land. The promises of the prophets were clung to as they had promised that some day God himself would return and restore Israel. Perhaps, they hoped, it would be a new Exodus. Something on the scale of the first Exodus when God raised Moses up to lead his people through the waters of the Red Sea and into freedom. In a sense, the whole nation needed to be returned from this exile and into the presence of God, because they had turned away from God, said the prophet Malachi. But what was the answer? How could they be restored in their relationship to God? Malachi, speaking for God, said that all they had to do was to return to God, and he would return to them (Mal. 3:7).
The people could know that this time of return was coming when the forerunner would come and prepare the people of Israel for what God was going to do. The prophet Isaiah had foretold that this messenger would be the voice of one crying in the wilderness, calling people to return to God and to prepare themselves to be his people once again. Luke wants us to see that John was the one spoken of by the prophets. He was the one that symbolically would be connected to the Exodus by living and having his ministry in the wilderness. John was preparing people for the coming of God’s glory and restoration, or as Luke interprets it, “God’s salvation.” This messenger, says Isaiah, would not just be preparing the way for another of God’s messengers, but for God himself to return, “See, the Sovereign LORD comes with power, and his arm rules for him. See, his reward is with him, and his recompense accompanies him. He tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young” (Isa. 40:10-11).
It is certainly unlikely that John’s listeners, and probably not even John himself, would have fully understood the implications of John’s call. Somehow he would be preparing the way for God to return to Israel and for the Messiah to come, but no one could have foreseen that God would fulfill both of those expectations in the same person of Jesus. Even the call for repentance, forgiveness of sins, baptism, and salvation would not have been understood fully for the things that John’s ministry was pointing to. In the context of the Old Testament these all would have been viewed as pieces of national repentance or turning back to God as a people. Baptism was what non-Jews did when they wanted to convert to Judaism and so John’s call for them to be baptized would have been calling them to embrace the idea that they had drifted from being God’s people. But if they returned to God and became his people once again, they would receive salvation, which they would have understood in it’s Old Testament context of being restored to God as his people.
It is important for us to understand that John was not fully enacting any of this but pointing to the reality of these things that was to come. John was preparing people with a symbolic change of heart for the ideas that they were not automatically part of God’s family simply because they had been born Jewish. He was preparing them for the idea of the need to be baptized into a new family and reconciliation with God for the ultimate salvation from sin death. Luke will make clear later in his narrative in Acts that the symbolic baptism of John was not adequate in restoring one to God’s family; that could only be accomplished by the very real (and not symbolic act like John’s was) of being baptized into the life of Christ (see Acts 18:25-26; 19:1-5).
But John’s ministry was not to prepare people for other first-century messianic movements. If they were simply coming out in droves looking for the next promising movement to which they could attach their wagons to and hope that this one would finally end Roman rule and make way for the presence of God to return to Israel, then they could forget that notion. His was not a movement of going along to hedge your bets that you might be on the right side if this was the movement of the promised Messiah, but if not, then just go back home and wait for the next one. This was not about power, politics, or personal benefit at all. This was about seeing that not just Israel as a nation was exiled from God but that you as an individual were also exiled from God. It was about realizing that you were not part of God’s family simply because you were a Jew. Simply being a physical descendant of Abraham would not bring you back to God. It was going to take a true changing of ways, a true allegiance to whatever God was sending next in order to be part of the promised family. Those that could see their need to be reconciled back to God and somehow brought into his family would be able to produce the genuine fruit of repentance and keeping the Covenant between God and his people. But there would also be those who wouldn’t see their need. There would be those who would not accept the possibility that they were not part of God’s family and who were simply waiting for God to work according to their expectations and in a way that was a benefit to them. If that response sounds frighteningly like the response of many today or even your own response to God’s call to salvation and reconciliation then the rest of John’s message will be of particular importance. Remember, he was preparing people for Jesus that was to come and if they didn’t heed that call seriously, they would never make it. John’s message of needing a heart open to repentance in order to accept Jesus as Lord is just as true today as it was 2,00 years ago.
Devotional Thought
We can learn a very serious lesson from John’s warning to the Israelites. We cannot presume that just because we have been brought through the waters of baptism to become God’s people that this is a magic formula for salvation if we don’t show the genuine fruit of real repentance in our life. Spend some time to reflect and pray about the true fruit of ongoing repentance that you have seen in your life as a Christian.
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