Honestly, I think we just need Jesus. I know that's right!
please listen to this short song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnzHGma3lws
Yeah, we need Jesus. We need to know him for ourselves - those things we can know which will never be complete until we see him face to face, but we have four biographies that give us glimpses, tastes enough to whet our appetites.
I wish I could have been there, y'know?
I wonder when he first knew he was different . . .
God in man’s flesh.
Or did he know when he was still a small boy?
Like, did Joseph and Mary sit Jesus down one day and tell him how the angel had announced his birth to the shepherds out in the country?
What did other kids think about him—like the ones who knew 12-year-old Jesus stayed behind to talk to the teachers in the temple in Jerusalem, while the rest of them were headed back to Nazareth? Hmmm… Don't you think they probably sneered when they saw him again? I don't know.
I wonder if Jesus ever ‘liked’ a girl and mused about betrothal, marriage … And I wonder what each of the disciples thought when he said, ‘Come, Follow Me--’ What was so gosh darn compelling that indeed they left everything and followed him?
What do you wonder about the life of Jesus?
Today, we embark on our exploration of Jesus Christ as written by Luke in his gospel.
This ‘take’ on Jesus has moved me for years: He was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant. He grew up in another village, where he worked in a carpenter shop until he was 30. Then, for three years, he was an itinerant preacher.
He never wrote a book. He never held an office. He never had a family or owned a home. He didn't go to college. He never lived in a big city. He never traveled 200 miles from the place where he was born. He did none of the things that usually accompany greatness. He had no credentials but himself.
He was only 33 when the tide of public opinion turned against him. His friends ran away. One of them denied him. He was turned over to his enemies and went through the mockery of a trial. He was nailed to a cross between two thieves. While he was dying, his executioners gambled for his garments, the only property he had on earth. When he was dead, he was laid in a borrowed grave, through the pity of a friend.
Twenty centuries have come and gone, and today he is the central figure of the human race. I am well within the mark when I say that all the armies that ever marched, all the navies that ever sailed, all the parliaments that ever sat, all the kings that ever reigned--put together--have not affected the life of man on this earth as much as that one, solitary life.1
Four unique gospels, but Luke is the only one with a sequel – the book of Acts. This is incredibly helpful for dating Luke's gospel. Clearly, Acts concludes with Paul imprisoned, Jerusalem not yet overthrown by the Romans, which happened in A.D. 70... that means, that Luke's gospel had to likely be written by A.D. 60. **Again as for the reliability of the scriptures, consider that this date was well within the time period there were many alive during Jesus life, death and resurrection; if Luke or the other gospel writers got it wrong, their accounts would have been relegated to the trash heap centuries ago.
Luke opens with, "Many people have set out to write accounts about the events that have been fulfilled among us. They used the eyewitness reports circulating among us from the early disciples. Having carefully investigated everything from the beginning, I also have decided to write an accurate account for you, most honorable Theophilus, so you can be certain of the truth of everything you were taught."2
So we can we certain of the truth, there it is.
I just went to pick up my small leather Bible out of the other room, opened it to the old familiar book, consider my underlinings and notes in the margins. Verses jump off the page at me, such as Gabriel's words to young Mary, "For nothing will be impossible with God."3 I write today with such a different perspective than the last time I taught through the book, Fall of 2008. At that time, I had not walked in the Footsteps of Jesus or eaten a Shabbat meal... I find that so many Christians have little notion of Jesus' Jewish home, customs or celebrations. And Luke, the physician? Well he wrote from the perspective on an outsider, a non-Jew, so he seems to note unique social elements.... yes, we will walk in the dust of the rabbi, learn from him and his ways... Join me, won't you?
Honestly, I know we just need Jesus.
Christine
1 – One Solitary Life, James Allen Francis. Newer translations of the Greek word Francis used for carpenter have rendered the word ‘tekton’ meaning craftsman or builder, perhaps a stone mason.
2 - Luke 1.1-4, NLT
3 - Luke 1.37, ESV
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