Luke 3:15-22 (NRSV)
As the people were filled with expectation, and all were
questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah,
John answered all of them by saying, “I baptize you with water; but one who is
more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his
sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork
is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his
granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”
So, with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good
news to the people. But Herod the ruler, who had been rebuked by him because of
Herodias, his brother’s wife, and because of all the evil things that Herod had
done, added to them all by shutting up John in prison.
Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also
had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit
descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven,
“You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”
As we begin in earnest out journey through Luke's Gospel we
need to ask ourselves the question that Luke really begins his Gospel with:
WHO IS JESUS?
When I began in the ministry 30 years ago, the answer to
that question was simple to.
Jesus --- was --- is the Messiah.
What did that really mean? --- to be honest, I am not sure I
really knew --- but I didn't care.
That's what I was taught --- and I had no idea that I could
question that.
As I began to read the Bible and to actually study it, the
answer to the question became very different.
·
There was the Jesus that I learned about through
the church --- the Jesus of Sunday School and popular Christian culture
·
But I began to notice that the Jesus I was
taught in "the church" was not always the same as the Jesus that I
encountered in the Bible.
If
you do a goodsearch on WHO IS JESUS, you can find many interesting and
intriguing websites.
One of the most interesting, and one that came out near the
top comes from a website called allaboutjesuschrist.
It begins with this admonition
Who is Jesus, and why is it
important for us to know? We live in an age of religious pluralism and moral
relativism. The popular spiritual philosophy, especially after the events of
September 11th, is that all religious belief systems, as long as heart-felt,
are equal. Pick one and follow it sincerely, and you’ll get to Heaven. That’s
what the world believes, but Jesus teaches otherwise. Therefore, we need to
examine who Jesus is by looking at some of the questions people frequently ask
about Him. The answers are found in the Bible, the historical evidence people
have trusted for over 2000 years.
It offers three things about Jesus
1. Jesus is 100% man
2. Jesus is 100% God
3. Jesus is the ONLY WAY to heaven
And it argues that those statements are all found in the
Bible.
I hope that in the last few weeks you have taken the time to
read the Gospel of Luke --- Is that what you found?
Unfortunately, those statements are doctrines created by
"the Church: and are not statements found in the Gospels and certainly not
in Luke's.
In 1906, a man by the name of Albert Schweitzer published a
book in German that was revolutionary at the time.
My hunch is that most of you know of Albert Schweitzer for
being the "mother Teresa" of his day for his missionary medical work
in the wilds of Africa.
What you might not know is that Schweitzer was an
accomplished musician as well as excellent biblical scholar.
The book he wrote was called (in English when translated in
1910) was The Quest of the Historical Jesus.
The purpose of this work was to discover what we could
really know about the "historical Jesus."
James Robinson, in the Introduction to the English
translation of the book writes:
“The search for the Jesus of
History — as an activity distinct from faith in Jesus Christ — is a phenomenon
of modern times. It began with the
Enlightenment, toward the end of the eighteenth century and dominated critical
thought throughout the nineteenth century.”
Schweitzer concludes that one cannot really know the Jesus
of History — the only Jesus we can know is the “spiritual Jesus”. ----- The
Jesus that faith has passed on to us.
Reza Aslan in his bestselling book: Zealot: The Life and Times of
Jesus of Nazareth writes:
It's a miracle that we know
anything at all about the man called Jesus of Nazareth. . . . the gospels are not, nor were they ever meant
to be, a historical documentation of Jesus's life. These are not eyewitness accounts of Jesus's
words and deeds. They are testimonies of
faith composed by communities of faith written many years after the events they
describe. Simply put, the gospels tell
us about Jesus the Christ, not Jesus the man. . . . In the end, there are only
two hard facts about Jesus of Nazareth upon which we can confidently rely: the
first is that Jesus was a Jew who led a popular Jewish movement in Palestine at
the beginning of the first century CE; the second is that Rome crucified him
for doing so.
E.P. Sanders, writing in The Historical Figure of Jesus
tells us:
Most scholars who write about the
ancient world feel obligated to warn their readers that our knowledge can be at
best partial and that certainty is seldom attained. A book about a first-century Jew who lived in
a rather unimportant part of the Roman empire must be prefaced by such
warning. We know about Jesus from books
written a few decades after his death, probably by people who were not among
his followers during his lifetime. They
quote him in Greek, which was not his primary language, and the differences
among our sources show that his words and deeds were not perfectly
preserved. We have very little
information about him apart from the works written to glorify him.” (Preface p.
xiii)
“Nothing survives that was written
by Jesus himself. The more or less
contemporary documents, apart from those in the New Testament, shed virtually
no light on Jesus’ life or death, though they reveal a lot about the social and
political climate. The main sources for
our knowledge of Jesus himself, the gospels in the New Testament, are, from the
point of view of the historian, tainted by the fact that they were written by
people who intended to glorify their hero.”
(p. 3)
“The gospels report Jesus’ sayings
and actions in a language that was not his own (he taught in Aramaic, the
gospels are in Greek), and they place each piece of information into a setting
devised by his followers, usually by followers at one remove. Even if we know that we have his own words,
we would still have to fear that he was quoted out of context.” (p. 4)
For many of us, trying to figure out just who Jesus IS, is
almost like trying to put together a puzzle.
A very difficult and multi-pieced puzzle.
In McLaren's book Everything Must Change he shares the
story of a friend of his.
His friend describes trying to put together a puzzle by
looking at the box, but unfortunately somebody has put the puzzle in the wrong
box.
We keep trying to put the pieces together using the wrong
picture from the wrong lid
some colors
on the pieces don't seem to belong
some shapes
don't seem to fit
We might assume they were included by mistake and set the
off to the side
We might try forcing some of the pieces to fit
Maybe we even take out some markers and scissors and
"adjust" some of the pieces so that they will "fit"
We might even begin to think that the picture on the lid of
the box is correct and the pieces are wrong!
That's the problem with our study of the Bible, I think, we
try to put the pieces together using the wrong cover as a guide. We let our Sunday School lessons and
contemporary Christian portraits of Jesus guide us.
Today --- I want us to use Luke as our guide and see what he
has to tell us about Jesus.
In the first three chapters, Luke tells us a great deal
about Jesus.
In the annunciation --- Luke tells us right off the bat two
things about Jesus:
1. He is not of mortal parentage
2. Quoting Luke (1:32) "
He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High
"
Luke goes to great length to demonstrate that Jesus is
greater that the "one" who believed, or at least claimed he was
divine.
Caesar Augustus was ruler of the Roman Empire at the time of
Jesus birth. Claims were made that he was
the son of god and divine
There is a tradition that Caesar Augustus' mother was
worshipping at the Temple of Apollo when she fell asleep and was impregnated by
the gods.
Luke wants to remind his readers that while many believe
Caesar is the Son of God --- the real son is Jesus.
Then at his birth Luke tells us the story of the angels
coming to the shepherds who are told:
Luke 2:9-12 (NRSV)
Then an angel of the Lord stood
before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were
terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing
you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the
city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign for
you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.”
So Luke wants us to know --- right from the start --- that
Jesus is to be the Messiah (we will talk more about what that means on another
Sunday).
Then we are told that Jesus is God's salvation (again,
whatever that means).
Luke 2:30-32 (NRSV)
for my eyes have seen your
salvation,
which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples,
a light for revelation to the Gentiles
and for glory to your people Israel.”
which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples,
a light for revelation to the Gentiles
and for glory to your people Israel.”
But he also tells us something important --- Jesus is not
just for the Jews.
This is going to play out
repeatedly in Luke's gospel.
Chapter 2 ends with Jesus going to the temple as a boy. He goes two different times and these stories
are found only in Luke
The first is when Luke has Jesus presented in the Temple and
two people encounter him
Simeon
who was promised by God that he
would see the Messiah before he died
and
Anna
Recognized Jesus as the redemption
of Jerusalem
Finally, Luke has the story of Jesus coming to the temple as
a 12 year old child who immerses himself in the temple sitting with the Rabbi's
asking them all kinds of questions.
We are told that they were amazed at his understanding and
answers.
It is here that Luke quotes Jesus explaining to his parents
where he had been:
Why were you searching for me? Did you not know I must be in my Father's
house?" (3:49)
Again Luke tells us these stories so that there is no doubt
in our minds as to who Jesus is.
Chapter 3 is all about John the Baptist and his relationship
to Jesus.
Remember in chpt. 1 we were told that Jesus and John were
cousins --- and many people seemed to be of the mind that John just might be
the messiah.
But Luke goes to great lengths to demonstrate that John
understood that he was not the messiah --- just one who would "prepare the
way".
“I baptize you with water; but one
who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of
his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing
fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into
his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”
What is interesting is Luke does not say that John baptized
Jesus. We just assume it because it is
in the other gospels.
Luke has John arrested before Jesus is baptized almost as a
way to say emphatically --- John's ministry is over and Jesus' ministry has
begun.
Chapter 3 concludes with a contrived genealogy through
Joseph --- who we have already been told is not the father of Jesus.
But one interesting note about Luke's genealogy is that it
goes back not to David ---- although it shows that Jesus is from David's
lineage. But it goes back to Adam.
That is because Jesus is the Messiah --- not just of the
Jews --- but of all people.
Luke prepares us for the introduction to the ministry of
Jesus by making sure we understand that Jesus is
·
Greater than Caesar Augustus
·
Jesus is Messiah
·
Jesus is salvation
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