Wednesday 5th January - Luke 3

Today’s reading is Luke 3 - you can read it here

Tom writes:

The message John the Baptiser brought was astonishingly powerful.  It is really helpful for understanding the fundamentals of the message of the Kingdom. John headlined with in-your-face, nose-out-of-joint demands for repentance.  John looked at people’s census responses, John looked at people’s church-attendance records, John heard people talking about their Christian heritage... and he spat half-digested locusts on them.  “That isn’t enough” he cried, “you can’t just claim a Christian inheritance or copy certain Christian practices; you have to be cut to the heart, you have to want to kill the sin in you and to live a new and pure life for God.” This was an unadulterated demand to be baptised in the Spirit or to face the coming wrath. Talk about being beaten with a winnowing stick!  But John didn’t stop there. He had broken the complacent Christian’s nose once but then he went and broke it a whole nother time. He pointed at his hearers and called them serpents and he pointed at the stones and called them children. He railed against the idea that you could presume others out of the kingdom; citizenship was through God’s work alone. God could make citizens out of some ancient pieces of rock if he wanted to and so he could certainly make them out of Gentiles too. Any hint of excluding others from God’s favour just because of their upbringing would make John bite like a camel.

So we see in John’s message more evidence of the mega-themes of Luke’s gospel; Holy Spirit renewal and global mission. The Kingdom is a life of generosity and integrity only possible with Holy Spirit. And the Kingdom is a life of explicit openness to the whole people of the world. Oh how I want those Kingdom themes to define my life. But notice how Luke swiftly brings us right back to the third mega-theme of his gospel; Jesus. Like a mallet that is used by a chef to tenderize the steak and then is put back into the drawer John is swiftly sidelined from the narrative. Jesus is left front and centre; the Son who is deeply loved by God, the one who will baptize in the Spirit, the one who will bring right living and mission to the whole of the world. While how we behave matters - and it does really matter - nothing matters more in the Kingdom than the well-loved Son.

Question for reflection

How has God woven the major themes of Luke’s gospel into your life; a) Holy Spirit renewal, b) global mission and c) the utter pre-eminence of Jesus?