Luke

Angels don't normally have names in the New Testament. Why does Luke tell us that it was the angel Gabriel who appeared to Mary? Let's think this through.

In a couple of week's time, the Lectionary gospel reading will be Luke 7:11-17:

Soon afterwards, Jesus went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a large crowd went along with him. As he approached the town gate, a dead person was being carried out – the only son of his mother, and she was a widow. And a large crowd from the town was with her. When the Lord saw her, his heart went out to her and he said, ‘Don’t cry.’

Jesus said: “Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.” (Luke 18:17)

There's much debate as to exactly what that means. Jesus couldn't mean that adults have to be like children in every sense, as we could never be short enough. (Well, most of us couldn't — you know who you are.)  In what sense “like a child”?

Jesus... born in a manger.

From Peter Leithart's blog post entitled "Oxen and Mangers"

Yahweh appears to Job in a whirlwind and challenges Job by reminding Him of His infinite creative power. “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?” He asks. “Who set its measurements? Where were you, when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?” (Job 38:1-7).

Yahweh’s infinite liveliness and power continue to energize everything. “Do you know the time the mountain goats give birth? Do you observe the calving of the deer?” He points to the most powerful herbivores He can find: “Who set the wild donkey free?” and “Will the wild ox consent to serve you? Can you control him so that he spends the night at your manger?”

Yahweh can, and He has in the incarnation of the Son. Israel is a wild ox. He has the strength of an ox to break the bones of his enemies. Joseph is a wild ox, with horns that push the people to the ends of the earth. Jesus is born as the true Israel, the new Joseph, the untamed wild ox, who spends the night in the manger.

This is the Christmas gospel, the good news of an infinite and infinitely uncontrollable God, who has been domesticated in a manger.

Every Christian believer will, at times in their life, feel the weight of the fact they are a sinner. Perhaps they have just done something that proves to them, and they fear proves to others, that they are a failure before God and before others in the church.

People sometimes worry that the 4 Gospels don't tell the resurrection story in exactly the same way. This is to worry needlessly. If the 4 Gospels told the resurrection story in contradictory ways, that would be a different matter. As it is, we simply have a difference in perspective. Look at the story from different angles, you include different details and stress different things. It couldn't be otherwise. The four Gospels are not an assortment of favourite deeds of Jesus, thrown together haphazardly.

Darrell Bock cautions:

“The shepherds are often characterised as representing the ‘downtrodden and despised’ of society, so that the first proclamation of the gospel is said to have come to sinners. … There are two problems with reading the shepherds as symbols of the hated. First the rabbinic evidence is late, coming from the fifth century. More importantly, shepherd motifs in the Bible are mostly positive. … Thus, the presence of the shepherds is not a negative point. Rather, they picture the lowly and humble who respond to God’s message.” (page 214)

G B Caird is helpful, as ever, in his comments on Luke's account of the birth of Jesus:

Just spotted this for the first time: Luke 17:6-10 and Luke 17:11-19 are deliberately juxtaposed.

17:6-10 establishes that the right way to relate to God is as his servants. When we serve him, he doesn't “thank” us, because we recognise that we are merely giving him (a tiny part of) what he is due. As the commentaries point out, this is really about the fact that God does not owe us anything because of the service we have given him. Our service never puts us in his debt.

I picked up a second-hand copy of G B Caird's Penguin Commentary on Luke from 1963. Second-hand is all you'll get, but if you spot one in a second-hand bookshop, I'd say: Buy it!

Short. Insightful. Refreshing. Helpful.