Monday, 11 March Luke 3:1-38

Written by Dr Graham Leo. ©2019.

Today’s chapter contains the story of two preparations. Again, we will see the faithfulness of God’s promises in both. Luke is continuing the story of God’s careful management of his plan of salvation for the world.

The first preparation story is the preaching of John the Baptist. Again, we recall the music of Handel’s Messiah. Prepare ye the way of the Lord. Verses 4-6 in our reading are a summary quotation from Isaiah 40:3-5.

Since the beginning of Israel’s history, God had been promising that there would be a prophet who would come to prepare the way for the long-promised Messiah. Luke declares that John the Baptist was in fact the fulfilment of Isaiah’s prophecy. So again, Luke claims the faithfulness of God fulfilling his promise.

John’s preaching is interesting. When we talk today of repentance, we probably think of personal sins and moral failures. John does this too, but he also focuses on matters of social justice. The three examples that Luke gives from John’s preaching are quite clear:

1. Everyone is encouraged to be generous with their wealth and property. No-one should have unnecessary plenty while ever there is someone else who is in need. It’s worth asking whether, if John the Baptist came to town today, you or I would need to go to him for the baptism of repentance.

2. Tax collectors – a low social class because of their hated work for the Roman overlords – are not encouraged to leave their jobs, but just to do it honestly.

3. Soldiers, who were probably Romans, not Jews, were not advised by John to give up their role but just to do it honestly and fairly.

Is there something in this for us? The Kingdom of Heaven is not only about going to heaven when you die (in fact, it’s probably not about that at all!); it’s not just about sexual morality; it’s about living your life in the practical pursuit of beauty, truth and goodness. We can't help but think of Micah 6:8. What does the Lord require of you? Simply this: to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly in the sight of God.

At this time of history, for reasons we can't go into now, there was a widespread expectation in Israel that the Messiah was ‘due’. The nation was expecting him to come at just this period of history. So it’s not surprising that they wondered if John was the one they were waiting for (v15). But John denies that. He declared the ‘good news’ (v18) to everyone that the Messiah was imminent, but not here yet.

When John criticised the King, Herod, for marrying his own brother’s wife, Herod was predictably angry. He imprisoned John in the fortress at Masada, one of his palaces. It was there that Salome would dance before Herod as Mark describes in Mark 6:14-29.

The second preparation story is introduced to us in two parts.

The first part is Jesus’ baptism, the necessary preparation for his ministry. Luke’s version is short, but it contains the elements he wants to stress. This is Luke’s first indication of a Trinitarian revelation. God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit are all mentioned. It would be some centuries before this was properly understood, but Luke’s record was very important for that doctrine to develop.

The second part is the genealogy in vv23-38. Most people skip over the genealogies, here and in Matthew. But they actually have quite a lot to teach us. Perhaps even to inspire us. I’ll just mention three of the ancestors listed here.

Zerubbabel (v27): Zerubbabel was the grandson of King Jehoiachin, who was taken into captivity (1 Chron. 3.17). Under the reign of the Persian King Cyrus, Zerubbabel led the first cohort of exiles back into Jerusalem to commence re-building the walls and the temple. After a difficult start, the temple reconstruction is abandoned for seventeen years. The prophet Haggai then gives the word of the Lord to commence re-building the temple. This is in the first chapter of Haggai, a challenging chapter, well worth reading.

After four years of determined work, the temple was finished. This was the temple that Herod renovated, enlarged and beautified; the same one that Jesus said would be totally destroyed, with not one stone left upon another (Luke 21:6). This happened in 70AD, at the fall of Jerusalem. Haggai’s book ends with this pronouncement from God, to Zerubbabel: ‘I will overturn royal thrones and shatter the power of foreign kingdoms. … On that day, … I will take you, my servant Zerubbabel, son of Shealtiel, like my signet ring, for I have chosen you.’ (Hag. 2:22-3)

Jesus, the direct descendant of Zerubbabel was the promised signet ring of God: he possessed God’s full authority and was his perfect image. (See Col. 1:15-17 & Hebrews 1:1-3.) He acted in God’s place, forgiving sins, calling God his father, and announcing the coming of God’s kingdom. He himself would replace Zerubbabel’s temple in his own body. (‘Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up again!’ John 2:19.)

Nathan the son of David (v31): this establishes Jesus’ ancestry in the direct line of King David, an essential element of many of the Messianic prophecies (e.g. 2 Sam. 7:12-16).

Judah, the son of Jacob (v33-4): this locates Jesus in the tribe of Judah. The Old Testament makes it clear that Judah is the tribe from which the Messiah will come. In Revelation 5:5, we read of Jesus coming as the ‘Lion of the Tribe of Judah’.

This section concludes Luke’s establishing of the faithfulness of God in keeping his word. He has told us how God has carefully planned this redemptive coming.

In just three chapters, he has laid a foundation for such important teachings as the Incarnation, the Divine-Human nature, the Trinity, the Messianic prophecies being fulfilled, the focus of the coming kingdom on God’s care for the poor and oppressed, the significant place of women in the new covenant, and the re-establishment of the centre of Israel’s worship in the Son of God himself, not in the temple.

It has been a scholarly introduction.

Prayer: O Father, I see how detailed and wonderful is your eternal Word. Thank you for the beauty of your Word and how you have cared for it over thousands of years. Thank you for your son, Jesus Christ. I choose to worship him. As I prepare to go on in these Lenten studies, please show me how to see you as God’s answer for a lost and broken world. Amen.