Luke 5: 27 – 32 Jesus calls Levi and eats with sinners
After this, Jesus went out and saw a tax collector by the name of Levi sitting at his tax booth. ‘Follow me,’ Jesus said to him, and Levi got up, left everything and followed him.
Then Levi held a great banquet for Jesus at his house. And a large crowd of tax collectors and others were eating with them. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law who belonged to their sect complained to his disciples, ‘Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?’
Jesus answered them, ‘It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but those who are ill. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.’
* * *
One of the drawbacks of proceeding slowly and in detail through the gospel is that it’s difficult to see the big picture. The evangelist wrote a narrative which is intended to put the teaching of Jesus into the context of his life, so reading it piece by piece can be misleading.
The gospel also puts Jesus’ teaching in the context of first century theology. Although God never changes, and is the same yesterday, today and for ever, our understanding of him can change. The theology of the first century AD is different from that of the twenty first century.
For example, most people in the first century would have viewed sickness as a punishment from God. Nowadays, we don’t. We understand many of the causes of sickness are physical. Even this latest plague, Covid 19 – and it is a plague – has a physical cause. Furthermore, we know pretty much how it probably arose, we know pretty much how it spreads, we know what needs to be done to mitigate its effects and we’re making progress towards both a treatment and a vaccine. It’s not a punishment from God.
But back to the specific text.
Jesus calls Levi, who immediately leaves his previous life and follows Jesus. This is both a record of an event – the moment when Levi became one of Jesus’ hand-picked disciples – and a parable. Levi “left everything and followed him.” No ifs, no buts, no hesitation, just obedience. It’s a tremendous example, isn’t it?
Now, my experience of Jesus is that he takes each of us as we are. He knows our difficulties, our weaknesses. We all struggle. My experience is also that he doesn’t demand that each of us leave everything. What he does demand, and it’s a very firm demand, is that when we see a clear choice between following him and following our own desires, we choose him. He has to be first in our lives.
“Then Levi held a great banquet for Jesus at his house.”
The Pharisees didn’t like this at all. Jesus was mingling with the wrong sort of people. He was putting the stamp of respectability on people they considered to be sinners. Tax collectors weren’t upright, religious citizens.
The funny thing is that Jesus agreed with the Pharisees. He, too, knew that these men were sinners. The difference was that he had come to call sinners to repentance. He wanted to save them, not despise them. Meet some tax collectors and sinners? Where better than a banquet!
Prayer
Thank you, Father, that you sent Jesus to call us to repentance. Thank you for giving me perseverance in following him.
Luke 5: 17 – 26 Jesus forgives and heals a paralysed man
One day Jesus was teaching, and Pharisees and teachers of the law were sitting there. They had come from every village of Galilee and from Judea and Jerusalem. And the power of the Lord was with Jesus to heal those who were ill. Some men came carrying a paralysed man on a mat, and tried to take him into the house to lay him before Jesus. When they could not find a way to do this because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and lowered him on his mat through the tiles into the middle of the crowd, right in front of Jesus.
When Jesus saw their faith, he said, ‘Friend, your sins are forgiven.’
The Pharisees and the teachers of the law began thinking to themselves, ‘Who is this fellow who speaks blasphemy? Who can forgive sins but God alone?’
Jesus knew what they were thinking and asked, ‘Why are you thinking these things in your hearts? Which is easier to say, “Your sins are forgiven,” or to say, “Get up and walk”? But I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.’ So he said to the paralysed man, ‘I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home.’ Immediately he stood up in front of them, took what he had been lying on and went home praising God. Everyone was amazed and gave praise to God. They were filled with awe and said ‘We have seen remarkable things today.’
* * *
There are several interesting details about this story.
The first is that Jesus was teaching Pharisees and teachers of the law who had come from miles around – “They had come from every village of Galilee and from Judea and Jerusalem.” Some of them must have walked for days to be there. Whatever else one may say about the Pharisees, they were taking Jesus seriously.
The second detail is the roof. In first century Israel, roofs were typically very robust. They were used as an outdoor room. This was so commonplace that there’s even an instruction that the housebuilder should include a parapet so that someone couldn’t fall off by accident and be killed. “When you build a new house, make a parapet around your roof so that you may not bring the guilt of bloodshed on your house if someone falls from the roof.” (Deuteronomy 22:8)
The roof of the house in this story was tiled. There would have been roof timbers on which the tiles were hung. I have to admit that I wonder what the scene was like down below, as dust and dirt trickled down, and more and more light came through the hole being made in the roof! And lowering the man with his mat can’t have been easy at all. For this access route to have been attempted, the crowd around Jesus must have been very large, and very hard-hearted towards the invalid.
But with the lowering of the man in front of Jesus we reach an important part of the narrative.
When Jesus saw their faith, he said, ‘Friend, your sins are forgiven.’
That should have been all it took, but the Pharisees and teachers of the law are outraged.
‘Who is this fellow who speaks blasphemy? Who can forgive sins but God alone?’
Jesus meets this challenge head on.
‘But I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.’
This is a direct claim that Jesus, the Son of Man, has equal authority with God the Father to forgive sins. This would indeed be blasphemy – unless it were true.
So he said to the paralysed man, ‘I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home.’ Immediately he stood up in front of them, took what he had been lying on and went home praising God.
Jesus is indeed the Son of Man. He does indeed have the authority to forgive sins. We can all be deeply thankful for that.
There is one final point that struck me while working on this passage. Jesus makes no enquiry as to the nature of the man’s sin. He doesn’t exhort him not to sin again. He doesn’t demand repentance.
No. Jesus saw the faith and he forgave the sin. How often, I wonder, does he see my sin and forgive me, and I don’t even notice? I’m sorry, Lord; thank you that you’re always helping me to do better.
Prayer
Heavenly Father
Thank you for the wonderful mercy of your love, that sent Jesus to heal us and to forgive our sins.
While Jesus was in one of the towns, a man came along who was covered with leprosy. When he saw Jesus, he fell with his face to the ground and begged him, ‘Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.’
Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. ‘I am willing,’ he said. ‘Be clean!’ And immediately the leprosy left him.
Then Jesus ordered him, ‘Don’t tell anyone, but go, show yourself to the priest and offer the sacrifices that Moses commanded for your cleansing, as a testimony to them.’
Yet the news about him spread all the more, so that crowds of people came to hear him and to be healed of their illnesses. But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.
* * *
The NIV translation that I use has a footnote to this passage that says: “The Greek word traditionally translated ‘leprosy’ was used for various diseases affecting the skin”. I see no reason to doubt that statement. As the NIV continues to use the description leprosy I shall follow their example.
Leviticus 13 describes the symptoms, and the actions that had to be taken when a case was discovered. If you were diagnosed with leprosy you had to live alone outside a centre of population (Leviticus 13: 45 – 46), and you were ritually unclean.
It was a horrible diagnosis to receive because you could no longer participate in community life, and above all you couldn’t take part in worship. Nevertheless, the Law of Moses recognised that some people did recover, and Leviticus 14 explains what they needed to do to be accepted back into the community.
When the leper of this story in St Luke’s gospel met Jesus, he threw himself full length with his face to the ground, and begged to be healed. There was no doubting his faith that Jesus could heal him, but he obviously felt unworthy. ‘Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.’ He may have felt that he had sinned badly to have deserved the punishment of leprosy; that would have been a common point of view at that time.
For Jesus, though, what mattered was the man’s faith. ‘I am willing,’ he said. ‘Be clean!’
Jesus healed the leper. Not merely did he cleanse him, but he reminded him of what he still needed to do to be accepted back into the worshipping community of Israel: ‘… go, show yourself to the priest and offer the sacrifices that Moses commanded for your cleansing, as a testimony to them.’ Jesus had dealt with the physical cleansing, but, because the now-healed leper still lived under the Law of Moses he had to take the correct actions to be made ritually clean.
“For Jesus, though, what mattered was the man’s faith.”
I find myself wondering whether that’s the whole story. Many times, I and my friends have prayed earnestly for the healing of people we know. We have faith that Jesus can and does heal, and yet it is only rarely that we see physical healing. What about all those occasions when people are not healed?
I suggest, tentatively, that there is always some form of healing, often spiritual and at a level that we can’t easily see. On those rare occasions when there is a miraculous healing, it seems usually to be when it will build faith in Jesus. In other words, it’s a sign like the healings carried out by Jesus. If we are to understand when God heals physically and when he doesn’t, we need to understand his will better, and listen to how he wants us to pray for individuals.
Perhaps that’s a message we could take from the last verse of today’s study.
“But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.”
Even Jesus, whose ability to hear the Father’s voice was unrivalled, finds that he can only pray properly by withdrawing to solitude. He needs to avoid the crowds. What do we need to avoid? Do we need to go to a lonely place, or just a quiet place? I don’t think it matters very much provided we make the opportunity to listen.
And, if we listen carefully to God, perhaps we will be better able to know how to pray effectively.
Prayer
Heavenly Father
Please help my heart to be still and silent when I pray so that I can hear your voice.
One day as Jesus was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret, the people were crowding around him and listening to the word of God. He saw at the water’s edge two boats, left there by the fishermen, who were washing their nets. He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little from the shore. Then he sat down and taught the people from the boat.
When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, ‘Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch.’
Simon answered, ‘Master, we’ve worked hard all night and haven’t caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets.’
When they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break. So they signalled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them, and they came and filled both the boats so full that they began to sink.
When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus knees and said, ‘Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!’ For he and all his companions were astonished at the catch of fish they had taken, and so were James and John, the sons of Zebedee, Simon’s partners.
Then Jesus said to Simon, ‘Don’t be afraid; from now on you will fish for people.’ So they pulled their boats up on shore, left everything and followed him.
* * *
The title of this story is “Jesus calls his first disciples”. However, we must realise that this doesn’t mean that Jesus and Peter didn’t know each other before; indeed, it is likely that the opposite is true. John 1: 40 – 42 says:
“Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, was one of the two who heard what John had said and who had followed Jesus. The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, ‘We have found the Messiah’ (that is, the Christ). And he brought him to Jesus.
Jesus looked at him and said, ‘You are Simon son of John. You will be called Cephas’ (which, when translated, is Peter).”
Not merely had they met before, Jesus had given Simon a nickname.
In this story, Jesus is on the shore of Lake Gennesaret surrounded by a crowd who were listening to him explain the word of God. He wouldn’t have been reading the Torah to them, he would have been quoting it – accurately – from memory, and then explaining its application to their everyday lives.
As more people arrived, it would become difficult for those at the back to hear because of the crowd clustering round Jesus. He needed a place from which to preach, where he could avoid being closely surrounded. The nearest platform was a fishing boat at the water’s edge, where the fishermen were washing the nets, and Jesus asked Simon to put out from shore.
Simon had just finished a hard night’s work. He was in the middle of doing a routine task and had probably been looking forward to getting home, having some breakfast and then resting. Still, he does as Jesus asks.
“When he (Jesus) had finished speaking, he said to Simon, ‘Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch.’”
Simon is doubtless still tired, and still looking forward to packing up. And what on earth could Jesus know about fishing?
Simon answered, ‘Master, we’ve worked hard all night and haven’t caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets.’
Simon expresses doubt, but he says “Because you say so, I will let down the nets” and then obeys. This has three lessons about faith for us.
Firstly, it’s okay to express doubt, provided you trust God for the answer to your doubt (Master, we’ve worked hard all night…).
Secondly, you need to acknowledge that God is in control (But because you say so…)
Thirdly, you need to be obedient (I will let down the nets).
And when Simon trusted and obeyed, what a result! So many fish that the nets tore and the boats started to sink. And Simon is overwhelmed, awe-struck – terrified. When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus’ knees and said, ‘Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!’
I expect he really felt like that. Before, he had seen Jesus as a teacher, a good man, one to respect, one to obey even. Suddenly, though, he’s confronted by Jesus’ power to act in the day to day world. Simon hadn’t been able to catch fish that night, despite his hard work and experience. Jesus, who knew nothing about fishing, had filled the nets to breaking point.
I imagine that Jesus smiles and claps Peter on the shoulder. “Then Jesus said to Simon, ‘Don’t be afraid; from now on you will fish for people.’ So they pulled their boats up on shore, left everything and followed him.”
Prayer
Dear Father
Thank you for the example of Simon Peter’s obedience. Help me to do your will even when I don’t understand why something is to be done.
Luke 4: 31 – 44 Jesus drives out an impure spirit, and heals many
Then he went down to Capernaum, a town in Galilee, and on the Sabbath he taught the people. They were amazed at his teaching, because his words had authority.
In the synagogue there was a man possessed by a demon, an impure spirit. He cried out at the top of his voice, ‘Go away! What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are – the Holy One of God!’
‘Be quiet!’ Jesus said sternly. ‘Come out of him!’ Then the demon threw the man down before them all and came out without injuring him.
All the people were amazed and said to each other, ‘What words these are! With authority and power he gives orders to impure spirits and they come out!’ And the news about him spread throughout the surrounding area.
Jesus left the synagogue and went to the home of Simon. Now Simon’s mother-in-law was suffering from a high fever, and they asked Jesus to help her. So he bent over her and rebuked the fever, and it left her. She got up at once and began to wait on them.
At sunset, the people brought to Jesus all who had various kinds of illness, and laying his hands on each one, he healed them. Moreover, demons came out of many people, shouting, ‘You are the Son of God!’ But he rebuked them and would not allow them to speak, because they knew he was the Messiah.
At daybreak, Jesus went out to a solitary place. The people were looking for him and when they came to where he was, they tried to keep him from leaving them. But he said, ‘I must proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns also, because that is why I was sent.’ And he kept on preaching in the synagogues of Judea.
* * *
On Tuesday, when I wrote about the temptation of Jesus, I ducked out of considering whether or not the devil is real. Today’s reading shows Jesus driving out demons. I don’t think I can go on ignoring this matter.
I’ll start by summarising where I stand at this precise instant. If, as I pray and write, God wants me to change my position, I pray that he will give me the perception and obedience to do so.
Okay.
I believe in God who created the universe. I believe he is good, and I believe he cares for his creation.
I believe that he created the universe with what you might call a moral direction, and that moral direction is shown by love. That love is primarily his love, but humans, created in his image, are capable of giving similar love to others. Indeed, we must show love for each other, because that is God’s will for us.
I can’t explain the beauty of the universe, the joy of being alive, the love I can share with others without a loving God as the creator.
However, I can understand physical illness without needing a demon to explain it. Microbes, prions, carcinogens, poor lifestyle – all these are ample to explain why people get sick.
Mental illness, too, is becoming better understood. Neuroscience, which studies the way the body’s nervous system works, is starting to shed light on the physical causes of mental illness. Although there are very many things we don’t understand yet, progress is being made. I don’t feel the need for a demon to explain mental illness.
Do we need the existence of a devil to explain sin? I don’t think so; we do a pretty good job on our own. There is a conflict between behaviour that was a survival advantage as we evolved and the love that God wants us to show. For example, a dominant animal is likely to have more opportunity to produce off-spring; over generations the trait to seek dominance becomes reinforced into that breed. However, grasping such dominance is opposed to the love that God wants human beings to show to each other.
We experience the desire to give full expression to these urges as temptation, and when we give way, we sin. And, of course, everybody shares these urges to a greater or lesser extent. They are hard-wired into the way our society works, too, making it even harder to avoid sin.
There is a final category of behaviour which does seem perhaps to exemplify evil. I’m thinking of truly atrocious behaviour where human beings seem to deliberately seek to do harm. I’m thinking of Hitler and the Nazis, Stalin in the Soviet Union, the military junta in the Argentine. And yet, even here I think that with sufficient knowledge we would understand such behaviour as human behaviour and not as devil-inspired actions.
So my view of the demons ‘driven out’ by Jesus is that they were people suffering from mental illness who were healed by Jesus. St Luke describes it as the driving out of demons because that was how he understood it; that was his world view. That was how people in the first century A.D. understood mental illness.
Let’s not be under any illusions. These were striking healings. They were miraculous. They were signs of Jesus’ authority, just as the bible says.
As for the identification of Jesus as the Holy One of God by those who were healed of mental illness; is that so surprising? Everybody would have been speculating about Jesus, wondering whether he could be the Messiah. People with mental illness are sick, not stupid. They would have picked up these conversations, these hints, and believed them. Some of them, because of their illness, would perhaps have less self-control than most people. It’s not surprising that they shouted out what everybody else was saying discreetly.
Prayer
Heavenly Father
Thank you so much for Jesus’ ministry of healing. Thank you that he heals the sick, and strengthens those who are tempted. Thank you that he lives with us today.
Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about him spread through the whole countryside. He was teaching in their synagogues and everyone praised him.
He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:
‘The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.’
Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and ast down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. He began by saying to them, ‘Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.’
All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his lips. ‘Isn’t this Joseph’s son?’ they asked.
Jesus said to them, ‘Surely you will quote this proverb to me: “Physician, heal yourself!’ And you will tell me, “Do here in your home town what we have heard that you did in Capernaum.” ‘
‘Truly I tell you,’ he continued, ‘no prophet is accepted in his home town. I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon. And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed – only Naaman the Syrian.’
All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. They got up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him off the cliff. But he walked right through the crowd and went on his way.
* * *
In first century Israel, the synagogue was a community building used for many functions; school, meeting room, courtroom and place of prayer. It was open to all members of the community, men, women and children, and was not segregated by gender or age (although women were not allowed to expound the Torah). On the Sabbath, families would assemble there to hear the Torah read and expounded, and to pray.
The Torah would be read and explained by a man who would stand on a platform to read, and then sit down in the ‘Moses seat’. He would give his understanding of the reading, but not in the form of a sermon or homily of the sort that we have nowadays. His explanation would be much more a question and answer session. Indeed, in the rabbinic teaching method, the teacher would often begin his sermon by seating himself and waiting for a question from the assembly.
Although all men were eligible to read and preach, the person chosen to do so was scheduled in advance. It is likely that Jesus’ reading in the synagogue was planned beforehand. Likewise, the reader didn’t choose the passage to be read; there was a set schedule of readings that had to be used. Jesus probably didn’t choose the reading.
But what an appropriate reading it is!
‘The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.’
Rather surprisingly, it doesn’t seem to be an exact quotation from Isaiah. Most of it comes from Isaiah 61: 1 – 2a, but the words “to set the oppressed free” are from Isaiah 58:6. It is a strange sort of mistake to find – if, indeed, it is a mistake. All Jews were taught the scriptures by rote, and that would include St Luke. It is possible that St Luke felt that the phrase, “to set the oppressed free,” was so important to his overall message in his gospel and Acts that he was prepared to conflate it with this story of Jesus.
You can imagine the expectant silence as Jesus sat down after reading. Every eye would have been fixed on him. What would he say?
‘Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.’
Well, that’s nice, but what does it mean? How can the scripture be fulfilled? This is just Joseph’s son, isn’t it? Hah! If he wants to convince us, he’d better show us a sign like he did in Capernaum.
The people had no faith in Jesus. They thought they knew who he was. He was just one of them, and I’m sure they said so.
In response to this lack of faith, Jesus responds with two examples, both involving foreigners who showed faith when the Israelites did not. The widow of Zarephath gave food to Elijah despite being close to starvation herself. In response to her faith, the flour and oil that she had were miraculously renewed every night for months until the end of the drought causing the famine. And Naaman was a Syrian who, when he was told by Elisha to wash himself seven times in the Jordan to be cleansed of his leprosy, initially demurred angrily. However, he then obeyed the command and was healed.
The moral was not lost on the assembly. Jesus was telling them that they needed to have faith in him, and that if they didn’t, they were no better than Gentiles! How dare this carpenter, this son of Joseph, sit in judgment on them! Who did he think he was?
Was it Jesus’ implicit claim to have authority over them that outraged them so much? Or did some of the assembly feel that Jesus had blasphemed? Their response was startlingly violent. They took him to the brow of the hill, intending to throw him off a cliff. However, it was not his time and he eluded them.
* * *
This is the prophecy from Isaiah that contains the line about setting the oppressed free.
“Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter – when you see the naked, to clothe them, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?” (Isaiah 58: 6 – 7)
It comes from a section where the Israelites have been condemned for hypocrisy. Isaiah 58: 3 says
“Why have we fasted,” they say, “and you have not seen it? Why have we humbled ourselves and you have not noticed?”
‘Yet on the day of your fasting, you do as you please and exploit all your workers.’
Luke’s gospel is very much about the way that true religion should give rise to social justice.
This line that Jesus read is central to the message of St Luke’s gospel.
Prayer
Heavenly Father,
Thank you that you provide for us every day. Help us to share generously with those who don’t have enough.
Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them he was hungry.
The devil said to him, ‘If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.’
Jesus answered, ‘It is written: “Man shall not live on bread alone.”’
The devil led him up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And he said to him, ‘I will give you all their authority and splendour; it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to. If you worship me, it will all be yours.’
Jesus answered, ‘It is written: “Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.”’
The devil led him to Jerusalem and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. ‘If you are the Son of God,’ he said, ‘throw yourself down from here. For it is written: “He will command his angels concerning you to guard you carefully; they will lift you up in their hands so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.”’
Jesus answered, ‘It is said: “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.”’
When the devil had finished all this tempting, he left him until an opportune time.
* * *
Jesus was led by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness. There are no human distractions in the wilderness; Jesus was alone with God, and he was there at God’s bidding. God meant him to be tempted.
Why?
Before trying to answer that question, let’s look at what the temptations were.
The first is quite simple. Jesus was fasting. This doesn’t necessarily mean total abstinence from food, although it could do; it might mean a restricted diet eaten between sunset and sunrise. After forty days of this, Jesus was hungry. The temptation was to miraculously transform desert stones into bread and satisfy his hunger.
Jesus rebuts the temptation with ‘It is written: “Man shall not live on bread alone.”’
In other words, our human appetites must not blind us to our spiritual needs.
The second temptation is more subtle. Jesus sees the kingdoms of the earth with their wealth, and power. He feels the potential within himself to take control. What good he could do! It would be a golden age! All he had to do was to turn away from God’s plan.
‘It is written: “Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.”’
There really is no other way, because God created the universe. He’s the one who knows how it works, and what needs to be done. When we try to do it our way rather than God’s way, we’re doing it wrong.
The third temptation is the most subtle – and the most deadly. It strikes right at the heart of Jesus’ mission.
“Throw yourself down from here. God’s angels won’t let you be harmed.”
What is really at stake here?
Look at John 10: 37 – 38. Jesus said to the Jewish leaders ‘Do not believe me unless I do the works of my Father. But if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father.’ St John’s gospel is full of statements like this. It is central to Jesus’ claim to be the Son of God that he speaks only what he hears the Father say, and does only what the Father tells him to do.
To sustain that claim, he has to trust absolutely that God the Father will give him the right words and the right actions at exactly the right moment.
And here is a passage of scripture that suggests that angels will keep him from harm. “He will command his angels concerning you to guard you carefully; they will lift you up in their hands so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.”’
What a temptation it must have been to seek confirmation of his ministry by such a dramatic sign!
The world holds its breath.
If Jesus’ faith wavers, that’s it: game over.
‘It is said: “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.”’
Phew! Breathe again, world!
And now we can attempt to answer the question as to why God subjected him to temptation. There are (at least) two reasons.
Firstly, it gives us a record of Jesus being tempted, and this bears witness to Jesus’ humanity. All human beings are tempted, and if there was no record of Jesus experiencing temptation we would not believe he was fully human.
Secondly, although Jesus is the Son of God, he did not have all God the Father’s foreknowledge of his divine plan. He had to practise being entirely open to his Father, even under the most stressful circumstances. It was essential that the right things were done at the right moment. For example, in the first temptation Jesus refuses to use miraculous power to satisfy hunger, and yet at the feeding of the five thousand he does exactly that.
You could almost view the temptation in the wilderness as Jesus’ graduation. Note, though, that as so often where somebody has a specific task to accomplish for God, it is to teach them something about themselves and their relationship with God.
Jesus emerges from this period of fasting and temptation with complete confidence in his ability to hear and do the Father’s will. He’s ready to start his ministry!
Prayer
Heavenly Father
Thank you that Jesus lived among us in fully human form. Please help me to follow his example of obedience to you even when tempted to turn away.
Luke 3: 21 – 38 The baptism and genealogy of Jesus
When all the people were being baptised, Jesus was baptised too. And as he was praying, heaven was opened and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: ‘You are my son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.’
* * *
Luke 3:3 says that John “went into all the country around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” Luke 3:21 says “Jesus was baptised too.” But Jesus was sinless; he didn’t need baptism. St Matthew’s gospel explains this by saying, in Matthew 3:14 – 15, “But John tried to deter him, saying ‘I need to be baptised by you, and do you come to me? Jesus replied, ‘Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfil all righteousness.’ Then John consented.”
St Luke, though, is more concerned to show how the baptism of Jesus is the work of the Holy Spirit. For him, the baptism of Jesus was not about repentance; it was the forerunner of the church’s understanding of baptism. When a Christian is baptised, they are filled with the Holy Spirit just as Jesus was in his baptism.
* * *
Now Jesus himself was about thirty years old when he began his ministry. He was the son, so it was thought, of Joseph, the son of Heli, the son of Matthat, the son of Levi, the son of Melki, the son of Jannai, the son of Joseph, the son of Mattathias the son of Amos, the son of Nahum, the son of Esli, the son of Naggai, the son of Maath, the son of Mattathias the son of Semein, the son of Josek, the son of Joda, the son of Joanan, the son of Rhesa, the son of Zerubabbel, the son of Shealtiel, the son of Neri, the son of Melki, the son of Addi, the son of Cosam, the son of Elmadam, the son of Er, the son of Joshua, the son of Eliezer, the son of Jorim, the son of Matthat, the son of Levi, the son of Simeon, the son of Judah, the son of Joseph, the son of Jonam, the son of Eliakim, the son of Melea, the son of Menna, the son of Mattatha, the son of Nathan, the son of David, the son of Jesse, the son of Obed, the son of Boaz, the son of Salmon, the son of Nahshon, the son of Amminadab, the son of Ram, the son of Hezron, the son of Perez, the son of Judah, the son of Jacob, the son of Isaac, the son of Abraham, the son of Terah, the son of Nahor, the son of Serug, the son of Reu, the son of Peleg, the son of Eber, the son of Shelah, the son of Cainan, the son of Arphaxad, the son of Shem, the son of Noah, the son of Lamech, the son of Methuselah, the son of Enoch, the son of Jared, the son of Mahalalel, the son of Kenan, the son of Enosh, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God.
* * *
Well, what’s this all about? A great list of names that purports to trace the lineage of Jesus all the way back to Adam, the first man. Would it really have been possible to construct such a list accurately?
Jewish priests certainly kept detailed records of heredity, which could have enabled the tracing of a family back many generations. Certainly, too, the list contains King David; the royal lineage would have been more likely to be preserved.
The really big difficulty with this lineage, though, is that it doesn’t agree at all with that given in St Matthew’s gospel.
These differences can be ‘explained’. Perhaps St Matthew gives us Joseph’s lineage, and St Luke gives us Mary’s. Or perhaps Matthew quotes the official royal line while St Luke quotes the physical line. Or perhaps Joseph was adopted by Mary’s father, if he had no brothers or sons and his name was therefore going to die out.
I don’t know the truth of any of these conjectures. My own personal feeling is that neither genealogy is a true record of the physical lineage of Jesus, but I could easily be wrong.
And that doesn’t matter to me. What this genealogy tells me is that Jesus is a human being, descended from other human beings. Tracing the line back to Adam says that Jesus represents the whole of humanity.
Prayer
Heavenly Father
Thank you that Jesus was fully human, and knows first-hand what it is like to live a mortal life on this earth. Thank you that through the power of the Holy Spirit we can all know him and love him.
In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberias Caesar – when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, Herod tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip tetrarch of Iturea and Traconitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene – during the high-priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. He went into all the country around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. As it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet:
‘A voice of one calling in the wilderness, “Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him. Every valley shall be filled in, every mountain and hill made low. The crooked roads shall become straight, the rough ways smooth. And all people will see God’s salvation.”’
John said to the crowds coming out to be baptised by him, ‘You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.” For I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. The axe has been laid to the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.’
‘What should we do then?’ the crowd asked.
John answered, ‘Anyone who has two shirts should share with the one who has none, and anyone who has food should do the same.’
Even tax collectors came to be baptised. ‘Teacher,’ they asked, ‘what should we do?’
‘Don’t collect any more than you are required to,’ he told them.
Then some soldiers asked him, ’And what should we do?’
He replied, ‘Don’t extort money and don’t accuse people falsely – be content with your pay.’
The people were waiting expectantly and were all wondering in their hearts if John might possibly be the Messiah. John answered them all, I baptise you with water. But one who is more powerful than I will come, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptise you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing-floor and to gather up the wheat into his barn, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.’ And with many other words John exhorted the people and proclaimed the good news to them.
But when John rebuked Herod the tetrarch because of his marriage to Herodias, his brother’s wife, and all the other evil things he had done, Herod added this to them all: he locked John up in prison.
* * *
Chapter 3 of St Luke’s gospel tells us of the ministry of John the Baptist, and how this leads into the ministry of Jesus. St Luke wants, therefore, to ground the time firmly in history, and he does this by mentioning seven prominent people of the period, five of them political, and two of them religious. There is solid historical evidence for all seven of them fulfilling the roles that St Luke says they occupied. Even with this evidence, though, we can’t be exactly sure of the date of John the Baptist’s ministry, because of ambiguity about the start of the period during which Tiberias was emperor. The reason is that Tiberias first reigned as co-regent with Augustus, beginning in 11/12 AD, and then ruled alone as emperor after Augustus’s death in 14 AD. The most likely date for the events that St Luke describes in this chapter is 27 – 29 AD.
A small point that I find interesting as a writer is that four of those St Luke chooses to mention subsequently play a part in the crucifixion of Jesus. Introducing details like this early in a narrative is called ‘foreshadowing’ and it adds to the credibility and impact when the climax of the narrative plays out.
John had spent many years in the wilderness, and now he was prompted by the Holy Spirit to preach a “baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins”. Such a baptism was known to the Jews, but was normally reserved for proselytes before they were allowed to become Jews. The Jews themselves, children of Abraham, dealt with sin by providing an animal to be sacrificed by the priests in the temple at Jerusalem.
But John’s baptism was specifically to the Jews. John’s ministry is paving the way for Jesus, and it’s doing so by declaring personal accountability for sin and by offering personal forgiveness through repentance and baptism.
The crowds who flocked to John were told, ‘And do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.” For I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham.’ John “went into all the country around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.”
Despite John’s ministry taking place in the wilderness, the people flocked to him. There must have been an authenticity about him that attracted them. And what did he say his hearers should do?
‘Anyone who has two shirts should share with the one who has none, and anyone who has food should do the same.’
‘Don’t collect any more than you are required to.’
‘Don’t extort money and don’t accuse people falsely – be content with your pay.’
In other words, share generously, deal fairly with people, and don’t use power to extort money.
And the same things apply in our own time.
The one I struggle with is sharing generously. I certainly have two shirts (and the rest!). I am aware of a world full of need and yet I don’t give to the limits of affordability. And the parable of the Good Samaritan teaches me that my giving should be based on the needs of those I could help. I need to work on this.
Prayer
Heavenly Father
Thank you for the record of your interventions in history, and especially today for St Luke’s gospel. Thank you for your guidance as we read it. Please help me to give more generously.
Every year Jesus’ parents went to Jerusalem for the Festival of the Passover. When he was twelve years old, they were up to the festival, according to the custom. After the festival was over, while his parents were returning home, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but they were unaware of it. Thinking he was in their company, they travelled on for a day. Then they began looking for him among their relatives and friends. When they did not find him, they went back to Jerusalem to look for him. After three days they found him in the temple courts, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. Everyone who heard him was amazed at his understanding and his answers. When his parents saw him, they were astonished. His mother said to him, ‘Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you.’
‘Why were you searching for me?’ he asked. ‘Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?’ But they did not understand what he was saying to them.
Then he went down to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them. But his mother treasured all these things in her heart. And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man.
* * *
Verse 51 “But his mother treasured all these things in her heart.”
This is the second time St Luke has said this of Mary. In Luke 2:19 we have “But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.”
I think these suggest that St Luke actually spoke to Mary. She would have been old at the time they met, and St Luke would be aware that people might say that Mary was mis-remembering what had happened. He’s saying, “This event was something that was very precious to Mary. She has thought long and hard about it. She has treasured it in her heart.”
I find it interesting, too, that it is Mary and not Joseph who reprimands Jesus. “His mother said to him, ‘Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you.’” Jesus was twelve years old, and almost a man. At the next Passover he would be considered a man, and would have to make the pilgrimage on his own account. Wouldn’t it normally have been the father who disciplined the son?
It was a four or five day walk from Jerusalem to Nazareth, and the road was dangerous for solitary travellers. Mary and Joseph would have been travelling in a large group of family and friends. While it seems negligent to a modern parent in the western world, I suspect that in the first century A.D. it was commonplace to assume that a child of Jesus’ age would take responsibility for making sure he was in the family group. He was, after all, nearly a grown man.
As a parent myself, I have a great deal of sympathy with Mary and Joseph. I’m sure they would have made the travel arrangements clear to Jesus, and if that’s the case, Jesus wilfully disregarded them. So what about the fifth commandment? “Honour your father and your mother, as the LORD your God has commanded you, so that you may live long and that it may go well with you in the land the LORD your God is giving to you.” (Deut. 5:16)
It looks as though Jesus has broken the fifth commandment.
You could argue that we don’t know whether Mary and Joseph gave Jesus explicit instructions – and that would be perfectly true; we don’t know, and maybe they didn’t. But Mary’s reprimand of Jesus shows that there were implicit expectations that he didn’t follow.
I wonder, though, whether this was the first occasion recorded in the bible of Jesus exemplifying the conflict between obedience to the letter of the Law, and obedience to God. On this occasion, he felt strongly called to study with the teachers of the law; he felt that it was God’s will that he should do so. And why should it not have been? As a result of what the boy Jesus did, we have an account of how he was gifted from childhood with a deep appreciation of the scriptures. Would Mary have remembered so clearly if it wasn’t for the emotional impact of the episode?
If any reader has an opinion on this, it would be great to hear it in the ‘Comments’ box at the bottom of his post!
Prayer
Heavenly Father
Thank you that you are calling me to draw closer to Jesus. Please purify my heart so that I shall be better able to recognise and respond to his presence.
Seeking the Light 