The Gospel according to Luke. In the first video we explored Luke's portrayal of John the Baptist and Jesus as the fulfillment of the story of Israel and of God's promises told in the Old Testament Scriptures. We then watched Jesus launches mission and bring the good news of God's Kingdom to the poor among Israel: people of low social status and also people who are outsiders.
And Jesus taught that His Kingdom is upside down it's a reversal of all of our common social values. This section culminated with Luke showing us how Jesus was a new Moses about to bring a new Exodus by His death in Jerusalem. And so we come to the large center section of the book where Jesus leads His newly formed Israel on a journey to Jerusalem.
This part of the book consists mainly of Jesus' teaching and parables given on the road to the various people He encounters, mainly His growing group of disciples. And in this way Luke portrays following Jesus as a journey. It's something you do where you learn as you go along life's path so first Jesus invites His disciples into His mission as He sends a wave of them to go ahead of Him announcing God's Kingdom.
So being a disciple right from the start it means: participating in Jesus' Kingdom mission, making it your own. And as Jesus' disciples come back He then starts to give various teachings about prayer, about trusting in God's provision. It's actually in these chapters of Luke that Jesus talks more about money, possessions and generosity than anywhere else in His teachings.
If following Him is truly like being on the road, it should produce this minimalist mentality creating a freedom from possessions that allows for radical generosity. Another key theme in these chapters is Jesus continued mission to the poor so as He travels He keeps forming His new Israel and He encounters all these people who are sick or blind. He meets Samaritans who are ancient enemies of the Jewish people and famously Zacchaeus as Jewish man but who heads up tax collection for the Romans.
All of these social outsiders meet Jesus and they're transformed by the encounter. And so they join His Kingdom community which Jesus describes as a great banquet party. He is here to seek and save the lost and so he's celebrating when people discover the mercy of God, but not everybody at the party is happy.
Luke includes multiple stories of Jesus at banquets with Israel's leaders and these all become heated debates where Jesus confronts their pride and hypocrisy. And so these contrasting banquet parties they're captured most memorably in Jesus parable of the prodigal son. So father had two sons and one foolishly ran away and squandered His inheritance but he comes back eventually repentant.
And his father forgives him and he throws this huge party to celebrate: my son who was lost but now is found. But the older brother, who never left his father, he's angry and he resents his father's generosity to this undeserving son. In this famous parable Jesus is explaining His whole Kingdom mission to these leaders.
His parties represent God’s joyous welcome of every kind of person into His family. The only entry requirement is humility and repentance. And so it highlights the tragedy of Israel's leaders who reject Jesus and His upside-down Kingdom community.
And this resistance to Jesus it ramps up. And He finally arrives in Jerusalem for Passover. as He nears the city He's weeping.
His disciples are hailing Him as the Messianic King but Israel's leaders are denouncing Him. And He knows that their rejection of His Kingdom of peace is going to set Israel on a road of resistance and rebellion against the Roman Empire. It will bring the city's downfall.
And it's that destruction of Jerusalem that Jesus symbolically enacts as He storms into the temple and He runs out the animal sellers, He brings the sacrificial system to a halt and He says that this place of worship has become a den of rebels and will be destroyed. Now this act of course generates a whole series of debates between Jesus and Israel's leaders all leading up to Jesus' prediction that the Roman armies will one day surround the city. It will decimate it and the temple all within a generation.
With that Jesus retreat with His disciples to celebrate the Passover meal. It's the annual symbolic meal about Israel's liberation from slavery through the death of the Lamb. So Jesus turns the meal's bread and wine into new symbols about this new Exodus: His broken body His shed blood will bring liberation for Jesus's renewed Israel.
After the meal Jesus is arrested and He's examined before the Jewish leaders and then put on trial as one claiming to be king. and Luke emphasizes: Jesus is innocent. Pilate the Roman governor he claims that Jesus is innocent three times before giving in.
Even Herod the ruler of Galilee finds nothing to accuse Jesus of. But the leaders finally compelled Pilate to have Him crucified and so He is. But even in His painful death Jesus embodies the love and the mercy of God He taught so much about.
He offers God's forgiveness to the soldiers as they crucify Him. And then when one of the criminals executed alongside Jesus realizes who He actually is, he says: “Remember me when you come in your Kingdom. ” And Jesus' final words are an offer of hope to a humiliated criminal: “Today you will be with me in paradise” And so with this last act of generosity and kindness Jesus dies.
His body is placed in a tomb and on the first day of the week some of Jesus disciples come to the tomb only to find it empty. And there are two angelic figures they're telling them that Jesus is alive that He's risen from the dead and so they leave with their minds blown. and it's right here that Luke tells one of his most beautiful stories: two of Jesus' disciples they're leaving Jerusalem for a town called Emmaus and they're heartbroken over Jesus's death.
And then suddenly Jesus is there just walking alongside them but they don't recognize Him. He asked why they're so sad and they go on to talk about all of their hopes that Jesus would have been the one to redeem Israel but now He's dead. it was all for nothing.
But then later as Jesus has a meal with these two He breaks bread for them just as He did at the Passover meal and it's in that moment that they recognize Him. Then He disappears. Luke is telling the story to make a powerful point about following Jesus.
When Jesus' disciples impose their agenda and their view of reality on Jesus He remains invisible and unknown to them. It's only when we submit ourselves to the upside down Kingdom of Jesus that epitomized in His broken body on the cross offered in self-giving love; it's only then that we see and know the real Jesus. The book's concluding scene is yet another meal as Jesus appears to His disciples and He explains to them from the Old Testament Scriptures how this was all a part of God's plan that the Messiah would become Israel's King by suffering and dying for their sins and conquering their evil with His resurrection life.
And so now as Simeon the Prophet promised back in chapter 2: Jesus' Kingdom will move outward from Israel so God's forgiveness can be announced to the nations and everyone invited to follow Jesus. But Jesus tells His disciples wait in Jerusalem for the coming of the Spirit to empower them for this new mission. And this of course keeps you reading right into Luke's second volume, the book of Acts.
But for now that's the Gospel according to Luke.
