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THE GOSPEL OF LUKE – A NEVER-ENDING STORY

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A NEVER-ENDING STORY

“‘What comes next is very important. I am sending what my Father promised to you, so stay in the city until He arrives, until you’re equipped with power from on high,’

“He then led them out of the city over to Bethany. Raising His hands He blessed them, and while blessing them, took His leave, being carried up to heaven.”

“And they were on their knees worshipping Him. They returned to Jerusalem bursting with joy. They spent all their time in the Temple praising God. Yes.” Luke 24:49-53.

Luke’s story of the earthly Jesus comes to an end but never has a story ended like this before. His story could never have originated in human imagination; and to have been told as fact and truth would have been the biggest fraud ever spawned on the human race.

Unlike any other story, Luke writes only the first chapter here. He wrote chapter 2, recorded in the Book of Acts, for the same reader, Theophilus, and in the same straightforward, factual style, as a sequel to the life of this amazing Man, and the outcome of His life, death and resurrection. What other human figure has impacted humanity as He has?

The first chapter of Jesus’ story closes with His return to the Father; the second opens with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost. He had assured His followers that they would not be abandoned as orphans. He would send His representative, one exactly like Himself, with the same disposition and mission who would not only be with them but in them.

Of what value would their three years with Him and everything He had taught and demonstrated, be to them without the power to carry out His instructions? They would be no better off than the Israelites who had God’s teaching, but no inner strength to put it into practice. The Holy Spirit had been present and active in the old dispensation, but there always remained the barrier of sin between them and their God which animal blood could not remove.

Jesus had established a new covenant with them, sealed with His own blood; not just a cut on the wrist, but every drop poured out as an atoning sacrifice for the sin of the world. There was nothing left to alienate humanity from the Father for, in that offering was the forgiveness of sins and cleansing from the uncleanness sin had brought.

The Father was now free to send His Spirit to take up residence in the spirit of human beings once again, when they chose to respond to the invitation to return to their original status as sons of the living God.

The disciples were no longer sckeptical and suspicious of Jesus. Had He not opened their understanding and given them the whole picture? They were overflowing with joy as they returned to the city, having watched their beloved Master go back to the unseen realm of the Father’s presence. It seems strange that they were rejoicing at His departure. Did that mean that their faith was so strong that they anticipated with joy the promise He had made?

They waited and worshipped in the Temple, no longer intimidated by the religious leaders who had so terrified them days before. They were convinced and they ignored the very people before whom they had cowered. Jesus was alive and that was all that mattered.

 

THE GOSPEL OF LUKE – ZACHARIAH BREAKS THE SILENCE!

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ZACHARIAH BREAKS THE SILENCE!

“Then Zachariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied:

“’Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel,                                                                                              He came and set His people free.                                                                                                        He set the power of salvation in the centre of our lives,                                                                  And in the very house of David His servant,                                                                                    Just as He promised long ago                                                                                                            Through the preaching of His holy prophets:                                                                                                                                                  Deliverance from our enemies and from every hateful hand;                                                    Mercy to our fathers,                                                                                                                         As as He remembered to do what he said he’d do,                                                                            What He swore to our father Abraham –                                                                                          A clean rescue from the enemy camp,                                                                                                So we can worship Him without a care in the world,                                                                      Made holy before Him for as long as we live.’” Luke 1:67-75.

Finally, after nine months of silence, Zachariah’s voice was restored. What a difference from the last time he spoke! Skepticism and unbelief were not permitted to escape his lips during the entire duration of Elizabeth’s pregnancy. God’s will was in the process of being fulfilled and He would not permit foolish and unbelieving words to inhibit His plan.

Those nine months of silence when his thoughts were locked up inside his mind, his only expression so laborious that he was limited to writing his basic wishes, must have been months of slow metamorphosis, like the gradual thickening of Elizabeth’s waistline as the child grew in her womb.

Perhaps his unbelief embraced more than just a pregnancy for his wife. Did he also balk at the idea that this child, whose coming he doubted anyway, would be all that the angel Gabriel prophesied?  Was his child really to be a prophet of the highest rank among all God’s prophets; a forerunner of the Messiah for whom they had waited so long that His coming seemed only like a pipe dream? Could it be that their deliverer could finally be on the doorstep after all these years of longing and waiting?

What was the hope that formed in Zachariah’s mind as his thoughts ran riot in his brain? What did deliverance mean to him? Did he have the same expectation as the disciples of Jesus had? Their expectation of a national and political deliverer shut their minds to a greater deliverance even from Rome, which Jesus could only achieve through His death and resurrection.

Zachariah spoke of salvation. What was this salvation of which he dreamed and spoke with such eloquence when his tongue was finally loosed? Was he longing for a new kind of freedom, when the guilt and power of sin would be removed forever? Did the possibility of deliverance from his own treacherous nature ever cross his mind? Did he see God’s salvation as the process of becoming whole again, restored to fellowship with the God from whom mankind had been estranged since the day Adam chose to go his own way?