The Incarnation, According To Luke

December 18, 1988

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Two down and 2 to go in this series. Today is the 4th Sunday of Advent, and next Sunday is Christmas Day. We’re looking this year at the Incarnation as seen through the eyes and pens of those who first wrote about it. What did Christmas mean, what did the birth of Jesus mean to the 4 Gospel writers, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John? They’re the ones, of course, who initially recorded the story in writing, and our understanding of it derives, at least in good part, from their understanding. WHAT DID IT MEAN TO THEM, this coming of God in the flesh.... incarnation, in all its mystery and promise?

At the risk of repetition, I remind you of what we said earlier about the Gospels, these absolutely remarkable, peerless books---EACH ONE WAS WRITTEN FROM A PARTICULAR POINT OF VIEW, from a particular perspective.... That’s why we have 4 Gospels instead of just 1, and why each one is valuable. We don’t have to select among them. We have them all as a blessed bonus. They were written by different people with different backgrounds, and each one has its own distinctive flavor.

Sometimes on stained glass windows, or, as here on our own beautiful reredos, you see the 4 Gospels represented symbolically. At the upper left, in the corner, is a man, for Matthew, symbolizing the humanity of Jesus....At the upper right is a lion, which stands for Mark, and says to us that Jesus was the Lion of Judah, whom the prophets foretold. I’ve never understood why those 2 symbols were not reversed. It seems to me it would make a lot more sense if they were, but then, I’m not in management, I’m in sales.

The usual symbol for John is an EAGLE...lower right. That makes plenty of sense. John is the soaring Gospel, the philosophical Gospel, the Gospel whose flights of thought and insight wing their way higher than any of the others. We’ll be talking about that next week, on Christmas Day. But the traditional symbol for the Gospel of Luke, there on the lower left, is the OX, or the BULL....the animal of SACRIFICE. There’s something very meaningful, I think, very touching about this-- Luke saw Jesus principally as the sacrifice for the whole world. There’s a broadness,  somehow, an inclusiveness, a depth of sensitivity and feeling in this Gospel which isn’t surpassed in any other literature. No wonder most observers agree with Ernest Renan that the Gospel of Luke is the most beautiful book ever written.

What a pity we don’t know more about Luke the man. I wish we did. He must have been

an extraordinary personality. Dr. Wm. Barclay says that of all the writers of Biblical material, Old and New Testaments, he thinks Luke would have been the one he would most like to have known personally, and I suspect he’s right. He would have a splendid dinner companion.

Paul tells us Luke was a doctor.... Dr. Luke, the “beloved Physician”, he calls him, and maybe that’s why he was so compassionate.

Someone has said that preachers see people at their best, lawyers see them at their worst, and doctors see them as they are. Well, Dr. Luke saw people as they were, and loved them, but more than that, he knew that God loved them, and he wrote about it with all the graciousness and persuasiveness he could muster.

He wrote more of the New Testament, actually, than any other writer, more even than Paul, because in addition to the Gospel, he also wrote the Book of Acts. Luke --- Acts, originally, was a single unit, and though now the 2 books are divided in our Bible, at first they were 2 chapters of a single account, and you can tell, even in translation, that they were written by the same person.

Now, why was Luke moved to write? What was his purpose in compiling another Gospel?

Why was there a need for another Gospel? He wrote about the same time Matthew did, and scholars differ as to whether either had access to the other. Almost certainly, though, both used Mark, and both used another source, that we no longer have, made up of some of the teachings of Jesus.

Specifically, Luke was spurred to write, over and above his fundamental Christian motivation, which was basic in every case.... he was spurred to write, it seems, by 2 very explicit reasons.

ONE was the need to introduce Christianity to people who didn’t have a Jewish background. There were more and more of these, all the time, an increasing number, primarily because of Paul, and his remarkable success with Gentiles across the civilized world.

Matthew’s Gospel presupposes a solid grounding in the Old Testament. You remember that from last week. It presupposes a certain Jewishness. It’s a book for Jewish Christians. But more and more Christians were not Jewish. They had not come into the faith by way of Judaism. Luke himself had not. He’s the only Gentile writer in the New Testament, so far as we know, and he was very anxious to make it clear that Christianity was more than just a sect of Judaism.

More on this in a minute, but here is one of the prime reasons Luke wrote his Gospel....

to introduce Jesus to people who didn’t have much of an Old Testament background.

The other specific reason that prompted Luke to write, and it’s tied up with the first, was the desire to justify Christianity to the powers in charge, that is, to the ROMANS.

You remember what had happened under Nero....20 years earlier...Christians were persecuted under the pretext of treason.... They had a higher loyalty than to Caesar. Luke wanted to show that this new Jesus religion was not subversive to the state, was not intrinsically hostile to Roman authority. It ought to be possible to be both a Christian AND a loyal citizen.

After all, hadn’t the Master himself said, “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s”? Does that sound like a traitor?

Didn’t Pontius Pilate, an appointed Roman bureaucrat, say 3 times, “I find no fault in this just man”?

Wasn’t it a Roman soldier, standing at the foot of the Cross, who had said, “Truly, this man was a son of God.”? And didn’t Felix and Agrippa and all the Roman officials, release Paul from custody when they actually had a chance to hear his story? Over and over again, in both Luke and Acts, the Romans are drawn in a rather positive light. They are praised for their open-mindedness, and their fairness, and their sense of justice. Luke wanted to show his Roman readers that Christianity was not subversive, that it was Nero who had been distorted, and by drawing previous Roman attitudes favorably, he hoped to win public support for the practice of Christian worship.

Call him, if you like, the first Church public relations man, and you won’t be far off the mark.

Now, one more point by way of background. All the scholars call attention to it. Luke was an extremely careful writer. In fact, he wrote more precisely than any other New Testament author. He wrote with something approaching the precision of a professional historian. He tells us very specifically in the first chapter that his writing is based on careful investigation. Not only is that an intriguing bit of information, it’s also very important.

I would suggest that there is perhaps no passage in the Bible which throws so much  light on the doctrine of the Biblical inspiration. No one denies that Luke is an inspired book, a God-inspired book, and yet Luke begins by saying that it is the product of painstaking, meticulous research.

You see, that’s what inspiration is.... not a one-sided, unilateral product, not a handed down, finished effort, BUT A COOPERATIVE ENDEAVOR....GOD AND DISCIPLE WORKING TOGETHER. How exciting the Bible becomes when you see it in that light. How great a God it takes to allow His Word to His people to be formed that way.

The Word of God is not just bestowed from above on a silver platter. It never has been. It’s something that has to be dug out, and grappled with, and worked for, just as Luke tells us he did, and that’s true both of the writing and the reading of this wonderful collection of books.

Now maybe at last we’re ready for his treatment of the Incarnation. We know something about the man.... something about his method. WHAT DOES HE MEAN FOR US TO UNDERSTAND IN THE BIRTH STORIES?

The general outline as he tells it, you remember.... Zechariah and Elizabeth, and the birth of John the Baptist.....  then the appearance of the angel to Mary, and her gracious acceptance of God’s unprecedented announcement..... and then that eloquent story of the shepherds, out there in the field, on a cold night, called away by the angelic chorus to the manger, as Luke says, “to see this thing which has come to pass...”

It’s so simple, in a way, and yet so profound...and so moving. To me, at least 3 things

stand out as you read it and ponder it, and they all have something important to say to us.

1.   First, THE SHEER LOWLINESS OF IT. I know you’ve felt that. There’s a powerful impression of abasement, somehow, a sense of humility, and whatever is the opposite of ostentation in Luke’s account of the birth of Jesus.

Even through his smoothing over of the rough edges that strong sense of lowliness

comes through. It took place in a MANGER, with all the primitiveness inherent in that kind of setting. Our Christmas card art dresses it up, but it doesn’t change the fact that the birthplace of our Lord was in a dirty, backyard stable.

Have you ever been to a Middle Eastern stable.... a real one? If you ever get the chance,

pass it up. They’re no better than a stable in other parts of the world. Remember, in mythology, the legendary Hercules? One of the tasks assigned to him before he could win the hand of the princess, was to clean the infamous Augean Stables.... and it was a task that very nearly “done him in.”

Middle Eastern stables are just not a perfumed environment. I don’t think even the  SPCA would argue that. About the best you can say for them is that they’re “pungent”. There are odors there that would absolutely give a public health nurse the “heebie jeebies”.

But there’s something important about that.... indeed, for us, something beautiful. It’s worthwhile to remember that it was in precisely that kind of lowly setting that the only-begotten Son of God first saw the light of day.

The irony is so thick you can slice it.... He, who created the world, and beauty---without a decent place to lay his head. The Maker----in a manger. The Creator----in a creche. Divinity itself.... Divinity incarnate---in an animal stall.

It’s outlandish. It boggles the mind. I think if it weren’t for the familiarity of the story, we probably couldn’t take it. Both the birth of Jesus and the death of Jesus occurred in ways that were unbelievably crude.

What is Luke trying to say to us? What does he want us to see? Could it be just this? Even as Jesus all His life identified with the poor, and the lowly, and the outcast.... the people on the margin.... so he is saying that identification began at His very birth.

He’s saying, “Look, people, He knows what real life is all about. HE’S BEEN THERE. There’s no condition of life so disgraceful, so disreputable, so mean and lowly but what God in Christ can understand. He has experienced life, at its rawest, and bitterest, and most loathsome.... He’s been there. He knows poverty, what it is to ask for bread, when there’s nothing in the pantry but a stone. He knows what it is to do without, because there’s nothing else you can do. He knows about loneliness, and isolation, and the desperation of uncertainty. He knows about people who say one thing and do another, and about friends who turn their backs when you need them most..... HE’S BEEN THERE.

Now, there’s comfort in that somehow, isn’t there? There’s GOSPEL in that, and that’s what Luke is saying---THE INCARNATION MEETS US WHERE WE ARE. I guess the worst mistake we could make is to think of the Babe of Bethlehem as just an ephemeral, other-wordly idealization, resting in a Hallmark Card setting. He’s not out of touch with Reality.... WE may be, but don’t ever think HE is. And don’t ever think His spirit, and truth, and way of life are meant only for some other world, or for some other time when conditions are better than they are now.

HE WAS BORN...a real birth, a physical birth, in lowliness, amid grinding poverty, and it was in THIS world, so that we, who also live in this world, may know forever that God has not abandoned us. The very lowliness and humility described in Luke’s account is part of what makes this story so great.

2.   In the 2nd place, there is a UNIVERSAL theme in Luke’s story of the Incarnation that shines bright and clear. I’m almost tempted to call it a catholic theme (catholic with a small c), or an ecumenical theme. Matthew was edging up on it and it pops out occasionally..... Luke makes it explicit. Maybe because he was a Gentile, or because he was a cosmopolitan doctor.... Or maybe it’s because he was influenced by Paul....he traveled with him long enough for some of that to rub off.... I don’t know, but whatever the cause, Luke saw as early as almost anybody the worldwide implications of the Incarnation.

Jesus was not just the Savior of the Jews. He was the Savior of the world. He had not come just for the benefit of the Hebrew people, He had come for the benefit of all people. This momentous, startling thing that had happened in a Bethlehem stable was much more than an item of local interest..... IT WAS AN EARTH-SHAKING PHENOMENON.

Luke grasped the implications of it fully, and we know he did because when he made up his genealogy, he didn’t begin with Abraham, the father of the Hewish nation, as Matthew had done, he began with Adam, the father of the human race. Christ came for everybody.

Something happens to your attitude toward another person, whatever that person’s  race, or nationality, or social standing....something happens to your attitude toward another person when you realize that Christ died for HIM or HER, just as surely as He died for YOU.

Have you ever.... I bet you have....Have you ever walked down the street, or stood in a

teeming throng of people milling past, and looked at one individual after another, and said to yourself, “Christ died for THAT man.... Christ gave His life for THAT woman, for THAT child”..... It does something to you. THERE AREN’T ANY FAVORITE NATIONS, OR RACES, OR GROUPS IN THE KINGDOM, that’s the truth of it, and I guess the only special privilege the Almighty bestows is the privilege of doing something MORE for others than basic common decency makes you do.

Now that doesn’t mean you can’t yell for the Gators....

It doesn’t mean you can’t support local favorites. It doesn’t mean you can’t be proud of human differences, and human distinctions. When the present Pope was elected back in 1976, I heard somebody say, shortly after the election, “Well, I’m glad the new Pope is Polish. I’m glad the Poles have got ‘em a Pope. The Catholics have had it long enough.”

That’s all right. It’s confused, but it’s all right. All people can be proud of certain unique endowments that set them apart, but no one can allow those differences to be a hindrance to Christian fellowship without going counter to a fundamental principle of the New Testament.

It’s normative Biblical Christianity to be inclusive, not exclusive, to draw in, not to shut out, to embrace, not to deny.... and few people have demonstrated this more clearly than Luke.

It’s his Gospel, and only his, that contains that priceless parable of the Good Samaritan,

where the hero was precisely an outcast, a foreigner, a nobody.... Matthew might have had trouble with that. Not Luke. He laid it out, a blockbuster story in segregated Palestine, one that broke away from the old, narrow, racial and cultural restrictions of the day. His Gospel from beginning to end is filled with that liberating insight, and it begins even in the manger.

Jesus has come for everybody..... Gentile, Jew, slave, free, male, female, saint, sinner.... and even for those who are something of both. The universality of Luke’s presentation of the Good News reflects the broad inclusiveness of the Master Himself.

3.   Now, one final point and we’re done. Lowliness, universality.... these are both there in abundance. But you’re not through with Luke’s understanding of the Incarnation until you hear.... maybe I should say FEEL...the unmistakable note of JOY that sounds through it.

Whatever else the birth of Jesus was for Luke, it was an exciting thing, it was a radiant thing, it was something to sing about...and he puts a song on the lips of everybody who comes on stage. There are Elizabeth and Zechariah, the parents of John the Baptist... “Praise to the God of Israel, for He has turned to his people, and saved them, and set them free.” There’s Mary, thanking God for her selection as the Mother of Christ.... “Rejoice, my soul, in God my Savior, so tenderly has he looked upon his servant.”

And there are those rough, maybe unpromising shepherds, returning from the manger, back to the old routine, which will never be routine again, “glorifying and praising God for all that they had seen and heard.”

JOY, everywhere you turn. You can almost feel it coming off the page. Let me ask you---DOES YOUR FAITH HAVE A PLACE IN IT SOMEWHERE FOR A SONG?

I don’t mean are you always up, you are always glowing and bubbly, but is your religion still a burden you have to carry, or has it gone beyond that to become a boost? Have you ever, really, in a grown up, mature way, let God relieve you of the need to prove your value, to the world, to those around you?

Has the simple miracle of the “good news” ever really wrapped itself around your heart, the miracle that God does claim you for His own...YOU....and He does it for Jesus’ sake and because He loves you and wants you to have life in all its burgeoning abundance.

Has that ever happened to you? That’s what Luke is talking about, and that explains his tone. If it has ever happened to you, and it ought to happen more than once, you can’t help yourself, you can’t help getting excited....and the authenticity of it is going to be felt in the very aura that exudes from your personality.

Well, it’s a pity we don’t know more about Dr. Luke the man. I wish we did. I wish he could come back and live here once more and maybe practice medicine at the Jewett Clinic or go to work with Dr. Wilson.

Wilson, Hughes and Luke....has kind of a nice ring.

I’m sure he’d have to brush up on some recent medical developments. He’d have to go to some seminars. But I’m sure that right away he’d be able to tell some wonderful, wonderful stories.... And I’m also sure that he’d be able to bring us some timeless truths that would make us all the richer for his being among us.

Frederick Faber wrote these lines years ago--- There’s a wideness in God’s mercy, like the wideness of the sea. There’s a kindness in his justice which is more than liberty. For the love of God is broader than the measure of our mind. And the heart of the Eternal is most wonderfully kind.

Luke’s Gospel is the most persuasive testimony of that ever written.

The story of lowliness, the story of universality, the story of radiant joy....This is the Incarnation, according to Luke.