Parables 1b. Short term faith

The seeds on the rocky soil represent those who hear the message and receive it with joy. But since they don’t have deep roots, they believe for a while, then they fall away when they face temptation.

Luke 8:13

Why do some people start so well as Christians and yet a few years down the track appear to have left the faith? They had heard the message and had “received it with joy.” It made sense to them, all this talk of God and his kingdom, of salvation and new beginnings, of a new life lived by God’s values and wisdom and not their own. They had “prayed the prayer,” gone forward at the meeting to “receive Jesus,” started going to church, signed up for a home Bible study group. Everything was exciting, and full of promise.

But when temptation came they chose another path. They may not even have noticed it. Though the process may have been sudden, it may have been slow, a gradual departure, but the end result was the same – a few months, or a few years down the track, they were no longer interested in the things that had, at first, given such joy to their souls. Something, or someone, else had usurped their attention; something or someone else had become the source of their joy. Jesus and his message no longer “did it for them.”

It does not have to be things that we naturally see as sin that tempt us – gluttony, or laziness, avarice or lust, to name a few of the so called “seven deadly sins” – though all of those kind of things, with their nuances and variations, are there in abundance in our world. Temptation is a process that affects us all in which our thoughts are drawn away from that which is most important towards something that is, in that moment, most attractive. It is an unseen pressure we experience to look in a different direction, follow a different path, to depart from our first love.

But why not follow that new path, if we have indeed found something or someone that offers more happiness, more excitement, more fulfilment? Doesn’t it make perfect sense to do so? Why should we imagine that Jesus is somehow the one and only if we have found something more satisfying? Why do we lose interest in Jesus? Has he changed, become less attractive? Has his message become less compelling, less true? Or is it just that the life that Jesus calls us to is too restrictive, too narrow, too boring?

I liken this process to the phenomenon we call infatuation. Many of us have experienced this. We meet someone, we “fall in love,” we are overwhelmed by emotions that we barely understand, we just know that we like the feeling, we are “in heaven.” The object of our infatuation is perfect, the realisation of all our dreams, the source of all happiness, and we can think of nothing else. All we want is to be close to that person, to look at them, to listen to them, to experience the wonder of their presence. It is intoxicating.

But at some point the feelings start to fade, just as the intoxication of a drinking spree passes. After a night of drinking at best you feel nothing, at worst you have a hangover, a throbbing headache, sick to the stomach, a bad taste in the mouth. The passing of an infatuation is more likely to be the first of these, an emptiness, a vague disappointment. The thing – or person – that was everything to us, seems to have become nothing to us. But we long to get the feeling back, that heady intoxicated feeling of being in love. Or in the case of alcohol, being inebriated. We are tempted to do it all again, whether with a new lover or another bottle.

Perhaps the greatest temptation we face in our contemporary world is not to another person, or another drink, but to the pursuit of good feelings. Yet the pursuit of happiness is seldom seen as a bad thing in our world. We live in an age when we understand good to be a feeling to be somehow grasped, to be possessed. If something feels good, it must be good. We call this feeling happiness. The pursuit of good feelings becomes the purpose of our existence. When something stops making us feel happy, or feeling at all, we look to something or someone else that will. It doesn’t take much reflection to realise how potentially dangerous this belief could be. Yet it is the spirit of the age, and it is hard to resist the temptation to follow that path.

Jesus does not deny the existence of infatuation. He does not even suggest that infatuation in itself is bad. He does not say that feeling good is a bad thing. After all, isn’t that what he means when he says “they hear the message and receive it with joy.” But it is quickly clear from what he says that those first feelings of joy are not enough to sustain a life of faith, just as the infatuation of a romantic relationship ship is not enough to sustain a lifelong marriage. It may be desired, but it is not sufficient.

What is needed is something Jesus describes as “deep roots.” These are what will give strength to resist temptation. These are what makes a life of faith possible. Deep roots means moving past the pursuit of happiness, the obsession with good feelings. It means coming to understand the deep joy of knowing God, which is about him and not about us. When we are infatuated, although we tend to think it is the other person with whom we are in love, we soon realise that it the feelings invoked by the other person that make us happy. When the feelings fade, our interest in the other person fades. We look for someone else who can provide the same reaction within us. We are in love with being in love.

If we are to move from infatuation to love in any relationship we need to grow roots that are deeper than good feelings. We need to get to know and appreciate the real person, not the person of our fantasy. We need to commit ourselves to a relationship which sometimes brings happiness and sometimes brings pain. We need to become focussed on the happiness of the other person, not on our own happiness. We need, in short, to grow up and leave our self-obsession, replacing it with other-person centredness. The same is true of our relationship with Jesus.

But how do we get these deep roots? We need to pray, we need to study, we need to meditate on the life and teachings of Jesus. If it is available we would do well to seek help from others who have already walked this road. Some who are reading this may be people who are already turning to other things for the joy they once experienced in meeting Jesus. To you I say turn back, grow deeper roots, because Jesus will satisfy. Others will be people who have survived the temptations of life, who already have the deep roots needed to nourish a lifetime of faith. To you I say you have a responsibility to help others to grow. Whoever we are we need to constantly dry out to the Holy Spirit to help us grow, because he is the only effective fertiliser for this process.

Cost of discipleship 5. Different

“I have come to set the world on fire, and I wish it were already burning! I have a terrible baptism of suffering ahead of me, and I am under a heavy burden until it is accomplished. Do you think I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I have come to divide people against each other! From now on families will be split apart, three in favor of me, and two against—or two in favor and three against.
‘Father will be divided against son and son against father; mother against daughter and daughter against mother;and mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.’”

Luke 12:49-53

These words seem not to fit into the overall narrative about Jesus. “Do you think I have come to bring peace on the earth? No. I have come to divide people against each other…”

But how does that fit with the Christmas angels? “Peace on earth, goodwill towards men…” Not to mention Paul the Apostle, who years later spoke repeatedly of the purpose of Christ’s coming, to bring all things together under one head, Jesus…? (See for example Ephesians 2:17)

What was Jesus getting at?

The only way I can come to terms with this passage is to understand Jesus’ words in another way. As if he said, “Do you think my coming will bring peace on the earth? No. It will divide people against each other.”

If read this way, then the words make sense and are consistent with the rest of the message of Jesus. Rather than being a statement of intent, they are a statement of the way things are, or at least a prediction of the way they will be. And if we are honest we know they are true.

For me, these words describe something of the cost of discipleship. As soon as we make the decision to follow Jesus it divides us from others – we are marked out as “Jesus people.” No matter what “groups” we belong to – family, schools, work, sport – we are suddenly different from all the others in the group. We are first and foremost followers of Jesus, and every other aspect of our identity is secondary.

This does not have to mean opposition, but all of us know that it often does. Father may well be divided against son, and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother… and this is only the beginning. Others do not like it when our allegiance changes, tension and conflicts can arise. Our desire might well be that these others in our lives will decide to follow Jesus, but there is no guarantee of that, and those around us often take offense at our change of priorities. Jesus is quite upfront about that, but he challenges us nonetheless to make him number one in our lives.

Although putting our faith in Jesus may turn people against us, or make people avoid us or speak negatively about us, I don’t believe Jesus is here calling us as his followers to turn against others, to avoid them or to speak negatively about them. He is not calling us to stand as judge of the people around us. Jesus says clearly at another time, “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” Part of the challenge of following Jesus is the struggle to love those who think or behave differently, rather than to judge them.

But there is no doubt that even if we never speak a word of judgement toward our non-believing friends and family, our faith in Jesus will cause a rift, because people do not understand us. As the Apostle Paul wrote in a letter to a church some years later, “we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles.” (1 Cor 1:23) At best people may be puzzled and bewildered; at worst they will be angry and hostile.

This is the cost of following Jesus.

Prayer: His Kingdom

‘Jesus said, “This is how you should pray: “Father, may your name be kept holy. May your Kingdom come soon.’ Luke 11:2

The first priority when we pray is the name of the Father, just as it is to be the first priority in our lives as believers. The second priority is the Kingdom. But what is God’s kingdom? And why do we need to pray for it?

We are not used to kings and kingdoms in our modern world. But for thousands of years that was the dominant form of government in the world. Ancient Israel did not have a king, but the Israelites saw the kingdoms around them and wanted to be like them so asked God for a king. He responded to the request, and Saul became the first king of Israel. However, the story of the kings of Israel was not always a pleasant one, because human kings have their failings. You get the feeling that God would have preferred a different system, but he worked with the system that his people chose.

Nowadays we have another system of government which we call democracy, in which kings do not gain their power by appointment or conquest, but by the will of the majority. It is predominantly a Western phenomenon, and looks somewhat different in non-Western societies, though they pay lip service to democracy. The West often sees its role as spreading democracy to the rest of the world, much as the British once saw their role as to spread civilisation. Democracy has great merits and has served the world well for hundreds of years now. But cracks are beginning to show and sometimes one wonders how much longer it will survive. It is good to remember that though there are many aspects of democracy that are deeply Christian, it is not an inherently biblical concept. It is not God’s ultimate plan for the world, any more than the kings of Israel were his ultimate plan. It has its pros and cons, of which we need to be aware, in order to avoid its pitfalls.

So what sort of world does God want? It is expressed in the terminology of kingship and kingdom, rather than in terms of majority rules. But the king that the Bible envisions is God, and the kingdom is a society ordered and governed according to his laws, not the will of the people. Christians believe that these laws are eternal and recorded in the Bible. This is not a popular idea these days. We prefer to choose ourselves how we will live, and who we will submit to, to make our own rules for society, rather than submitting to a God who has ordained laws which at times go very much against our own desires and plans.

When we pray, “May your Kingdom come soon,” we are consciously praying for a world where God is given the highest place, and we are subordinate to him. We are seeking to see established a society governed by the laws of God, and a world reflecting and displaying the wonder of his creative power. In other versions of the Lord’s prayer, recorded in other gospels, the words are added: “Your will be done on earth as in heaven.” Heaven is another name for the Kingdom of God, the place and people where God is king. But what is his will? Is it not simply the kind of world that he intended from the beginning, where people live in harmony with God and each other, and the creation? This is so different from the world we see today, which is a world dominated by our own desire to be kings, and to see the creation subjugated to our own plans and ambitions. Not God’s.

In praying for this kingdom, our minds are led to wonder what God’s kingdom will look like in our own lives, but also in the world. The kingdom of God assumes high priority in our thoughts, in our words and actions. We find ourselves praying that God’s rule would be evident in our own lives, the way we think, the way we speak, our relationships, our employment, our homes, our leisure, the society we live in, the environment we call home. We find ourselves praying that the kingdom of God would be extended, through people like us telling others who don’t know God about him and his kingdom. We find ourselves becoming engaged in society in such a way that we can promote the values of the Kingdom. We find ourselves drawn to the Bible to grow in understanding of what the Kingdom really looks like, and what God’s will for us and the world really is.

First, God’s name. Second God’s kingdom. Let these be the highest priorities in our lives, and the things we pray for every day. Let them become the focus of our passion and our energy. To see God’s kingdom come.

First steps

Luke 5:1-7 NIV
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 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 signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them, and they came and filled both boats so full that they began to sink.

The more I think about this story, the more I see in it elements of every Christian’s life, at least the first steps of the spiritual journey. Simon had presumably already met Jesus: in the previous chapter Luke mentions the healing of Simon’s mother-in-law of a fever. It seems likely that Simon and Jesus would have exchanged some words that day. What they said and how Jesus’ words then affected Simon can only be imagined.

Jesus’ extraordinary impact

Jesus was someone who kept drawing crowds when he spoke and there must have been a reason for that. I believe it was the extraordinary power of his words, which somehow pierced the very hearts of the people Jesus met, and I believe that Simon was impacted in the same way as many others. I imagine that Simon had been profoundly moved by his previous meeting with Jesus, and that meeting primed him for what came next.

Here, a day or two later, Simon meets Jesus again. It was not an easy day for Simon, who was tired, disappointed, and worried after a hard and frustrating night’s work. He and his companions had pulled up their boats after a bad night’s fishing, and were cleaning their nets. They were aware of Jesus speaking to a crowd a short distance away, but may not have been able to hear what he was saying. Suddenly Jesus was coming towards them, and then he made a strange request. He asked to be able to use Simon’s boat as a preaching platform.

Jesus enters our world

That was typical of Jesus. Not waiting for Simon to come to him, he entered Simon’s world. He does the same with us, steps into our world, and gives us the chance to be involved in his program. The Jesus who at first was just a person “out there” who impressed us with his words and actions, is suddenly a part of our lives. We are challenged not just to observe, but to join in. Jesus challenged Simon to give him a platform from which to speak, and his challenge to us is the same: to give him a space, a platform, in our lives.

Simon did not have to say yes. He was tired and frustrated. He may well have felt he had a valid excuse to say no on that particular day. But for whatever reason, and I presume it was because of Jesus’ previous impact on Simon’s life, he said yes. Jesus was able to preach his message from the deck of Simon’s boat. Simon had gone from spectator to participant. He had taken the first step on the journey of faith.

We do not have to say yes either, but this first step makes possible the next. It allows Jesus to take us further. We will never go anywhere until we are willing to take the first step.

Into deeper water

But it does not end there. Every journey is made of many steps, and every step involves a decision. For Simon the next challenge was to “put out into deep water and let down the nets for a catch.” The deep water for Simon involved allowing Jesus to intervene in his work, in a way that must have seemed a little crazy to Simon.

It would have been even easier to justify a “no” at this stage. Why should Simon let Jesus tell him how to do his job? Simon was the expert; Jesus was a carpenter.

I can react that when Jesus starts interfering in my world, the place where I am in charge, in control, secure and safe in doing things my way. It is easy to take offense. My pride gets in the way. Who does Jesus think he is, telling me how I should do my job? I have the education and experience. Why should I listen to Jesus?

Saying yes to Jesus

If Simon had similar thoughts, they are not recorded. He simply said yes again. Jesus’ suggestion was slightly crazy and Simon was risking getting egg on his face. It would be embarrassing if he did what Jesus asked and nothing different happened. He could easily have pulled out at this stage. So why did Simon say yes?

“Because YOU say so, I will let down the nets,” is what Simon said. Simon had begun to trust Jesus. He would not do this thing for just anyone, but he would for Jesus, because he had started to understand that Jesus wanted good things for him and that he must have a good reason for asking him to do something that was risky, even if the only risk on this occasion was professional embarrassment.

Then the miracle happens. The bumper catch. Simon is amazed, overwhelmed, suddenly aware that Jesus is not just a nice guy with uncanny insight into people, but that he is somehow divine. God.

Pathway to miracles

The pathway to the miraculous involves saying yes to Jesus. Saying yes can be difficult, scary. When Jesus places a new challenge before us it is usually easier to say no, to retreat into our comfort zone, to remain where we feel safe and secure. We know we can have a good life there. But if we can trust him it can open up a whole new world, a world of wonder and amazement, a world where miracles happen.

Where am I on that journey? Where are you? Have I dared to say yes to Jesus? Am I faced with the next challenge, and wondering whether to say yes? Should I take the next step? Am I willing to trust Jesus?

Simon said yes. His world was turned upside down. Nothing was ever the same.

Demons in church

The vexed question of demon possession

And in the synagogue there was a man who had the spirit of an unclean demon… (Luke 4:33)

Already in Luke’s writings we have been introduced to the devil, in the account of Jesus’ temptations in the wilderness. Now in chapter four we read of the first encounter recorded by Luke between Jesus and a demon. It happened in the synagogue, the Jewish equivalent of a church, a house of worship. This raises many questions: what was a demon possessed man doing in a synagogue? How could a demon exist in such a context? Do the demon possessed still turn up in church? What are we to think of such occurrences and how are we to understand Jesus’ interaction with them? Do such encounters have any relevance to our lives?

The question of demon-possession is a vexed one. Luke records this and other such events without editorial comment, which suggests that he accepted, like most people of the time, that demon-possession was a fact of life. The fact that there was a demon possessed man in their church seems not to have raised the eyebrows of the people who attended there. What amazed them was the fact that Jesus had authority and power over such evil spirits.

The words of the evil spirit must have puzzled people:

“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!” (Luke 4:34)

What did the people watching the whole encounter think of that? This demon was not a hidden thing simply causing odd behaviour. It was an articulate and vocal personality, one that was apparently separate to the personality of the person in whom it dwelt.

People of those times believed in an evil personality, a devil, who they called Satan. They believed that there were lesser devils, called demons, which were spiritual beings. They believed that these spirits could somehow enter people and affect them in different ways. Should we believe such things? These stories are in the Bible after all. Luke the doctor, a man trained in the Greek tradition of medicine, didn’t question the reality of the demonic. How should we modern day doctors think?

Demon-possession in Jesus’ day

Demon-possessed people appear to have been a feature of every community, and they took part in every day life, including attending the synagogue, like everyone else. The locals recognised that such individuals were demon-possessed, but whether there was any attempt by the priest or anyone else to get them released from their bondage is uncertain. One thing that seems certain however, is that getting a person released from their demonic oppression was not an easy or straightforward thing. Hence the amazement that people expressed when Jesus simply spoke to the demon and the person was released:

But Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be silent and come out of him!” And when the demon had thrown him down in their midst, he came out of him, having done him no harm. And they were all amazed and said to one another, “What is this word? For with authority and power he commands the unclean spirits, and they come out!” (Luke 4:35-36)

Where have all the demons gone?

Jump forward two thousand years to our time and context. What has happened to all the demon-possessed people that seemed to be relatively common in Jesus’ day? Where have they all gone? Or was the whole thing with spirits and demons simply a primitive way of understanding people with behavioural anomalies? Was it an ancient way of describing what we now know to be psychological, or psychiatric, illness?

There is no doubt that our knowledge of psychology and its aberrations is greater now. We even think we understand the source of such problems by describing the changes in brain activity and brain chemistry. We confidently assert that spiritual explanations involving demons and angels are superstitious nonsense, and simply unnecessary.

But can we be so sure? Do any of our descriptions really explain anything? We like to believe so, but we cannot exclude the possibility that there is a spiritual explanation underlying everything. We cannot state with absolute certainty that demons do not exist, or that Satan was simply a primitive way of understanding certain phenomena that we now understand with science. The biblical explanation may well be true. The need to cast out demons may well be as acute today as it was two thousand years ago.

People still suffer from bondages of various types, that is plain to see, and the need for release, for freedom, from such bondages is as great today as it was two thousand years ago. The relief that comes from such freedom is just as life changing, and just as wonderful.

Breaking bondages

The question is how does such release come? The story from Capernaum provides one answer: the demon was rebuked by Jesus. Jesus commanded the evil spirit to depart, and to release the man in bondage, and the demon left, doing the man no harm. Simple as that.

The power of Jesus was expressed in his words. The onlookers were in no doubt about that. Jesus did not wave a magic wand, or chant some kind of spell, or perform some kind of ritual. He simply commanded the spirit to depart and it did. It was the word of Jesus that had power. The onlookers said simply “What is this word?”

Is this the only way?

This is a big question and one that raises many more. Obviously we are not Jesus and cannot command things or demons in the same way that he could? Or can we? What “words” do we need to speak to set them free?

As well as that many of us work in “helping professions” and we come into contact every day with people “in bondage” or “oppressed” in various ways. But are any or all of them demon-possessed, and if so how are we to help them? What of our usual treatment modalities? Psychological therapies of various kinds, and medicines? When should we use those? When should we not?

As followers of Jesus and believers in the Bible we must diligently seek answers to those questions. There is no doubt we have a different understanding of health and illness to our non-believing colleagues. I don’t believe it is enough to be a doctor on a weekday and a Christian on Sundays. Nor should our academic or professional pride lead us to dismiss the New Testament stories as simply outdated and irrelevant.

The power of words

One thing is certain. As followers of Jesus we need to seek the same power in our words, whenever we speak, and whatever situation we speak into. We have medicines to assist the natural healing processes of the body but we should never underestimate the power of our words to do the same.

The power to command spirits, the power to have supernatural insight, these are special kinds of spiritual gifts that we are generally not allowed to employ in our medical work, assuming we work for a state run entity. But that does not mean that we should dismiss them as outdated and irrelevant or ignorant and untrue. Just if, and when, and how, we can employ them for the good of our “patients” is something that will vary for all.

But such power as Jesus displayed must never be sought for for the sake of the power itself, rather for the sake of the people whose lives can be changed, freed from their bondages, healed. And for the sake of the honour of the God who is its source.

Preacher man

And he went down to Capernaum, a city of Galilee. And he was teaching them on the Sabbath, and they were astonished at his teaching, for his word possessed authority. (Luke 4:31 ESV)

And when it was day, he departed and went into a desolate place. And the people sought him and came to him, and would have kept him from leaving them, but he said to them, “I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns as well; for I was sent for this purpose.” And he was preaching in the synagogues of Judea. (Luke 4:42-44 ESV)

Jesus was primarily a teacher. He came to preach the good news of the kingdom of God. It is easy for us, two thousand years later, to imagine that the good news is that Jesus died for us, rose again, and is still present in the person of the Holy Spirit. But when Jesus was preaching his early sermons he did not speak of such things. All that would come later, after Jesus had departed from the earth in bodily form. So what was the good news that Jesus preached?

Jesus’ good news

These few verses I have quoted do not answer that question, but perhaps the sermon that he preached in Nazareth, recorded just a few paragraphs earlier in chapter four, gives us some clues. First, he spoke about who he was – a prophet sent by God to speak God’s words to the people and to do his work: words and works of release, healing and favour. Such words were like water in the desert to people who felt poor, imprisoned and forgotten.

Second, he spoke about the people who were listening, saying things to his audience that showed he knew them to their very core, knew their deepest secrets, their hopes and dreams, their disappointments and pain, their self-centredness and pride, their loves and joys. He didn’t just speak about them, but spoke to them, personally and directly, with a knowledge and insight that they could not quite comprehend. He didn’t just speak generally to a group, he spoke specifically to individuals. He demonstrated the spiritual gift that we have come to know as “word of knowledge.”

Perhaps it was this intimate knowledge of his audience that gripped them most with wonder and amazement. All of us long to be known deeply and intimately and loved despite our failings. Jesus showed that he knew people in a way that no other ever had. But there were times when this deep, specific knowledge made people very uncomfortable, because they “knew that Jesus knew” and they felt exposed, naked, before him.

It was hard then and it is hard now to meet a person who knows our deepest secrets. It depends of course on what those secrets are, and the higher our standing in society, the greater our fear of being exposed, because it will mean a loss of status, embarrassment. Jesus’ knowledge, and his willingness to confront it publicly, made enemies for him. For in this way Jesus levelled people out, removing the established hierarchy, and showing that from the humblest to the greatest all were sinners and had the same need of forgiveness and restoration. This did not sit well with some, though for others they were words of life.

Third, Jesus spoke about God’s plans for the world, plans that were for Israel, but not limited to Israel. This too made many Israelites uneasy; they liked to think of themselves as special, God’s chosen people, and some were not at all sure that they wanted the blessings of God to be extended to the Gentiles and their enemies. Others were more open to those who were not like them, who spoke a different language or who had different customs and traditions. They did not feel threatened at all by Jesus’ willingness to include these others in the promises of God.

Speaking as God

So much for the content of Jesus’ preaching. But the verses quoted above say something about the quality of Jesus’ teaching. “His word possessed authority.” This was why people took notice. This was why people listened. This was what astonished people. He didn’t speak about God. He spoke like God. He spoke, frighteningly, as if he was God! He spoke words of knowledge, about the nature of things, and the nature of people, and the nature of God. He spoke in a way that left people speechless. He spoke in a way made people feel exposed, naked, and yet loved despite all their imperfections. Here was a man that knew them with all their failings and yet looked on them with tenderness and love, with a heart of compassion and inclusion. Many of us have put our faith in Jesus when he has spoken into our lives in just the same way.

For those who knew the poverty of their own spirits, who felt their need, who lacked the affirmation, acknowledgement and adulation of the world around them, Jesus’ words were words of life. They couldn’t get enough of him and what he had to say. They followed him wherever he went and didn’t want him to leave. But for those who had much to lose by having their true selves exposed, Jesus was someone they wanted silenced.

Preaching like Jesus

Those who have the opportunity to preach can be challenged to preach in the way that Jesus did. They need to preach the same good news, and they should seek to preach with the very words of God, by the power of God in them, the power of the Holy Spirit. How do we ensure such power and authority in our teaching? We are not Jesus. We do not have the same connection with God that Jesus had.

But that is what we must model our lives on: the same intimate connection with God and the same understanding of God’s purposes and strategies as Jesus had. Some of this can come through study – going to Bible College or just studying the Bible on our own. But to really preach in the power of the Holy Spirit requires more than study; it requires the Spirit giving us the same supernatural knowledge of people and things and the same supernatural ability to hear and speak out God’s specific word in different situations as Jesus had. Such gifts can only come through intimacy with God in prayer, and being continuously filled with the Holy Spirit.

Speaking into people’s lives

Christian doctors spend much of their time speaking into people’s lives, in the same way as preachers. They have the same kind of aims for their patients as Jesus had for all people: healing and freedom from suffering, freedom from various bondages – from tobacco to food to gambling, restoration of personality and self esteem and a hope for the future that comes from a knowledge that they are loved – what Jesus called “the Lord’s favour.” As such we too can learn much from Jesus and we would do well to seek to be like him.

Jesus came for us all

“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 favor.”

Jesus knew who he was and why he had come: to proclaim good news. His ministry was one of speaking: he spoke out freedom, recovery of sight, and the favour of the Lord. There was power in his words, and indeed it was his words, the words of the Father, that achieved the very thing that he was proclaiming. Just as God spoke in the beginning of time and the world came into being, Jesus spoke, then (and now), and what he said (and says) came to be. When he spoke freedom, people were set free. When he spoke healing, people’s eyes were opened. When he spoke the favour of the Lord, people’s live were transformed: suddenly they knew they were loved. There is power, there is healing, there is love, in the words of Jesus.

Jesus knew that the “Spirit of the Lord” was the source of his strength, authority and power. The Spirit of the Lord was “on him,” just as the Spirit of the Lord came on the prophets of old. He did not speak, or act, in his own strength, but in the power that the Spirit gave him. He was anointed in the same way as a king is anointed, not for his own sake, but for the task he had been given. He thus received the power, and authority, and wisdom, and strength he needed for this task. His anointing was a supernatural thing. It still is. The Holy Spirit is a force that is far greater than anything we have access to in the natural world, and that is saying something, since nature itself is an extraordinarily powerful thing.

Jesus knew who he had come for: he came for the poor, he came for us. As we have recognised our poverty we have become recipients of his healing, freeing, blessing words. But until we recognise our poverty we sense no need of Jesus. There is, however, not one person who is not poor, in his or her natural state. All of us live in poverty of one sort or another.

Are we really so poor, many might wonder? Human efforts down through the millennia have resulted in significant parts of the world, significant numbers of people, who live in material prosperity. We see this as social evolution, progress to a state of greater comfort and security, and we believe that this equates to greater happiness. Millions from the less “developed” parts of the world look at “rich” societies with envy. They do everything, risk life and limb, to get themselves to this places. They are known as economic refugees, fleeing poverty to get a better life.

But it is an illusion, as so many refugees and migrants can bear witness to. Even those who become materially prosperous recognise there is an emptiness in the West that material comfort and security cannot fill. Despite all our efforts we are still poor, we are still in need, we are still imprisoned, blind, oppressed.

The poverty of the wealthy Western world is a poverty of relationships, a poverty of the mind, a poverty of the spirit. We have everything we think we need for a good life, but we still search for real joy and real hope. All our efforts, social, medical, political, have not resolved the poverty of the human spirit once and for all.

Jesus came and said that he was the solution to all that. He said that his words would provide the way out of this poverty. Yet so many of us cannot see our own poverty, or if we can, recognise only the material part, the physical. We struggle and strain to get more stuff, thinking that then we will be complete. But we all know that we are so much more than our bodies. The essence of each one of us is something that is not seen with physical eyes. We may look healthy, wealthy and wise, but our spirits are so often small and lonely and sick. Jesus came with his words of release, healing, and restoration.

The verses that Jesus quoted as he announced who he was, and why he had come, in his local synagogue that day, are taken from the writings of the prophet Isaiah, who had lived hundreds of years before. But Luke did not record them in their completeness: compare what is written here in Luke and the verses in Isaiah 61:1-3. But if Jesus was reading he would surely have read all of the words recorded in the scroll he took up. There are some other aspects there which are just as much a part of what Jesus does for us, through the power of his Spirit.

He binds up the broken hearted.
He comforts those who mourn.
He replaces the ashes of mourning with a crown of beauty.
He replaces sadness with joy.
He fils our hearts with thankfulness and praise.
He replaces despair with hope.

Do you see yourself? Do you see that Jesus came for you? Are you willing to listen, to receive, to be healed, to be set free? This is good news.

Jesus: the light in our darkness

… the rising sun will come to us from heaven to shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the path of peace.” (Part of Zechariah’s song, ‭Luke‬ ‭1‬:‭78-79‬ NIV)

For my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the sight of all nations: a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of your people Israel.” (Simeon, when he saw the child Jesus, ‭Luke‬ ‭2‬:‭30-32‬ NIV)

Zechariah was rather old when his first and only son, John, was born. John’s birth was unusual in many ways, not least because Zechariah spent the whole of his wife’s pregnancy unable to speak. When the baby did eventually come Zechariah started speaking again, and the “song” of relief and joy that burst forth was recorded and has been known ever since. It is a song about God, a song which blesses God – hence its Latin name, the “Benedictus.” It is a song about John, the baby that Elizabeth bore: “And you, my little son, will be called the prophet of the Most High, because you will prepare the way for the Lord.” (Luke 1:76 NLT)

But it is also a song about Jesus, who was the “Lord” that John was to prepare the way for. Zechariah, filled with the Holy Spirit (in other words, speaking the words of God), describes Jesus as “the rising sun from heaven” who will “shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the path of peace.”

So here in Luke’s introduction, we are given a tantalising glimpse of this man Jesus as one who would bring light in the darkness. And not just for the Jews, who would be the focus of John the Baptist’s ministry, but for the whole world, as the old man Simeon proclaims when he sees the baby Jesus in the Jerusalem temple a week after his birth: “a light for revelation to the Gentiles…”

We live in a world of darkness and the shadow of death. We long for a pathway to peace. Daily our news services report acts of terror, death and destruction from around the world. Although natural disasters, which are out of our control, occur and also cause much suffering, the thing that really horrifies is human induced terror, over which surely we as humans should have some control. Humans are certainly capable of much good, but why do so many seem to take such delight in oppressing others, in taking from them by force what they have no right to? Where does our aggression, our self obsession, our self-righteous violence come from? What is it that makes us abuse and kill one another?

It is fashionable these days to hold God accountable for such things, or if not God, then religion. As well as being capable of incredible evil we humans also have an amazing ability to lay the blame for these atrocities on others, often God himself. We point to passages in the Old Testament where God sanctioned, or even commanded the slaughter not just of his opponents but of innocents who were connected to those opponents in some way. We see such accounts as evidence that God is as bad, or worse, than we are. We think that we would never do such evil things on our own, but do so because God has commanded it.

Nowadays, of course, it is unfashionable to believe even in the existence of God, but that is in some ways inconvenient because it gives us no-one but ourselves to blame. We are forced to resort to explanations such as psychiatric illness to understand the horrors we read about in the papers on a daily basis. Normal, healthy people, we are sure, could never do such things. The solutions we suggest for the evils we see in the world are education, social reform, medical treatment, rehabilitation, legal action, and in some extreme cases military action.

Luke does not launch into any sort of discussion about the sources of evil. He does not offer suggestions as to why the world is so dark. He simply acknowledges the fact, and then and now this darkness is something that no-one could or can deny. We live in darkness and in the shadow of death. It is a simple fact.

What Luke does suggest in these opening chapters is that Jesus is the solution. That is what his book will be about. These words of the Holy Spirit, spoken through Zechariah and Simeon (among others), introduce the idea, and the book that follows, which Luke writes as history, will explore and discuss and support the hypothesis. In sending Jesus to us, God was sending light into the darkness, the “rising sun” to shine on us. In this light we would be able to find the path to peace. This light which would be the glory of Israel, would reveal God to the Gentiles. Jesus, according to God’s plan, would be the universal solution. Not religion but Jesus is the solution. Religion is a human construct, a system developed around a worldview, or a set of beliefs and values. But religion is not the solution, and as many have observed, may indeed be the source of problems. Jesus, on the other hand, who is a person and not just an idea or a concept, is the solution.

As we read Luke’s account, and the other records collected in the New Testament, have the opportunity, as we reflect on the pages that follow, to test this hypothesis, to examine this Jesus who Luke was so excited about and see for ourselves whether he measures up to the claims that Luke was making about him. Could Jesus really be the answer? If so, how?

Jesus the rescuer

… to rescue us from the hand of our enemies, and to enable us to serve him without fear in holiness and righteousness before him all our days. (‭Luke‬ ‭1‬:‭74-75‬ NIV)

Saviour is not a word we use much nowadays, except in reference to Jesus. It has taken on a religious tone in a world where religion is no longer fashionable. I prefer the word rescuer, which means the same thing, and which is clearly indicated by God through Zechariah’s words to be one of the roles that the child Jesus would take on. But rescue for whom? And rescue from what?

The Jews were a people who felt the need of rescue. Oppression was not a new experience for them. At the time that Luke wrote his books there was one great world power – the Roman Empire – and there is no doubt that the Jews, like most of the Romans’ other subject peoples, saw them as an enemy, not just because they exacted obedience and taxes, but because they hindered the worship of God, an activity which was at the very centre of Jewish identity. The Jews felt, quite simply, that they couldn’t be themselves. They longed for liberation, and they perceived in their ancient scriptures a promise that one day a liberator would come, sent by God to rescue them. In recording the Holy Spirit inspired words of Zechariah, Luke indicates that he believes this child Jesus, born to Mary, was the liberator promised by God.

We too find ourselves in need of rescue, when undesired forces take control of our lives. The truth is that for all our technological and scientific genius, there are things that affect our lives that are beyond our control. Wars and catastrophes, oppressive regimes, result in suffering and death for countless people every year. Even in peaceful nations there are many who are oppressed, by economic hardship, illness or accident, destructive relationships or loneliness. The promise of a rescuer is a beautiful one for all of us who find ourselves in such situations.

So was Jesus only a rescuer for the Jews, or was he interested in others too? Look at what God says through Simeon, who sees Jesus in the Jerusalem temple when he is just a week old:

For my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the sight of all nations: a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of your people Israel.” (‭Luke‬ ‭2‬:‭30-32‬ NIV)

These first two chapters of Luke’s book give us glimpses of who Jesus would be, through words from God that came through angels and the Holy Spirit. The chapters that follow are a description of the life Jesus lived and we the readers can compare what God had predicted with what this man turned out to be. Luke clearly believed that the life he would describe was a perfect fulfilment of the promises of God. Look at some of these words of God that Luke records in these first few chapters, words that speak of Jesus the rescuer:

Zechariah under the the influence of God’s Spirit:
He has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David (as he said through his holy prophets of long ago), salvation from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us— to show mercy to our ancestors and to remember his holy covenant, the oath he swore to our father Abraham: to rescue us from the hand of our enemies, and to enable us to serve him without fear in holiness and righteousness before him all our days. (‭Luke‬ ‭1‬:‭69-75‬ NIV)

Mary, in a Holy Spirit inspired exclamation of gratitude:
And Mary said: “My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour. (Luke 1:46-47)

An angel appearing to shepherds: 
Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.” (‭Luke‬ ‭2‬:‭11-12‬ NIV)

A thankful old man in the temple (Simeon):
For my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the sight of all nations: a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of your people Israel.” (‭Luke‬ ‭2‬:‭30-32‬ NIV)

Luke clearly believed that Jesus was a saviour, a rescuer, sent into the world by God for the good of all people, both Jews and Gentiles. He drops these words into his introduction, again as a teaser, a trailer for the movie of Jesus’ life. It is for the reader to decide, as the pages of Luke’s book unfold, whether the life Jesus lived and the changes that he brought to the world, bear testimony to this claim. Not just in general terms, but in personal, since for each one of us a question begs an answer – can Jesus rescue me from the situation I am in?