Matthew is the only Gospel writer to report on these visitors who take center stage today. So, we know nothing about them other than that they came from the east. For that matter, they have come from Miami! What the “east mean” and is it really important to know? Were there only three? It doesn’t seem to be a safe way to travel if they came from afar. There had to have been a whole caravan to support and protect them coming from the east, which in fact is a rather desolate place, east of Israel. In the Gospel, they don’t even have names. Those we use came into tradition a long time later.
What we can learn from Matthew comes from the contrast he draws between the Gentile and Jewish worlds. Those Jewish scholars of the law knew exactly what this was all about five miles away, and they did nothing while those Gentile visitors were willing to risk a lot to follow the light. Those scholars were content to sit in darkness. They could not be bothered. There travelers were not “kings” no matter what John Henry Hopkins Jr may have chosen to call them in 1868 when he composed that hymn. He was more musician than theologian.
Sometimes when we don’t know something, we have to make up something to cover up our lack of knowledge. If we peal back all of that stuff and simply stand back and look at what Matthew tells us, we can hardly miss the fact that these travelers had a goal and they were willing to leave home, risk some danger, make mistakes like going to Jerusalem in search of a king thinking that this new king might be found in places of power. They had goal, and Matthew tells us about them because of it.
As the Gospel unfolds, it will reveal a Jesus with a goal, and inspire those who believe in him to share that goal. As we know too well, goals make a difference in life. People without them always want more. When that is not enough, they want better, and when better is not enough, they want different. When different is not enough they become sad, their life becomes meaningless, and they become alienated. All the while, what they need is a goal.
Those magi came because God called them to seek the “King of the Jews”, and so are we.
They found a baby. We find man or a cross with a sign above his head. If we are going to see a King on that wooden throne, we will have to get our goals figured out. We’ll have to have a goal that gives meaning to life and have the human qualities it takes to stay with that goal through thick and thin. Our goal has to have meaning, purpose, and commitment; all of which are in separable. A busy life might have a purpose, but it does not necessarily have meaning. In Shakespeare’s words, that kind of life is “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” One goal and one source of meaning, purpose, and commitment in our lives would be to make every day an Epiphany, a day of showing the world that the Lord has come, and there is a light in the darkness.
I have always been just a little bit uncomfortable with the Church’s use of words to name this feast that in my own life-time has had several other names. “Back in the day” I can remember this day on the Church’s calendar as the “Feast of the Circumcision.” Then in 1960 Pope John XXIII removed the term “Circumcision” and simply called this day, “The Octave of the Nativity” which of course means the eighth day when, according to the religious law at the time required the ritual of circumcision for Hebrew children. Because the that ritual of Circumcision also included the formal naming of the child, this date was also called: “The Holy Name of Jesus.” Then in 1974 Pope Paul VI changed the name of this Holy Day to “The Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God” which gets us to today. The research of this Liturgical Trivia took longer than the preparation of some homilies! In the end, no matter what the Church wants to call this day, it’s New Year’s Day to most of us.
Father M. Joseph McDonnell was my pastor through my High School years, and he had a custom of not preaching on New Year’s Day, and I always think of him on January 1 with the temptation to carry on his tradition. It was a relief to us all because, as a teen ager in those days, he never seemed to know when to sit down.
With a nod to his memory and tradition, I simply want to propose that we begin this year with a renewed respect for the holy name of Jesus and perhaps resolve to respect that name in our discourse and fits of anger and impatience. I would also propose that we all take another look at our devotion to Mary, the Mother of God. In my opinion the choice of this Gospel allows us to miss the reality of her role as Mother. Luke’s narrative which we just proclaimed does not push us much beyond the Nativity. Her role as mother was far greater than simply sitting back as shepherds came to see her child.
This is the woman who was at a wedding with her son and told him to do something when there was a problem. She was a bit pushy, and he pushed back as any son might, but he ended up doing something. This is the woman who stood at the foot of the cross perhaps wondering: “What did I do wrong?” as mothers sometimes do when they see their children in trouble. In the few occasions when she appears in the Gospel, she never has a better line than the one John’s Gospel puts on her lips speaking to the servants at a wedding in Cana. “Do whatever he tells you.” That might be our best way to begin this New Year with a resolve to do whatever is asked of us by God without complaint or whining, but joyfully remembering that God has come to live among us, and that truth should change the way we live together.
26 December 2021 at Saint Peter the Apostle Church in Naples, FL
1 Samuel 1, 20-28 + Psalm 84 + 1 John 3, 1-24 + Luke 2, 41-52
Through the course of his mission, Jesus expands the whole idea of “family.” While the Gospel for today focuses on Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, it is not long before he asks the crowd gathered around him: “Who are my mother, brothers and sisters?” While sentimentality may like us to imagine that this holy family was the perfect family of all time, we might want to look more closely at what the Gospels suggest.
First of all, this is a family that knows anxiety and fear over a lost child. This is a family that had to flee their homeland for safety in a foreign country where they likely did not know the language. This was a family with a child who did not follow or do what everyone expected. This was a family with a child that brought shame on the family by breaking the rules. This was a family with a child accused of serious crimes. By the end, this is a single parent family. This is a family that practices their faith in the Synagogue and the Temple. No matter how you look at them, this family is just like us. It does not good to distance ourselves from them by imagining that they were perfect with a divine guest, that they never got frustrated, felt frightened, or shared a cross word or two.
I believe that the Holy Family we celebrate today is the Human Family struggling as it does to be inclusive like Joseph who welcomed a child that was not his own, patient like Mary who pondered the things she did not understand without refusal, and respectful of their faith and its practices. Like Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, we face all the challenges family life can throw at us with an awareness that we have one Father and are, like them or not, we are all brothers and sisters.
There is no denying the family we have been introduced to by our Baptism. It is the Holy Family of the Church. Claimed for Christ our Savior by the sign of the cross, born again in water and the Spirit, we are one in faith, one in hope, and one in charity. These days when the evil of gossip, lies, privilege, and fear close our eyes and ears to others who are not exactly like us, there is a special challenge and need to celebrate this feast and to draw from it the hope that God who has called us together and created us in God’s own image will stand fast and refuse to be divided into them and us.
This feast and this Gospel demand that we cultivate relationship within and without our biological families seeking the opportunity to grow wise and holy being enriched by our friendship and fellowship on this earth. Like Jesus, we shall then increase in wisdom and know the Divine favor for which we all long.
I don’t know who first got the idea of staging Christmas Pageants for and with children, but I want you to know that as an old priest and a pastor with parochial schools for way too long, I sat through more Christmas Pageants than any of you could imagine. That experience has led me to the conclusion that I’ll never have to worry about Purgatory. I’ve been there.
You know how they go, the little ones who can’t be trusted to remember lines are angels with various kinds of wire wings who flutter around and bump into one another looking anxiously around for someone to tell them when to get out of the way. Then there is always the character of Mary. Who plays that role is always a matter of great concern. It’s almost a preview of the anxiety over who will be the Homecoming Queen. Then there is Joseph who just stands around with nothing to say, his face itchy with that fake beard fearful he might trip over his father’s bathrobe. When I was that age, I never wanted to be a shepherd because they had to carry stuffed animals, and I thought that was weird. One time someone thought it would be great to have a real lamb. It got loose. That was the end of the show.
What all this has left us with is some rather odd and off the mark ideas about the details of the Good News we share tonight. We have so often imagined that the whole scene is the consequence of an in hospitable inn keeper who slammed the door in the face of this young couple leaving them alone, cold, and stuck in a stable. I remember another time when the kid who was the innkeeper slammed the door with such enthusiasm that the whole elaborate set fell over. Somehow all of that has dulled our imagination about what it all really means and what Luke was really announcing with this very dramatic event.
Not having been to a Christmas Pageant for several years, I’ve had the time to re-think this scene deciding that the inn-keeper is hardly a cruel and thoughtless human being. In that time and culture of the middle east, hospitality was and still is a very important matter for the Hebrew people. If he sent them to the stable, it was a thoughtful and considerate gesture, because with animals there, it would have been warm. That whole business about swaddling clothes so often thought of as rags for the poor is hardly that. For in those times, it was a way of receiving and wrapping with warmth someone who was welcome and embraced.
This is really a story of hospitality, and while we might at first think it’s about us being hospitable to the Divine Child, I would like to suggest that it might be the other way around. Perhaps it is about God welcoming us into the wonder of God’s new creation which has begun with this child. That story of the Annunciation is really a creation story. God makes something out of nothing by the power of the Holy Spirit. That’s creation. The news we share with the help of Luke’s Gospel is that there has been a “restart” to creation. A hospitable and loving God is welcoming those he loves. While we might like to think that we are welcoming the Christ Child, perhaps it really is the other way around. Maybe Luke used the story of a child’s birth to touch the hearts of every parent reminding them of how they felt when that first child was born. Remembering the joy, the unimaginable love, the thrill of emotions that comes when you first hold your child.
I recently read, and I believe it, that the love of a parent for a child is somehow different and greater than the love of a husband and wife.
Think of that tonight. Think about a God who has come among us sharing every human emotion from birth till death. This is a God, revealed by Jesus, not as a remote judge or manipulative creator, but as one we can call “Father.” It is God’s hospitality that we enjoy day by day in this life. It is God’s hospitality that draws us to this table God has spread before us. It is God’s hospitality that feeds us with Divine Food, flesh and blood. Welcome guests in God’s creation do not leave wet towels on the bathroom floor. We pick up after ourselves and treasure every moment we have together on this beautiful earth. Having been welcomed by God we too welcome our brothers and sisters to enjoy a share in the bounty of this precious earth.
For the first time in his Gospel, Luke uses the word “today.” As we hear that word in this assembly it becomes a present call to share the joy of what we find here and gaze with the eyes of faith on what those shepherds saw glorifying and praising God, and then going home changed and ready to tell others. We find Christ today in the feeding place of this Eucharistic Table and also in those around us now with whom we say, “Amen” when we receive the Body of Christ.
We live in the hope of another “appearing”, a coming at the end of human history. Then in one final act of hospitality, Jesus will gather to himself all those who have given him the hospitality of their hearts.
Remember, it all happened in the night when it was dark as a reminder that the darker the night, the more joyous the dawn. Children of the light, praise the God whose love for us can never be lost. Give glory to the God who calls us all to a new day and a new creation where we can live without fear in a lasting peace that rests upon the power of his love. Give thanks to the God whose gift to us in his Son we celebrate today. Go home tonight knowing how welcome you are in God’s house and in God’s presence, and imitate God’s gracious hospitality.
Two women, one from Jerusalem and the other from Nazareth. One is there at the center of power, and her husband is of the Priestly tribe. The other has no husband and she lives in a place no one would ever have heard of until a visitor comes. They are for Luke, the meeting of the Old Testament and the New Testament. The old had a history of infidelity and idolatry, but it held the promise. The new is the promise and it begins with fidelity to the Word of God delivered by an angel who only appears once in the Old Testament in the Book of Daniel proclaiming the final time, the age of justice.
The only man in the story is silent. All he can do is watch because of his doubt in the power of the Lord. And silent he should be. There is nothing to say in the presence of God’s power from those who question the God’s intention to start creation over again, and that is exactly what is happening with the Annunciation. The Holy Spirit creates something out of nothing. A virgin conceives, and her son is both human, born of a woman and Divine, the Son of God. Now the Old Testament is complete. What was promised has been given.
It all comes to pass through these two unlikely people living at the margins of society. An aging barren woman long dismissed by society, and a young girl not yet married and therefore having no identity at all. Powerless, insignificant to those who hold power and
have authority, they speak to us today an important reminder about how God works and how the Divine plan for the new creation will be made known. Elizabeth, like Sarah of old does the work of hospitality. She welcomes Mary and her unborn child, and in all humility as the elder, she declares that the child in her womb was secondary to the one Mary bore. Elizabeth become the first to proclaim faith in Jesus, calling him “my Lord” before he was born. Don’t miss the way Luke uses the faith of women to make the major professions of faith. “Blessed are you!” she proclaims celebrating the grace that they both shared: “Blessed are you who believed.”
We pick up this Gospel today, just days before we celebrate the Incarnation once again to be reminded that God has consistently chosen the weak and the marginalized over people of influence. The Word of God speaks to us today again about how God works not to instruct, but to motivate and awaken us. We are not really people of power or great influence. They are off in citadels of power like Washington, Rome, Moscow, and all those capital places of wealth, influence, and power. We are the little ones of history whose names will hardly be remembered when they vanish from tomb stones. Those people of influence will have their monuments for a few generations, but not much of what they do lasts very long.
It takes people like Elizabeth and Mary to make a difference. It takes people like you and me to allow God’s plan to be fulfilled. Those apostles Jesus gathers are a perfect example. Not one of them was really influential or particularly gifted except for the gift of faith and willingness to follow Jesus Christ.
The Gospel today warns us to be careful about feeling privileged allowing us to look down on others who are different, powerless, poor and helpless. We might very well end up standing in silence as God works through them to accomplish what we do not. In some ways, the story we proclaim here today is our story. It is the story that God works through people like us right here in a small town on the Gulf Coast or anywhere people are willing to listen the news brought once and for all by an angel. Like those women of faith, we ought to risk believing that God’s promise is being fulfilled within us and by us. When we do, the privileged will simply have to be silent enough to perceive that God is working in spite of them. When we realize that God has chosen us, there will be peace not brought by diplomats and their treaties or ceasefires, but by forgiveness and a love that is rooted in respect. It is then that we shall truly be Blessed for we have believed that what was spoken to us by the Lord will be fulfilled.
There is plenty of reason to hear the words of the Prophet this morning and move his message into some kind of “Archive File” thinking that he was speaking to someone else a long time ago. One obvious reason for doing so is that there is plenty reason these days not to rejoice. Facing life for too many easily makes rejoicing just too much of a challenge. Personal, family, church, and social conflicts are way too many, and we constantly facing our weakness, our sinfulness, and our helplessness. For some this experience seems to explode with violence, hateful talk, blaming, and name-calling and fear.
It cannot be so for people of faith. Even when inflation soars, food banks struggle to feed the growing number of hungry people, and a pandemic lingers we do not surrender what faith can provide. Even with political corruption, racial injustice, and with our borders becoming unwelcoming places of conflict, we do not surrender to resentment, frustration, exhaustion, and impatience.
The words and spirit of our liturgy today and even the color of this vestment are reminders that a new day is dawning. This isn’t pink. It is the color of the morning sky.
All of this is the church’s way of stirring our hope that despite all failure in the past God is here. God is working. We will not fall apart or fall into despair. It is so easy to convince ourselves that we are victims and powerless. So, today the living Word of God reminds us to rejoice in the Lord ALWAYS.
There is an indestructible power greater than the power of ambition, greed, and selfish individualism. Without it, we might cling to misery and apathy believing that we can’t do anything except moan and complain shrugging off everything that troubles and keeps this world from peace by thinking or saying: “That’s just the way it is. No, it isn’t. Discord and some suffering are part of life and cannot be controlled. Yet, we cannot fail to see that what we long and hope for is something we already have. In the old days we called them Virtues: Faith, Hope, Charity. We call them virtues because they give strength. They hold up the week and encourage the powerless. They are gifts of the Holy Spirit which we too often fail to draw upon.
Faith that God’s creation is not finished, and neither are we. Faith brings an assurance that God has things under control even when we do not. Hope keeps us looking forward not backward. Confident that the Kingdom of God is in our midst, and Jesus Christ has not abandoned us because he promised to remain with us always. Charity or “Love” allows us to see the beauty and goodness that is all around us and treasure the companionship of those who love us and care for us as friends.
With these virtues, there is nothing to fear and no need for anxiety as St Paul says to us today. It is time to rejoice because faithful people live with Joy. We can forget about what happens tomorrow and beyond living this day in peace. We can control what we can and forget about what we cannot. If we don’t there will be no joy. We are God’s friends, and we have been given the Virtues we need, and it is time to accept them as a tender and loving blessing. Doing so will make it easy to shout for joy and to sing joyfully rejoicing always in the Lord.
With this great feast we are called to step out of our ordinary daily routines and pause for these few minutes to let the Word of God remind us of God’s plan for creation. Paul puts that plan in plain and simple language as he writes to the Ephesians. God has chosen us to be holy and without blemish. God destined us for adoption which in the society and culture of that time meant nothing more than a completely new existence. In that world at that time, when one was adopted, their entire old identity was wiped away. If there were debts, they no longer existed. If there was anything in the past that could spoil the future, it was gone.
What this feast day urges us to do is call to mind our adoption. What must be affirmed today is the will of God that we be holy which is the whole purpose of our adoption. As with many who are adopted into earthly families, there is often a desire to know about the past, and perhaps that is why we open the third chapter of Genesis today. It’s the story of our past, and it’s not pretty. These verses we have just heard tell of losing our holiness.
Way too often, there is some mistaken idea that holiness has to do with prayers, or some extraordinary kind of service or sacrifice like martyrdom. If that’s the case, most of us in trouble. What we can discover from this great Feast Day is that those who are holy are simply close to God, and everything that is good somehow flows out of that intimate relationship. The truly holy are those are close to God. We see in the verses of Genesis today that the close and intimate relationship those first created persons had with God was broken. Leaving God to begin what is in time a long search for a way to restore that holiness for which we were created.
The woman we honor here today was holy. Her relationship with God made her so. She did not earn it by doing something. Her willingness to accept her calling is a consequence of her holiness in God’s eyes. She does not say, “Yes” and then earn her favor and holiness. It’s the other way around. Because she is already holy and chosen, she is willing to accept the unknown, unimaginable, and maybe frightening request.
She teaches us today what holiness looks like. She teaches us how a chosen people stand open to the sometimes strange and unexpected ways of God. She teaches us today what it means to be adopted, because our past is over and forgotten. We are a new people with what Paul calls a “new inheritance”. As Paul says, now we exist for one purpose: for the praise of God’s Glory. And so we can say again and again: Glory be to the Father, to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning is now and ever shall be!
Earlier in this series I was exploring Luke’s Passion Narrative as if it were a drama. It’s an easy way to work through the narrative, and Luke’s style is very dramatic. To review and refresh out memories, there are Four Acts
Act One had two scenes:
Prayer
Arrest
Act Two begins the Trials. The First is the religious trial before the Sanhedrin.
Act Three takes up the Civil Trial before Pilate who finds no guilt, sends Jesus to Herod after hearing about some Galilee connection. Herod does not pass judgement and sends Jesus back to Pilate. It probably is a little diplomatic game between the two rulers who are really at odds with each other but dancing around to keep the peace.
Act Four has two scenes:
The Crucifixion and Death of Jesus which now brings us to
The Burial.
This scene which we begin to night gives us two unique features for Luke.
There is no mention of Pilate being surprised at the early death of Jesus. Luke feared that this would cast doubt on the reality of Jesus’ death which might give some credence to the late 1st century denial of the resurrection that was developing among those opposed to the believers.
The role of the Galilean women and the reference to the spices and myrrh allows Luke to not only portray them as pious Jews but helps Gentile readers to understand why they waited a day to take care of the body.
Luke’s account of the Burial of Jesus by Joseph of Arimathea has two significant variations from the story on Matthew and Mark giving us some clues about what matters to Luke. He tells us that Joseph of Arimathea was a member of the Sanhedrin who “had not consented to their proposal and deed.” In other words, he thought Jesus was innocent which is a theme heard all through Luke’s trial scenes. Pilate said it twice, Herod said it, a crucified thief said it, a centurion said it, and now Joseph of Arimathea is the final human witness to the innocence of Jesus. The second variation concerns the women (no surprise there since Luke has always been attentive and recorded stories of the women’s role in the ministry of Jesus). Luke indicates that some women saw where Jesus was buried but also specifies that they had come up with Jesus from Galilee and that they saw how the body was laid. Luke, as I said before is very concerned to establish that there was a dead body and that it was buried. This give credence to what is to come with the Resurrection and the Ascension. He wants to clearly establish a link between the church’s Lord and the one who dies in Jerusalem and the one who worked in Galilee by having Galileans present as witnesses to the Jerusalem events. Theologically, this means that the one who empowered is the one who died. The is real. It was through the suffering that the obedience of Jesus was perfected. It was only on the other side of these things that the one empowered entered into glory. To put it more simply: “There ain’t no glory without that cross.” Or, There’s no way to the Father except by obedience to the will of the Father.
We are now at Chapter 24 which concludes the first part of Luke’s work, Acts of the Apostles being the second part. This is really the most interesting part of our study and reflection on Luke’s Gospel because with one exception the material here is not found anywhere in the other Gospels. Luke began his Gospel with the Infancy Narrative that was uniquely his own, and he concludes with a narrative of the Resurrection that is also uniquely his own. Let us start by reading chapter 24 so it’s fresh in your mind without any interference from the other Gospel traditions. Try to blank out details we have all absorbed from Matthew, Mark, and John. Just concentrate on what is here. READ CHAPTER 24 1-12.
This much of the Chapter clearly draws on Mark 16: 1-8. Another version is found in Matthew with John’s being quite different. What present research suggests is that scribes who copied the manuscripts quite early permitted, consciously or unconsciously, the resurrection stories of the other Gospels to influence what they were writing. In some cases, they probably were remembering Mark or John while writing Luke; in others they may have intentionally been harmonizing. This does not mean that there was an attempt to deceive or to reduce the faith in any way. On the contrary, the general tendency was to enlarge the story. This “cross-fertilization” of texts is to be taken as evidence that the early church treated the resurrection stories as one story, and the blending occurred as it does with us, two, three, or four accounts of one event, even though each has its own accent and purpose, tend to become one account in the church’s memory. READ THE REMAINING VERSES (Point out the 5 events).
There are five major events: two empty tomb episodes; two major appearances; and the departure of Jesus. This is all located in Jerusalem or nearby, and it all happens in one long day. This exclusive focus on Jerusalem is distinct to Luke. Matthew and Mark have things happening in Galilee over a longer period of time. So much for the idea that Jesus hung around for 40 days before the Ascension! Once more, you see, this is Theology. It is not history. Details do not have to match.
Let’s just deal with the theology. Luke is passing on to us the early Christian understanding of the resurrection as a prototype of Christian existence. In earliest Christianity the resurrection of Jesus encompassed three different realties:
The Victory of Jesus over death.
The removal of Jesus from human time and space into another dimension (God)
The new function of Jesus as cosmic Lord.
Luke takes these realities and makes three separate events on a chronological time line. In other words, he takes this theological idea of what happened and he puts that idea into events that happen in sequence: the Resurrection, the Ascension; the Exaltation. By taking the three different pieces of a whole individually, he can focus on the meaning of each without distraction. What this means is that in Luke, the resurrection of Jesus refers only to his victory over death. The thinking of Luke is that what happens to Jesus is what his disciples may expect for themselves.
Stick with me. This is complicated, but not impossible. The first empty tomb tradition which is the women at the empty tomb and the second appearance story which is the one after the Emmaus story when Jesus appears among the apostles affirm the reality that there is a body that has risen. There is no dead body in the tomb even though they saw it put there. An empty tomb means one thing. The body is not there. That’s all. If Christians are going to proclaim Christ has risen, there needs to be experiences of that Christ who was dead and is now risen. So, there is a body that eats something. More importantly this body has the wounds that were on the body they buried. This faith is based upon witnesses who saw and experienced something real. It is not based on how they felt or what they wished. Whatever the nature of this victory over death was, it involved the absence of that body from the tomb.
Luke wants to give some real authority to this, so he mentions names and these are the same women of Galilee who saw the body being put in that tomb. They knew where it was Luke told us in the previous chapter. Then Luke tells us that when the women came to the apostles and the others, Peter got up and ran to the tomb. (There is no John in a foot race with Peter in Luke’s narrative.) Luke wants the witness of Peter so that there are two sets of witnesses. Peter’s witness is important to Jewish people at the time because women didn’t count. In order to be persuasive at the time, there had to be a male witness. The detail of finding the linen clothes by themselves is Luke’s way of stopping the rumor that the body had been stolen. They would not have taken the body without it being wrapped. This is Luke’s way of celebrating the victory over death.
After the two empty tomb episodes, we come to the first of two appearances: a story unique to Luke and a story that really highlights his writing skills. It is what we have come to call, “The Emmaus Story.” Luke now clarifies the nature of the Eucharist, and he uses the Emmaus story to do so at least for the Lukan community. The two are abandoning the Christian journey to God. In Luke’s wonderful story telling style, we get to know who the person is that joins them, and in an ironic way, we get to hear them talk about the death of Jesus to Jesus himself! We should notice (because Luke wants us to) that there are three units to the whole story: the narrative discussion, the meal and the journey back as a Mission of Proclamation.
The meal is really what holds this together. It is the Eucharist as we know it.
It begins with an act of hospitality, an invitation to a stranger by those who prepared the table. It is the presence of Christ at a table opened to a stranger which transforms an ordinary supper into the sacrament. Christ is in a sense the guest, and yet he is the host who breaks the bread, blesses God and shares with those at table. It is in this act that that the disciples recognize the stranger as Christ.
It begins then with the Scriptures as Jesus goes over the writings and the prophets. The one who is named in this episode, Cleopas provides us with a glimpse into the earliest preaching. It is Luke’s concise statements about Jesus, his mighty works, suffering, death, and resurrection. This is the content of Christian preaching. The description of Jesus reviewing the Prophets with these two is a kind of reprimand for their unbelief on the grounds that the suffering death, and resurrection of Jesus is set forth in the Scriptures that they should have known. All through Luke’s Gospel there is insistence that Jesus fulfilled the prophecies of the Scriptures. They pointed to the very acts of his ministry, so his suffering, and his death. For Luke, the gospel of Jesus Christs continues and brings to fulfillment the law, the prophets, and the writings.
The Eucharistic ritual continues: after the Word comes the Sacrament, and then Mission. The time of day is significant because the evening is the time when the Christians would gather together for prayer and the eucharist. As the story goes, Jesus becomes the host, which confirms that Luke is describing a Eucharistic Meal connected to the Paschal Meal in the upper room. Luke tells us that Jesus took bread, blessed and broke it and gave it to them. This is ritual language that Luke has used before when he fed the multitudes, and when he sat in an upper room. On those occasions, they did not “recognize him”, but now, the risen one is recognized. When Luke says that their eyes were opened, it describes conversion. This story serves as a bridge between the meals the earthly Jesus had with his disciples and the later church’s Eucharist. It also says that at such meals the presence of the risen Lord was known. Jesus is alive and one place of his recognition is in the breaking of bread. The importance of knowing and experiencing the living Christ in word and sacrament cannot be overemphasized.
There is a third part to this story that we must not overlook: the return of these two to Jerusalem where they want to spread the Good News. It is the perfect match or parallel to the Eucharist as the Church has known it: Word, Sacrament, Mission (Mass). Without the third part, the “Missa” something important is missing.
Now to the appearance of Jesus to the Eleven in Jerusalem. This also reinforces the theology that what rose was a living body. They thought they were seeing a ghost. He shows them hands and feet with the wounds, and then he wants to eat something. They fed him and he ate in front of them. Angels and Ghosts don’t eat. Only humans eat. For Luke, the risen Lord is no less than the Jesus before he died. He eats and can be seen and touched. These two stories say the same thing about the nature of Jesus’ victory over death: it is not to be understood as an escape from the perishable body, but a transformation of it. That transformation is not into a spiritual being because Jesus remained flesh and blood though immortal and not limited by time and space. This is not the immortality of the soul while the body decays. It is something totally new.
For Luke, there is here what we could call “Table Fellowship”. What was interrupted by the death of Jesus is resumed at the initiative of Jesus. From now on the disciples will continue to do this in remembrance of him. These incidents when Jesus eats with them serves as a bridge between the meals the earthly Jesus had with his disciples and the later church’s Eucharist, it says that at such meals the presence of the risen Lord was known. Jesus is alive and one place of his recognition is at the breaking of the bread.
At this point I think it is important to dig into what it means to “remember”. I believe that this issue is at the root of a great problem among believers when it comes to what we believe about the Body and Blood of Christ. There is no room for anything but a firm belief that what looks like bread is the very real Body of Christ and what looks like wine is the very real Blood of Christ. These are not symbols or signs. They are real. The root of this error probably comes from a failure to understand “remembering”. In this use and context, it does not mean to “recall”. There are three times in which to know an event: in rehearsal, at the time of the event, and in remembrance. In rehearsal, understanding is hindered by an inability to believe that the event will really occur or that it will be important. At the time of the event, understanding is hindered by the clutter and confusion of so much so fast. But in remembrance, the nonseriousness of rehearsal and the busyness of the event by way to recognition, realization, and understanding.
To understand this, we have to take the word apart: RE-Member. It means to put together, to join. Think of it this way. God’s response to sin which broke and still breaks the relationship we have with God was a gathering in. The formation of a People that today we call the “Church”. It’s a joining together what had been broken apart. In the Eucharist God joins us with one another and with God’s self in the Body and Blood of Christ. Jesus gathered a people. He reached out and looked for those who were alone by sickness or sin, and he re-membered them to himself and to all the people who had been scattered by sin, self-centered, selfish, and alone. For a deeper understanding, we start with the Bible.
John 6 is the place to start. First, we hear of the magnetic power of the presence of Jesus. Large crowds followed him everywhere. In that chapter, Jesus goes up the mountain – which is the place where one can get close to God. Once there, Jesus sits, the posture of a teacher there on that holy mountain. This is what happens in the first part of our Mass. Jesus teaches us. There he feeds that crowd by taking the little bit that we have (think of the gifts we bring to that altar). With that little bit, he can multiply it for the feeding of the world. We know how much is left over: twelve! There is the Mass.
Then he goes to Capernaum and the people follow him. He begins to teach again. He says don’t hunger for these passing loaves of bread but for the food that lasts for eternal life. “I am the bread of life those who come to me will never be hungry, those who believe in me will never be thirsty. I AM THE LIVING BREAD come down from heaven. If you eat this bread, you will live forever. The bread that I will give you is my flesh for the life of the world.” The crowd balked at this. A first century Jew would be repulsed by the eating of flesh with blood. That’s forbidden to them. Given therefore every opportunity to soften his teaching or propose a symbolic meaning, he goes on to say, “Amen, Amen, I say to you. Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood. You have no life in you, for my Flesh is real food. My Blood is real drink.” Now, the verb Jesus uses here is not the usual word for eating. He uses the verb (trogain) which means gnaw on.
Something real strange is going on here. While the scriptures are full of symbolic thought and symbolic images, but when Jesus puts this out so clearly, many of his followers turn away and would not go with him anymore. So, he asks the twelve if they would like to leave. This teaching is a watershed, a point of division. It’s either you are against me or with me moment. If this was just symbol talk, why would anyone be upset. But Jesus does not compromise, soften it, or give in. This is the ground for the Catholic insistence that this is the real Body and Blood of Jesus Christ.
Ignatius of Antioch in letter to Smyrna. (35 AD) “They abstain from the Eucharist and Prayer because they do not admit that this is flesh of the Son of Man. Justin Martyr (165 AD) For not as common bread or common drink do we receive, but we receive the real body and blood of Christ.” Origin of Alexandria (early 3rd century) says: speaks about reverence and almost obsessive care for crumbs that fall from the sacred gifts. St John Chrysostom says: “What is the bread but the body of Christ. What do they become who partake of it, the body of Christ? Not many bodies, but one body. This is the way we are Christified. Our bodies are Christified. We are prepared for heaven by bringing our body in contact with the body of Christ. The early church never wavers from this.
In the 11th century a Bishop in Tours proposes the symbol/sign language. He teaches that something is added to the Bread, some spiritual, but it is still bread with an added something. A great debate occurs that ends with a Council. That council insists that this is wrong, and that what is on the altar after the consecration is the Flesh and Blood of Christ. His opponent says that there is something more going on in the Eucharist than is going on in the other sacraments. This is not a spiritual addition to bread. In the other sacraments, oil is still oil and water is still water. In the Eucharist, something is different.
Aquinas in the 13th century – a vivid personal relationship. He wept at Mass, and would often rest his head against the tabernacle begging for inspiration. At the end of his life after completing his masterpiece, he places the text about the eucharist at the foot of the cross, and it said that a voice came from the cross saying: “Thomas, you’ve written well of me. What would you have as a reward: I will have nothing except you Lord.” His great work has three parts: 1) About God and Creation 2) About human being and our moral life 3) About incarnation, Christ and the Sacraments. The last part he wrote is about the Eucharist. Baptism is the generation of Life. Confirmation is the augmentation of life. Communion is food of the life. Eucharist has three names in time 1 Past: Sacrifice
2 Present: Communion with Christ
3 future Viaticum the great name is Eucharistia. Thanks giving which is what we will do in heaven.
Transubstantiation comes from Thomas. Substance is the deepest and core reality of something. When I speak of substance, I mean the deepest reality what something is. What stands under. What does it stand under? Accidents Appearance or Species
like spectacle. What you see.
In the act of Consecration, the substance of bread and wine change into the Body and Blood of Jesus even as the appearances (species) of Bread and Wine remain. This is how we bring John 6 forward. The senses perceive bread and wine. The change comes at the level of substance not appearances. The disciples on their way to Emmaus see everything, but they don’t get it. They do not understand. If all we understand is what we see, we are lost.
There was a great 16th century Protestant/Catholic debate. Luther did not like Thomas Aquinas. Luther saw an addition to the bread. To speak in a general way, Protestants do not believe in transubstantion. The Council at Trent addressed the issue in response. 11 canons (summaries) Canon One: If anyone were to deny that the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity is contained truly and really substantially as a symbol – let them be condemned. We are to say that the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity is contained real, true and substantially not in sign or figure.
How does Christ become really present? Trent says, By the power of the Word. The words do not just describe reality. Language can also be active and transformative. Not just expressive or descriptive. A Baseball word changes reality: “You’re out”. Sometimes someone says something to us that changes your whole life. That’s creative and transformative. Or something the other way around something hurtful changes us for years. Our little words can change reality – think of God’s word! How does God make the world? By the power of a Word Speech! God’s word is not descriptive it is creative.
God speaks the world into being. In the beginning there was the Word – the Word became flesh, and What God says IS. Lazars come out! Pick up your mat and walk. What God says IS. The night before he dies he took bread and said THIS IS MY BODY. Notice at Mass how the language changes. This stuns me every time I pick up that host. The priest begins in the third person: “He Took Bread, said the Blessing, broke it and gave to them saying…” Then it changes into the First person. We speak in persona Christi. With this final wandering away from Luke into John, we can see how closely the theology of the Gospels weave together the core of our faith resting upon the revelation given to us by each of the evangelists. Let me conclude by repeating what our Holy Father Francis has been saying over and over again as he allows the Holy Spirit to reshape this church of ours. Evangelization is what we do and evangelists is what we are by the command of Jesus and will of the Father. What Francis is reminding us over and over again is the evangelization is not a matter of words, or saying the right thing, or convincing someone by argument. Evangelization is a quality of life. People are won over to Jesus Christ not by arguments from history or propositions from a Catechism, but by actions of believing people. People came to Jesus because of what he did before they heard him say anything. People still today will be won over by the heart before the brain. Our study of the Sacred Scriptures, our study and knowledge of St Luke’s Gospel is to open our hearts so that we might live this gospel not preach it, because people will see what we do long before they hear what we say, and in the end what we say must come from the heart.
We can’t go any further into Advent without the presence and the voice of that man whose voice cried out in the wilderness. His voice is heard at a time when Rome held all the power, when Rome’s foot was on Israel’s neck. In that list of the powerful Luke includes two whose names might make us shudder because of the violence and deaths they will cause. Herod and Pilot are the names that in these opening verses give us a reminder of what is to come, because we know the end of the story. None the less, John’s voice comes like a trumpet blast out of the wilderness right into time, into history, right into reality. His voice proclaims that God is coming, and that God not only came in the past, and is not only to come in the future, but that God comes now into every moment in every age. Never mind the power of Herod and Pilot, never mind the power of that great Roman Legion, a greater one is coming.
Having begun with a list of rulers who could not bring salvation, wholeness, and peace. John announces the coming of one who can and who will bring salvation, wholeness and peace. Just because their power and their numbers overwhelmed the people of Israel, that absence of all-out war was far from real peace.
If we listen very carefully, John is not so much announcing someone as he proclaiming something. He proclaims that salvation has come, and it is for salvation that all people must prepare, and the way to prepare for Salvation is repentance and conversion. He proclaims that healing will come, but the healer must be recognized and people must come to him. He proclaims a season of peace, and it is a peace that can only come from reconciliation and love.
John is in the desert, not in Jerusalem where his father, a priest, Zechariah, would be found. John is in that place where Israel crossed over from wilderness of sin to the promise of God’s faithfulness. He calls for another Passover. Like the desert days of old Israel, John calls for repentance, for conversion, inviting those who listen to experience what he has experienced, the freedom of knowing that God is about to do something great with them.
That message is proclaimed today in this place to each of us. God is about to do something great, greater than ever before. To experience that and for God to find us, we must come out of the desert to meet the Lamb of God. There must be about us a constant spirit of change, of growth, of repentance. Acknowledging our sin, accepting the truth of our weakness and failures, we can become what God has called us to be through the power of the Holy Spirit. We are not called to be a passive mob of bystanders watching from the sidelines as the world spins past. We are called by John, by grace, by Jesus, by the Holy Spirit to be the spark that changes this world, the fuel of a real “metanoia” as the first language of the Gospel describes it. Metanoia means: “Beyond (meta) the mind (noia). In other words, the change, the metanoia expected of us is far more than an intellectual affair. It is an experience of letting ourselves be lured beyond what we know, beyond our small thinking and any notion that things will just always be this way. They will either get worse, or they will get better because we have done something about it. Metanoia is a new vision of life in which we live with joy every day, secure in the knowledge that God is with us, that Christ as come, and that Christ will come again.
We are at Chapter 19 of Luke’s Gospel now as the Journey ends and Jesus enters Jerusalem. In the 28th verse Luke writes: “After he had said this, he went on ahead going up to Jerusalem.” I am going to tell you right now at the beginning that this third part of Luke’s Gospel wore me out, and I am here to admit failure because I could not squeeze all of the material that makes up the Jerusalem Ministry, the Passion, and the Resurrection into one talk. So, I propose that you harass Colleen into scheduling a fourth session. Perhaps sometime near the end of Lent for some study of Luke’s Resurrection Narrative. It might be a good way to enter into Holy Week and Easter.
Since I studied the Gospel of Luke at Saint Meinrad Seminary and in a summer course at University of Leuven, forty years have passed. In that time, a great deal of research and scholarship has uncovered more about this Gospel than I first learned. So, this experience has been something of a new discovery for me too. Tonight, there will be two parts. The first part should be called, “The Ministry in Jerusalem”. The second part would then be, “The Passion and Death of Christ”. Sometime in the future, God willing, we can study the Resurrection of Christ.
Part one contains Chapter 19 into 21, and it all takes place in the Temple area. This piece of Luke’s Gospel sets it apart from Matthew and Mark because of the central importance of Jerusalem and the Temple for Luke’s understanding of the fulfillment of prophecy, the end of the ministry of Jesus, and the mission of the church. The other Gospels do not focus on the Temple and Jerusalem as clearly as does Luke. In the other two Gospels, you could get the sense that had Jesus not been killed in Jerusalem, he would have returned to Galilee. In fact, the risen Jesus tells his disciples to meet him there. Not with Luke. Jerusalem has been the destination all along, and the disciples are to remain there until they receive the Holy Spirit. At the same time however, “Jerusalem” is not really a geographical location. The real destination for Jesus, and for that matter, for all of us, is God. That’s where he is going with this Journey. As a place, Jerusalem and the Temple are where God and humankind meet.
We have no idea how long Jesus ministered in Jerusalem. The Church compressed this period into eight days, but there is every reason to believe that the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem was not for Passover, but more likely for the Feast of Tabernacles which occurs in the fall. It’s the harvest feast. The whole business with Palm Branches with the other Gospels is a hint that this could be the Feast of Tabernacles when the Hebrew people cut branches to make “huts” out in the fields where they stayed during the harvest. So, the stay of Jesus in Jerusalem may have been much longer that the one week we have imagined. The Church, that’s us, has over time compressed all three Gospel accounts into one image of the event. If you are not careful, this can be a problem when reading Luke, because there is not one mention of palm branches. Luke’s orderly account shifts to Passover so that everything will fit together.
The scene opens on Mount Olivet near Bethany which is less than two miles east of the city. The whole role of the disciples is important to notice. They get a colt. They set Jesus on the colt. The disciples call him the King who comes in the name of the Lord. There is sense that the whole city came out as a crowd. Jesus is honored and praised by his followers. This is not a group who turns on him days later demanding his crucifixion. Luke’s version is less crowded and more subdued. It is of and for believers. The meaning comes from their faith in Jesus. It does not mean that they got it all right, but at this point, they are moving in that direction.
There is not one Hosanna in Luke’s Gospel. That word and the use of palm branches was used for parades with nationalistic overtones. None of that here. There is nothing said about David or his throne either. Luke seems to be carefully writing this so as to give Pilate nothing to use in accusation. So, the Temple is the place where things get focused now. Luke’s Gospel began with the Temple and it ends with the Temple. Zechariah is in the Temple when it is announced to him that John the Baptist would be born. At the end, the disciples are in the Temple. As Luke tells us in Acts, the Christians are attending the temple together every day. Luke seems to respect and perhaps admire the Temple, that may be why his description of Jesus cleansing is more brief than the other Gospels. He purifies the Temple so that it can be the place of his own ministry. His attack is not on the system, but on excesses.
As this section at the Temple heats up with controversy, it might help to know who’s who. We keep hearing about the “Chief Priests, Scribes, Sadducees, Sanhedrin, Elders, and Pharisees. It’s important to sort them out. At the time of Jesus, two religio/political parties within Judaism were represented in the “Sanhedrin”. So, the Sanhedrin was a council with about 70 members composed of High Priests past and present from the priestly families. It included also the Elders who were the tribal and family heads of the people, and the Scribes who were the legal professionals.
The majority of the members were the Sadducees and the Pharisees were the minority. Caiaphas, the priest we hear about here was a Sadducee. But, most of the scribes were Pharisees. The presiding officer of this council was usually the high priest. The council was the highest court of appeal. Therefore, the Sanhedrin’s authority was broad and far-reaching, involving legislation, administration, and justice. There was religious, civil and criminal jurisdiction. At the time of Jesus, the council had lost to the Roman governor the power of capital punishment. The council met every day except on Sabbath and feast days in rooms next to the Temple. In extraordinary cases, the council met at the house of the High Priest. One of the responsibilities of the Sanhedrin was the identification and confirmation of the Messiah. In fact, we read in the gospel that they sent a delegation to John the Baptist asking if he was the Messiah. There were about a dozen false Messiahs running around during the first part of this century deceiving the people making more important the responsibility of the Sanhedrin to sort it out. This is why Jesus eventually comes in contact with them.
The “Chief Priests” were drawn mainly from the ranks of the Sadducees. One of them was always the “High Priest”. We know that at the time of Jesus Caiaphas was the High Priest. His father-in-law was Annas also called, “High Priest” and he was the real power behind the high priesthood. The Jews saw the High Priesthood as an office for life. The Romans did not, and they picked and chose High Priests from time to time, probably to keep the whole system from getting too powerful. Since he was still living, Annas was really the senior at the time which is why Jesus is first brought to Annas during his trial.
The Sadducees were really the “ruling class” They represented the aristocracy making peace quickly with the Romans to secure their privileges, wealth, and influence. They were educated, wealthy and held themselves aloof, with the result that they were not popular. Jesus was a threat to them and the status quo. Their functions were associated with the Temple and the cultic actions that took place there. They maintained the place. This gave them a great deal of authority. They collected taxes, mediated domestic disputes and regulated relations with the Romans.
The Pharisees were associated with the Synagogue which made them more associated with the common people in contrast to the Sadducees. They were considered to be the experts in the Jewish law. They interpreted the Torah liberally, and they believed in the resurrection of the dead in the future, the existence of angels and demons, all meaning they believed in an afterlife. This is contrary to the Sadducees. They were devout laymen, not priests. Where they conflicted with Jesus was over their hyper attention to the minutiae of the Law forgetting about the intention of the law.
It is there that controversy really heats up, and “authority” is one of the hot spots in the controversy. Anything going on in the Temple is under the control of the Priests who are from the tribe of Levi. God appointed them as priests, and the Temple is their turf. Jesus is not a Levite, but he is teaching in the Temple as though it was a synagogue where the lay people are in charge. Those in charge confront him with three questions. The first is about his authority. “Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin?” Luke then says: “They discussed it with one another, saying, if we say, From Heaven, he will say, “why did you not believe him? But if we say, “Of human origin, all the people will stone us; for they are convinced that John was a prophet. So, they answered that they did not know where it came from.” With that, Jesus tells the crowd a parable about the Wicked Tenants. It is a parable about these Priests and Scribes, but he tells it to the crowd in their presence, and they get the point. No doubt even more angry, they come at Jesus with a second question. This one is about Taxes, and you know the answer he gives: “Render to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.” It is a complicated response, because it’s not always easy to separate the two then or now. The third and final question concerns the Resurrection of the Dead. They are not asking a theological question. Their purpose is to argue or embarrass Jesus or force him into one school of thought or the other. It is a classic “what if” question. In his response, he just further angers them. His response comes from reason, or common sense, that conditions in this life do not constitute proof of conditions in the next, and then from scripture when he quotes Exodus 3:6 for the belief in the resurrection of the dead. His response ends up dividing his opposition because some of the scribes approve of his answer and begin to speak highly of him.
With Chapter 21 Luke resorts to a new style of Literature, “apocalyptic.” As a kind of literature, it deals with revelation or a series of revelations usually by an angel which discloses a supernatural world beyond the world of historical events. The focus is on the end of the world as we now experience it and the beginning of a new world. In Luke’s Gospel, the apocalypses join historical events with descriptions of what is going on behind and beyond history. Often major historical crises triggered apocalyptic thinking like the destruction of Jerusalem. It is that historical event that triggers the Lukan apocalyptic writing of Chapter 21. What’s going on in the writing is mixed with what is really going on in history. It is laced with symbols, signs, and mysterious figures of speech. It is a remarkable witness to the faith of those who write this way. Amid painful and prolonged suffering, when there can be seen on the horizon no relief from disaster, faith turns its face toward heaven not only for a revelation of God’s will but also for a vision of the end of the present misery and the beginning of the age to come.
In this chapter, Luke describes the destruction of the Temple and Jerusalem which had happened fifteen or twenty years before he wrote the Gospel. He seems to be concerned that believers not interpret the fall of Jerusalem as a sign the world is ending, and he continues to insist that the question of “When” is not answered because it is unknown. What Luke does through all of this apocalyptic scene is establish that the present time is the time for “testimony.” Chapter 21, 12-19 “But before all this occurs they will arrest you and persecute you; they will hand you over to the synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors because of my name. This will give you an opportunity to testify. So, make up your minds not to prepare your defense in advance for I will gives you words and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to withstand or contradict. You will be betrayed even by parents and brothers, by relatives and friends and they will put some of you to death. You will be hated by all because of my name. But not a hair of your head will perish. By your endurance you will gain your souls.” Luke goes on to remind the church that the Son of Man will return. He tells a parable of the Fig Tree as a reminder that the church should be watching for the signs. In other words, living with hope. With one final word of caution, the Lukan Jesus instructs the faithful to be on guard, and not be overcome with worries of this life. “Be alert” he says “praying that you may have the strength to escape all these things and stand before the Son of Man.” We should pay attention to the title Jesus uses for himself. With the last two verses of Chapter 21, the public ministry of Jesus is complete. It ends beautifully: “Every day he was teaching in the temple, and at night he would go out and spend the night on the Mount of Olives, as it was called. And all the people would get up early in the morning to listen to him in the Temple.”
Luke’s method of presenting the final instructions of Jesus for these apostles is the Supper. He shapes the tradition in the form of a farewell meal with a leader his followers. Luke’s Supper Narrative is three times as long as Mark and Matthew, and it is much less foreboding. There are words of warning, instruction and encouragement. There is a prediction about the apostles and Peter, but the tone is much more positive so that the conversation at the supper is tilted toward victory, where the disciples will sit on thrones in the kingdom of Jesus and Simon Peter will turn and strengthen his brothers. Unique to Luke is the inclusion of the betrayer at the table. In Luke, Judas is there till the end of the meal, but it is important to notice that Judas is never named until the arrest scene. In Matthew and Mark, he departs earlier. By including Judas in sharing the bread and wine, Luke emphasizes the forgiveness extends to tax collectors, a dying thief, soldiers with nails and hammers, and even Judas. What is perhaps important to Luke is that Judas not only betrays, but he breaks the covenant in the body and blood of Jesus. That is the issue.
There are two other interesting details in Luke’s reporting of the Supper. There are two cups. Listen to chapter 22 beginning at verse 14. “Then he took a cup, and after giving thanks, he said, ‘Take this and divide it among yourselves; for I tell you that from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.’ Then he took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying ‘This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’ And he did the same with the cup after supper, saying, ‘This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.’” Research into this chapter suggests that Luke may have blended two oral traditions: one had the cup before the bread and another has two cups. The two-cup tradition associates this more closely to the Passover tradition which seems to be Luke’s purpose because the Passover Lamb was not a sin offering. The Passover lamb was the seal of a covenant, and the Passover meal commemorated that covenant offered to the believers by a God who sets free. This is the focus for Luke, liberation; not the forgiveness of sins. For the Hebrew people the forgiveness of sins was a completely different ritual. It had nothing to do with Passover. Luke’s concern here is not with forgiveness, but with unity in the covenant. Those who share in this covenant are joined to one another, life to life, as signified and sealed in the cup divided among themselves.
In this chapter, Luke takes an incident the other Gospels report earlier and inserts it into the occasion of this meal. That incident is the dispute about greatness. By including that here as well as by having Judas remain through the meal, Luke speaks very strong words to the church for which he is writing and for the church today. Betrayal of Christ has occurred and will occur among those who partake of the Lord’s Supper. Then, by taking the dispute from an earlier setting and putting it into the setting of the Supper, he takes what could be an historical event and makes it more than an ugly moment in history to a very real and present exhortation to those who share the table. Love of place and power was a problem for the first followers of Jesus, and it continues to be so. The instructions and the meal conclude with a dire warning about the danger and the threats that lie ahead. The disciples get the point. They know they are no longer in Galilee where welcoming crowds were everywhere. They are now in Jerusalem where danger is everywhere. Jesus contrasts the first sending of the disciples where they had great success without him to the coming time when they will be on their own and rather than success, there will be violence because the charges against him will spread to them. They respond to danger by instinct, sword for sword, weapon for weapon, blow for blow; that is, prepare for danger by becoming dangerous. This is, of course, not the way of Jesus, and Luke ends the whole report of the supper with powerful words of Jesus reacting to this sword talk: “It is enough.” With that, he goes off to pray in the garden.
With verse 39 in Chapter 22, the Passion Narrative begins. I think it is helpful to think of, pray with, and study over the Passion as if it were a Drama in Four Acts.
Act 1 has two scenes: Prayer and Arrest.
There are two verses in this chapter 22 that may have been added by a scribe later on because they are not present in the earliest manuscripts. They are 33 and 34 which go like this: “Then an angel from heaven appeared to him and gave him strength. In his anguish he prayed earnestly, and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down on the ground.”Without those verses, Luke does not portray Jesus in anguish, wrestling for hours with the will of God. The scene is more like the other occasions of Jesus in prayer. Luke does not portray Jesus in distress. He is much more in command, and he simply instructs his disciples to pray by way of an anticipating accompaniment to his own prayer. This Jesus is so at peace with God that he cannot be distraught by the sufferings that are inflicted on him. It is as though Luke would have Jesus revealed as a model to Christian sufferers and martyrs. Certainly, what Luke wants to do here is present Jesus as a model for all his followers in his prayer life and in the way he confronts a crises. In Luke, Jesus is always a man of prayer, and the prayer of Jesus at this point has a striking similarity to the prayer he taught the disciples. Luke has a couple of details not found in the other Gospels. Matthew and Mark have great details, and John omits the prayer scene entirely. Let me list the difference of things unique to Luke.
This scene which we commonly call, “The Agony in the Garden” is the shortest of the Gospels.
It takes place on the Mount of Olives, the place where Jesus had been staying. Mark & Matthew place it in Gethsemane. John simply says, “a garden.”
There are not 3 disciples in Luke. They are all asked to pray
Jesus comes to them only once, not three times and Luke explains that they were sleeping because of sorrow which softens the reprimand. He is not scolding or complaining.
Luke has Jesus kneel in prayer not fall to the ground.
For Luke, the coming of that angel is all that Jesus needs for strength, and that is the answer to his prayer. With that, he goes to the sleeping disciples only one time and he is, as I’ve said several times, gentle with them.
The best of the scholars believe that early Christians had a tradition that before he died Jesus struggled in prayer about his fate. No one knows whether they retained or claimed to retain accurate memories of the wording he used; more probably they did not. But they understood his prayer with terms like “the hour” and “the cup”, which in the tradition of his sayings he had used to describe his destiny in God’s plan. Each evangelist knew different forms of that tradition, and each developed it differently.
Now the second Scene, “The Arrest”. Luke again is consistently kinder to the apostles than the other Gospels. There is no suggestion that Judas planned to kiss Jesus. There is no young man who runs away, and the healing of the severed ear shows us a Jesus who is still gentle and healing even with those who would do him harm. In this scene, the presence of the “Chief Priests” and captains of the Temple and elders is unique to Luke. The whole episode in Luke is brief. It is only the third time in Luke’s Gospel that Luke mentions Judas: in the naming of the 12, and in chapter 22 when Luke tells us that Satan had entered him, and finally here when Jesus address Judas directly. There is about it an intimacy that some scholars suggest is one last attempt to touch the heart of Judas. Luke never tells us that Judas actually kissed Jesus. It is Jesus who brings that up in their confrontation, and it’s almost as if Jesus was refusing. Luke explains the decision of Judas by saying that Satan had entered Judas, and Luke is the only Gospel that says that. It would seem that this is Luke’s way of referring back to the Temptation scene at the beginning of the Gospel when he says that Satan would return. Only John’s Gospel has Jesus speaking to the arresting crowd about his disciples. In John, he insists that the disciples should not be arrested. In Luke’s Gospel, they simply disperse without any suggestion that they ran away out of fear. Luke is always protecting the disciples. Then, Jesus is taken to the Sanhedrin at the house of the High Priest. End of Act One.
Act Two
In Luke there are four trials
Sanhedrin
Pilate
Herod
Pilate. (Other Gospels have only three) This is a direct parallel to the trials of St Paul. There were four for him.
The first is the religious trial. The interrogation of Jesus begins. In the midst of it, Luke has Peter’s three denials all at once while Mark splits them up into different times. All of this happens in the night. In the morning Jesus is before the assembly of the elders with chief priests and scribes present. Two questions make up this interrogation, and the issue is his identity.
Are you the Messiah?
Are you the Son of God?
This is a preliminary trial to establish cause. Luke says nothing about false witnesses. The only witness is Jesus himself who answers their questions by simply saying: “You say that I am”. They do not condemn Jesus to death. Closes Act Two
Act Three
Chapter 23 and what I like to call, Act Three begins with the second trial before Pilate. This is the civil trial. Luke, different from the other reports adds that the “Council” sends him to Pilate with three charges.
This is a good example of Luke’s effort to be “More Orderly” as he promised in the opening of the Gospel. It’s also interesting that these charges are the same charges raised against St Paul when he is brought before the prefect Felix in the 24th chapter of Acts. The charges:
We found this man perverting our nation
Forbidding us to pay Taxes to the emperor
Saying that he is the Messiah, a king.
Pilate has no interest in two of these charges, but he is focused on the last one. He asks the question: “Are you the King of the Jews?” And Jesus answers Pilate exactly the same way he answered the Sanhedrin. Pilate finds no guilt, and when he says so, the accusers insist that Jesus has been stirring up trouble in Galilee, a place that at the time was a hot-bed of revolution. With this, we have a major piece unique to Luke. Pilate sends Jesus to Herod who happened to be in Jerusalem at the time and had expressed interest in seeing Jesus. The trial before Herod is unique to Luke. Again, Jesus is found not guilty by the Jewish ruler and he is sent back for the fourth trial. This is a sequence that makes Pilate want to set Jesus free. The same pattern is found in Acts of the Apostles with Paul being sent by the Roman Governor to Herod Agippa II only to have Paul found not guilty. It is at the court of Herod that Jesus is mocked and robed. In Luke, there is no explanation about a custom of releasing a prisoner. Probably because Luke, who knew a lot about Roman customs did not think it was true. Luke simply has the people wanting to make a trade. Jesus for Barabbas. Act Three ends with Jesus being “handed over” as they wished.
Act Four, Scene One.
Luke has four additions not found in other Gospels at this time.
Lamenting women
Prayer of Jesus for his crucifiers
Mocking of Jesus on the Cross (Authorities, Soldiers, Crucified Thief) Notice the pattern of 3. That pattern shows up a lot in Luke’s Gospel. There were three “Not Guilty” statements as well. Missing in this scene are Mark’s “Bystanders” since Luke is always careful to see the Jewish people in a favorable light.
After the death of Jesus, Luke adds a note that the crowd of bystanders were striking their breasts, the Centurion and the women at a distance (another Triad).
The Christology of Jesus in Luke is very striking. The Jesus he presents to us is Divine, the Son of God. Therefore, while Mark has Jesus praying psalm 22 “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” Luke has Jesus praying Psalm 31 “Father into your hands I commend my Spirit.” Luke gives us a Jesus who is at peace with himself. The final substitution Luke adds is to have the Centurion call Jesus a “Just Man” rather than “The Son of God” which is what Mark adds.
Luke views the killing of Jesus as a martyrdom, the unjust murder of an innocent man by the authorities which is a model for disciples. Luke avoids any connection between the death of Jesus and the forgiveness of sins. For Luke, the forgiveness of sins comes from the Risen Christ. For Luke, Jesus stands at the end of a long line of martyr/prophets just as the prophets of old were all murdered. For Luke this death is the fulfillment of prophesies. In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus dies quietly, full of trust, a model for Christian martyrs to follow. That calm assurance at death was enough to convince the centurion of the innocence of Jesus. Instead of saying, “Truly this man was the Son of God”. Luke’s centurion confirms once more what we all know: “Certainly this man was innocent.” With that, I will stop for now. Sometime as we near Holy week, we can take up Act Four Scene Two: “The Burial of Jesus”
