Luke’s Story Picture of Jesus.
Isaiah 61: 10 – 62: 3; Luke 2: 21 – 40
Sometimes to run true to God is to run foul of the people.
Bishop Tom Wright describes watching a lead light craftsperson setting the led frame for a stained glass window in the Cathedral. The lead lighter carefully laid out the frame for the beautiful glass he had prepared. The lead lighter used a rainbow of colour to vividly tell a story.
Writers are like that too. Luke does what a lead lighter does – he sets out the frame for a window on the story of Jesus. In this instance the frame is not made of lead but the ritual events surrounding the birth of a Jewish boy. After eight days he is circumcised and later there is a purification ceremony. This is the frame for the coloured glass of the story so to speak. How would you have depicted this child born to be God’s king? Luke chooses sombre colours rather than the vivid colours of royalty and power. Luke’s colours convey the very opposite power and royal splendour.
If Jesus comes as the ‘Prince of Peace’ and ‘God’s Son’ he is not painted with the colours of power and glory usually associated with kingly rule. If Jesus is the Son of God his power is not like Caesar’s. Luke is warning his readers that Jesus is not like an earthly ruler ruling with power and glory. He does this by putting Simeon and Anna in the forefront. They are his sombre and penetrating colours. Both remind us strongly that Jesus enters a suffering world and will confront the suffering and injustice.
Simeon is waiting for the redemption of the world and the consolation of the Jewish people. Simeon longs to see an end to his people’s suffering. They have suffered long under the rule of foreign powers and currently under the strong-armed rule of Rome. Simeon’s desire to see the end of the suffering is also to see the beginning of God’s justice. Simeon for us represents the suffering people of this world looking for help to rise above the injustice and suffering. Anna to is also sufferer. She was widowed after seven years of marriage and never married again. It seems she is childless as well. She became a prophet residing in the temple hoping like Simeon for restoration of Israel. Both come out of the tradition and family of Judaism.
What Simeon says to Joseph and Mary is significant. He says that this baby Jesus, recently circumcised and named Jesus, will suffer for the people. To Mary he says, “This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed—and a sword will pierce your own soul too.”
Simeon also says that Jesus comes not only to rescue the Jews but to be a light to the Gentiles as well. So the Holy Family hear these prophets speak of their son in the most devout and esteemed terms for any Jew. This is God’s special child who will not live a life of pomp and wealth but a life of suffering. He will rescue his people and the Gentiles will turn to God as well. Isaiah’s prophecies also speak of a ‘suffering servant’.
So Luke unfolds the story of Jesus’ birth with a somber picture of the salvation of Israel and the world through suffering. Jesus will come to the suffering and heal them and liberate them, but he too will suffer it seems as Isaiah depicted.
Luke wants his readers to understand Jesus’ role is different to that of earthly kings, and that Jesus’ kingdom encompasses the world. Luke prepares his readers to understand that Jesus’ glory is the defeat of sin through pure love that leads to the redemption of all. So after the happy birth of a Saviour born to be King we are reminded that the weight of the world rests upon this child’s shoulders.
There are two further things to note in this word picture that Luke paints. Firstly we see the characters surrounding the Christ-child. There are the young parents facing the future with their boy-child. There are the two old persons in their sunset years with hopes and dreams for a better world. One an old priest devout and no doubt a family man. There is the lonely widow devoutly waiting and praying for the Messiah. Luke draws readers of every age and stage into this story and does not avoid the reality of this child’s suffering role for the world.
Secondly, Luke has told this story concerning another person who winds her way through this sombrely coloured scene of suffering and hope. It is the wind of the Spirit blowing through the avenues of life. We are told that the Spirit rested on Simeon [2:25]; that the Spirit had told Simeon he would not die until he had seen the Messiah [2:26]; and, that Simeon was guided into the Temple at the time when the purification rite of Jesus and his mother took place [2:27]. We are left no doubt of the role of Jesus and power of the Holy Spirit at work.
I suggest there are three lessons for us.
Firstly, that Jesus is the Lord of life who comes to us to suffer for and with us. Jesus shows that through his suffering evil is destroyed. You may have noticed that I am fond of this phrase – Jesus suffers for and with us. The suffering of Jesus has two significant features. Firstly, the easier one to understand is that God identifies with us in coming in human form. God clothed in human flesh tells us that God is for us – Emmanuel. God identifies with us. That was the point of Kierkegaard’s parable of the ‘Prince and the Maiden’ I told on Christmas Day. The prince can only be sure that a lowly born maiden can truly love him if descends to her status in life and he gives up his royalty. That is what Jesus did.
The second feature is that Christ Jesus suffers for us. He takes on the role of defeating the power of sin and evil. Jesus doesn’t do this by paying the price of sin – death. The Christian thinker Anselm developed this concept. Rather Jesus does for us what Christ Jesus can only do – he confronts evil with love. He refuses to use violence to destroy evil. Jesus knows, as we do too, that violence only begets violence. Jesus knows that love will ultimately destroy violence. He not only knows this but also confronts the evil use of force of the authorities of Rome and Judaism with love. In so doing love prevails. His self-giving love ultimately destroys their power and liberates all who will follow Jesus.
Secondly, Jesus comes to all and for all. Jesus has not come for the elite prophets, priests and devout Israelites but the common person and the suffering ones. Jesus comes not only to Jerusalem but also to the whole human race and creation itself, because through the redemption of humans creation will be saved.
Thirdly, nothing can be accomplished with out the inspiration and guidance of the Holy Spirit. I long for a Church that takes seriously the Holy Spirit and develops that sensitivity to the Spirit, for without the Holy Spirit we achieve nothing of eternal substance.
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Peter C Whitaker, Leighmoor UC: 31/12/2017
/ www.leighmoorunitingchurch.org.au
New Years benediction
May the God who gave us this year
and the Saviour who walked at our side each day
and the Spirit who filled us with life abundant,
grace the coming year with peace and hope and joy,
Amen.
