Servants like Him (Thoughts on the Gospel of Luke)

Bro. Rudolf Rijkeboer

 

Introduction

In Luke’s gospel there is an expression describing the reaction of the shepherds in the fields near Bethlehem, saying ‘and they were sore afraid’ (Luke 2:9). The original text in fact has ‘they feared with great fear’, and this expression was as such adopted in the Dutch translation. It has, in fact, become a standard expression in our language. The background of this strange way of saying is the fact that the Hebrew language does not have superlatives. Hence expressions like ‘the holy of holies’ (which the AV correctly translates as ‘the most holy place’, but which the Dutch also adopted literally) and the ‘the song of songs’ (which the Dutch correctly translates as the ‘high-song’, but which the AV adopted literally). But … this is the NT, which was written in Greek. And the Greek language does have superlatives! The explanation is then that here we have a so-called Hebraism, a Hebrew idiom in a Greek text. You may find that in the text of a Jewish author, who writes Greek but thinks in Hebrew. But … this is Luke, who was a Greek, not a Jew! But for sure this is a Hebraism, so how did it land in his text? May I make a suggestion? He is quoting here an eyewitness, and that eyewitness was Jewish.

 

Luke the gospel writer

Luke was not an eyewitness himself. He stresses this in his introduction:

Many have undertaken to draw up an account … just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses … Therefore, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, it seemed good also to me to write an orderly account” (Luke 1:1-3, NIV).

But in this he also indicates that basing your account on people who were eyewitnesses is the way to do it. So apparently that is what he did. We know that he was with Paul when they arrived in Jerusalem to deliver the money for the poor of the brotherhood living there. And we also know that he was again with him two years later, when he was sent from Ceasarea to Rome as a prisoner. It is generally assumed that Luke used those two years in Judea to search out his sources and interview them. So we ought not to be surprised when we find the traces of that process in his gospel.

 

Who was the eyewitness?

But then the next question is: who was that eyewitness of Luke 2:9? One of the shepherds? Could be, of course. But how would he have known about the incident in the first place (no other gospelwriter has that story), and where would you find that man? I have another suggestion: Mary. Surely he would have started with her. And if she was still alive, it would be well-known where she could be found. Would she be still alive? If we assume that she was not beyond 20 at Jesus’ birth, she would have been roughly between 80 and 85 by then. That is old, but not impossible. And she would have been only too pleased to tell her story, now that she was approaching the end of her life. Sure, she was not there with the shepherds, but they had told it all (Luke 2:17). And we read: “But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart” (vs 19). How would Luke know that, other than from herself?

 

The synoptic gospels

We know that each gospel writer tells his own story. And that Matthew and Luke make use of the earlier gospel of Mark. Mark starts with the ministry of John the Baptist. Matthew precedes that with a genealogy of Joseph (the line of ‘legal’ successors to the throne of David), God’s command to Joseph to take Mary as his wife, notwithstanding her pregnancy ( so that the inheritance of the throne could pass on to her child), the arrival of the wise men to honour the newborn king, the struggle for power (i.e. Herod’s attempt to get this ‘rival’ out of the way), followed by the flight to Egypt. That all has to do with Matthew’s purpose to present Jesus as the promised king.

 

But Luke precedes the ministry of John the Baptist with the announcements of the births of John and Jesus, their actual births, the Songs of Praise of Mary and Zacharias, the presentation of the newborn Jesus in the temple, and the first visit of the 12-year old Jesus to the temple. These are all incidents that Mary would know about (she visited Zacharias and Elisabeth at the time of John’s birth, Luke 1:39 vv), but which we find nowhere else. And a couple of times we read that she ‘kept these things in her heart’. Obviously this is her story.

 

The purpose of Luke’s gospel

As I already indicated: each gospel writer wants to teach us something. He tells us a story that he has assembled from a wealth of available material. That story must make his message clear. Incidents that do not contribute to that purpose he leaves out, for he is not writing an historical account, or a biography, but a gospel. John, e.g., writes:

“And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book: But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name” (John 20:30-31).

And he clearly tells us that for that purpose he made a selection from all that material, and why:

“And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written” (John 21:25).

He is not telling us that this globe would not be big enough to act as a bookcase for all those books. ‘World’ here is kosmos, the society, and ‘contain’ rather means ‘to take in’. If everything would have been included, the reader would not see the wood for the trees, and completely miss the actual message. So he had to select, and so had Luke.

 

Let me give an example. In Luke we find the story of Jairus, who desperately hurries to Jesus, begging Him to heal his daughter who is dying. But when Jesus starts going He is held up by the woman with the issue of blood. Then happens what Jairus had feared: one of his servants comes with the message ‘your daughter has died, don’t bother the teacher any more’ (8:49, NIV). In Luke’s account we can feel Jairus’ despair. If only Jesus had made more haste. That woman’s case was not urgent, but for his daughter it had been a case of ‘every minute counting’. And that is the point where Jesus exhorts him to have faith: ‘don’t be afraid; just believe. She will be healed’ (vs 50). Luke’s gospel is the gospel spelling out the requirements of discipleship, and Jairus must learn to have faith. And to show it.

 

Matthew writes his gospel to emphasise Jesus kingship. Hence he gives us a shorter version of this incident. There we find nothing about Jairus’ impatience, followed by his utter disappointment when all seems to have been lost. For the emphasis is not on him, but on the fact that Jesus is also Lord over death. So we do not read that his daughter is still alive when he comes to Jesus, and that only on the way home he is told that she died. And consequently Jairus question in Matthew’s account is “My daughter is even now dead: but come and lay thy hand upon her, and she shall live” (Matt 9:18). By our standards this is incorrect, for actually she was still alive at that time. And Luke’s account clearly shows that Jairus assumed that Jesus could only heal her as long as she was still alive. But that is not how we should read the Bible. It is not a modern police account of a traffic accident. For Matthew’s message it does not matter when exactly she died; what matters is Jesus’ power to raise her again. So he does not hesitate to modify Jairus’ request somewhat so as not to distract our attention from the aspect that does matter. Just like he started his gospel with that struggle for power between Herod and God’s newborn king.

 

The quotations

But that is of course the very reason why we do not find a word about that flight into Egypt in Luke’s gospel. It is simply not part of his message. So it reads as if his parents go from Bethlehem straight back to Nazareth. That is not an omission in his account, as some would have it, for (as I said before) he does not write history or a biography. He simply omits what is not needed.

 

But if ‘Luke’ is the gospel of discipleship, why does he pay so much attention to that presentation of the newborn child in the temple. For that cannot be intended as adding historical details, or to give Mary a chance to tell her story in ‘a real gospel’. He must have seen something important there, as must have Mary herself, for she still remembers the occasion with a lot of detail 60 years on. And why that emphasis on the shepherds? Let’s take a look at those two scenes.

 

First those shepherds. We read that the first angel had said: “Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord” (Luke 2:10-11). That term ‘christ’ (anointed one) will not have surprised Mary, for that was what the angel Gabriel had already told her. But that word ‘saviour’? It often indicated the saving of God’s people in the book of Judges. But also God as their ‘redeemer’ in the book of Isaiah. And the bringing of those ‘good tidings’ is euangelizō, which (in the Greek of the Septuagint) Isaiah uses in Isa 52:7:

“How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that pulisheth peace; that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth!”

And the singing of the angels was: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men” (Luke 2:14). That too sounded very like Isaiah. No wonder that people were amazed when the shepherds told them that. But Mary “kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart”

 

And then that visit to the temple, and those words of the old Simeon:

“For mine eyes have seen thy salvation, Which thou hast prepared before the face of all nations; A light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel” (vv 29-32).

That too were words from Isaiah, concerning the redemption of Sion, but also concerning ‘the servant (= slave) of the Lord’, who would become the suffering servant. But why the servant? He was to be the Messiah, wasn’t he? How could He be both king and slave? And why that emphasis on the gentiles? Wasn’t he to come for his own people? But that, again, was Isaiah. And again his parents “marvelled at those things which were spoken of him”.

 

That is, of course, continuing in the later chapters. At his baptism a voice from heaven combines the royal psalm (Ps 2) with the 1^st prophecy concerning the servant of the Lord: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased” (Luke 3:22, NIV). And at the transfiguration on the mount exactly the same happens, but then further combined with the ‘prophet like Moses’: “This is my Son, whom I have chosen; listen to him” (Luke 9:35, NIV). For God had said to Moses: “I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee … And whosoever will not hearken unto my words which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him” (Deut 18:18-19). But those events we also find with Mark and Matthew, so they are not particular to Luke. We should, of course, not be fooled by the fact that we can look back and see that Jesus had to be the servant before He could become the king. But at that time it must have amazed people no end. The real question, though, is not what those quotations mean. The real question is why Luke, out of all the material he had available, selected exactly those incidents. Why indeed? Or to reformulate the question somewhat: he obviously made this selection so as to show those references to Isaiah, but why? His subject was discipleship wasn’t it?

 

Discipleship

The only logical explanation for his use of these quotations is to assume that Luke wants to tell us that we too must be servants first, before we can be kings with Him. And in that service we must copy that attitude of our Lord: loyal, not complaining, even prepared to suffer if needed. For is it not Luke that gives us this saying:

“When ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say: We are unprofitable servants, we have (just) done that which was our duty to do” (Luke 17:10).

That saying we find in no other gospel; it is unique for Luke.

 

What we do find with Mark and Matthew, is: “Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me” (Mark 8:34, Matt 16:24). But Luke adds another word to that: “… take up his cross daily …” (Luke 9:23). In this Christian world, bearing your cross, usually means ‘to suffer’. But in Roman days it could mean only one thing: set out to go to your place of execution. Jesus tells us here that we must be prepared to give our life, as He in fact clearly states: “For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it” (vs 24).

 

Luke further illustrates that ‘slave service’ with the story about Simon of Cyrene, who was forced by the Romans to carry Jesus’ cross, apparently since Jesus Himself could no longer do it (after what He had gone through before). That too is a lesson: Jesus has done a lot for us. He even died for us. But there comes a time when we have to make our own contribution. Only that way we can show ourselves worthy of that Redemption. Note that I do not say that we are worth it (we are not) but that we show ourselves worthy, that we clearly show that we realise how great is that grace that we have been granted. But Mark and Matthew too mention that service of Simon of Cyrene. Only, they mention it at the end of that paragraph about Jesus’ going to Calvary. With them it comes indeed as something that only becomes relevant when Jesus can do it Himself no longer. But with Luke it comes at the beginning: to him that apparently is the most important fact of that going towards his crucifixion.

 

Crucified with Him

But there is something else that Luke mentions, that we do not find in any other gospel: the confession of that man at the cross next to Him. That man:

§         confesses his own guilt

§         declares openly that he himself indeed only deserves death

§         states clearly that Jesus is without guilt, and therefore dies undeserved

§         unhesitatingly states his full conviction that Jesus is the king of the coming kingdom (at a time when Jesus’ own disciples sadly concluded: we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel!)

§         openly states his unshaken conviction that, notwithstanding everything, this man on that cross next to him will survive this crucifixion, and that he himself too will stand at the gate of that kingdom (in other words; his belief in a resurrection of both of them)

§         recognises that it will be that Jesus that will decide about entering or not entering into that kingdom (i.e. that he believes that indeed God has ‘given him authority to execute judgment’)

In all that this man is the prototype of the true disciple, ‘co-crucified’ with Him (Rom 6:6). By the way: when we appreciate this man’s tremendous confession, we also will fully understand Jesus’ answer to him. The man asks; remember me, when (= whenever) you come into your kingdom. And the answer is: I will not tell you then, I will tell you here and now! This man gets a rock-solid assurance on the basis of the most fantastic confession ever made. And when we make that confession, we too will receive that same rock-solid assurance. Those are the terms of discipleship.

 

So the true disciple must be prepared to give his life. But ‘to give your life’ does not necessarily mean ‘to die’. As if Jesus had said: you are not a true disciple, unless you have at least once in your life been thrown to the lions. To give your life may just al well mean: to dedicate each and every day of your life to His service. In many cases that may actually result in a higher efficiency than to die for your faith. Bit with certainty it will be a lot more difficult. Whosoever dies for his faith, only once needs to show the courage to do so. Who wants to put his whole life at his service, has to take that decision each day again, and he has to carry it out faithfully as well. I can only assume that that is exactly what Luke means when he writes: “…let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.” Our example in this is our Lord Jesus Himself. He bore his cross to Calvary. And he bears ours as well, a good deal of the way. But the last bit we have to bare it ourselves, to be crucified with Him. For, like Him, we must be suffering servants before we can become kings. And in this life we must do so daily.