Day 18: More Background, and Jesus begins his Ministry

.... in an orderly way, of course.

Chapter three starts off, as you'd expect (by this time, anyway), with the arrival of the adult John the Baptist on the scene.  His presence is announced, almost as if the Court is announcing, "Hear ye!  hear ye!  In the 15th year of the reign of emperor Tiberias....."  Do we expect some royal personage, in purple robes and aristocratic bearing, to enter the scene?  Instead, it is the lowly and humble John, appearing not in the seats of power but in the wilderness, preaching not prosperity but repentance.

But, that's Luke, for you.

Luke also has a geneaology, but notice that Luke works backwards from Joseph and arrives at Adam (instead of at Abraham), and, if you are brave, notice that some of the names are different, too.  What do you suppose the purpose of working backwards and ending at Adam would be for Luke?  what's the point?

In Luke 4, Jesus is tempted.  The content of the temptations is very similar to Matthew, but they are in a different order (an orderly account, remember?)  Afterwards, Jesus begins his ministry by going to his hometown, wowing them all with his preaching, and, within the space of a few minutes, making everyone angry enough to want to kill him.  The theme of Jesus' ministry is set then from the beginning.  The sentence we hear him read in the synagogue, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me.  He has sent me to preach Good news to the poor....." is the theme of his ministry.  Large, appreciative crowds, and anger and rejection also appear right here in Luke 4.

In Luke 5, Jesus calls disciples.  John has already been put in prison (see Luke 3), so their ministries do not overlap.  When Jesus calls Simon, the fisherman immediately recognizes that he is in the presence of holiness, "I am a man of unclean lips", he says.  Then, Jesus begins healing and casting out demons. 

Luke 5 ends with the saying (we may recognize) about the new and old wineskins.  May I say that on one level I understand this metaphor (Jesus is the new wine, and the old wineskins will not be able to hold him), but on the other hand, there's more than meets the eye.  So what does the last verse mean:  "No one who drinks a well-aged wine wants new wine, but says, "The well-aged wine is better."  (It's literally true, of course, but otherwise, what does it mean?)  What do you think?

By the way, when I was looking for images, I found this great blog post about the miraculous catch of fish.