The Gospel according to Luke.
In the first video we explored Luke's portrayal of John the Baptist and Jesus
as the fulfillment of the story of Israel
and of God's promises told in the Old Testament Scriptures.
We then watched Jesus launches mission
and bring the good news of God's Kingdom to the poor among Israel:
people of low social status and also people who are outsiders.
And Jesus taught that His Kingdom is upside down
it's a reversal of all of our common social values.
This section culminated with Luke showing us how Jesus was a new Moses
about to bring a new Exodus by His death in Jerusalem.
And so we come to the large center section of the book
where Jesus leads His newly formed Israel on a journey to Jerusalem.
This part of the book consists mainly of Jesus' teaching and parables
given on the road to the various people He encounters,
mainly His growing group of disciples.
And in this way Luke portrays following Jesus as a journey.
It's something you do where you learn as you go along life's path
so first Jesus invites His disciples into His mission
as He sends a wave of them to go ahead of Him announcing God's Kingdom.
So being a disciple right from the start it means:
participating in Jesus' Kingdom mission, making it your own.
And as Jesus' disciples come back He then starts to give various teachings
about prayer, about trusting in God's provision.
It's actually in these chapters of Luke that Jesus talks more about money,
possessions and generosity than anywhere else in His teachings.
If following Him is truly like being on the road,
it should produce this minimalist mentality creating a freedom from possessions
that allows for radical generosity.
Another key theme in these chapters is Jesus continued mission to the poor
so as He travels He keeps forming His new Israel
and He encounters all these people who are sick or blind.
He meets Samaritans who are ancient enemies of the Jewish people
and famously Zacchaeus as Jewish man but who heads up tax collection for the Romans.
All of these social outsiders meet Jesus and they're transformed by the encounter.
And so they join His Kingdom community
which Jesus describes as a great banquet party.
He is here to seek and save the lost
and so he's celebrating when people discover the mercy of God,
but not everybody at the party is happy.
Luke includes multiple stories of Jesus at banquets with Israel's leaders
and these all become heated debates
where Jesus confronts their pride and hypocrisy.
And so these contrasting banquet parties they're captured most memorably
in Jesus parable of the prodigal son.
So father had two sons and one foolishly ran away and squandered His inheritance
but he comes back eventually repentant.
And his father forgives him and he throws this huge party to celebrate:
my son who was lost but now is found.
But the older brother, who never left his father, he's angry
and he resents his father's generosity to this undeserving son.
In this famous parable Jesus is explaining His whole Kingdom mission to these leaders.
His parties represent God’s joyous welcome of every kind of person into His family.
The only entry requirement is humility and repentance.
And so it highlights the tragedy of Israel's leaders
who reject Jesus and His upside-down Kingdom community.
And this resistance to Jesus it ramps up.
And He finally arrives in Jerusalem for Passover.
as He nears the city He's weeping.
His disciples are hailing Him as the Messianic King
but Israel's leaders are denouncing Him.
And He knows that their rejection of His Kingdom of peace
is going to set Israel on a road of resistance
and rebellion against the Roman Empire.
It will bring the city's downfall.
And it's that destruction of Jerusalem that Jesus symbolically enacts
as He storms into the temple and He runs out the animal sellers,
He brings the sacrificial system to a halt
and He says that this place of worship has become a den of rebels and will be destroyed.
Now this act of course generates a whole series of debates
between Jesus and Israel's leaders
all leading up to Jesus' prediction
that the Roman armies will one day surround the city.
It will decimate it and the temple all within a generation.
With that Jesus retreat with His disciples to celebrate the Passover meal.
It's the annual symbolic meal about Israel's liberation from slavery
through the death of the Lamb.
So Jesus turns the meal's bread and wine into new symbols about this new Exodus:
His broken body His shed blood will bring liberation for Jesus's renewed Israel.
After the meal Jesus is arrested and He's examined before the Jewish leaders
and then put on trial as one claiming to be king.
and Luke emphasizes: Jesus is innocent.
Pilate the Roman governor he claims
that Jesus is innocent three times before giving in.
Even Herod the ruler of Galilee finds nothing to accuse Jesus of.
But the leaders finally compelled Pilate to have Him crucified and so He is.
But even in His painful death Jesus embodies the love and the mercy of God
He taught so much about.
He offers God's forgiveness to the soldiers as they crucify Him.
And then when one of the criminals executed alongside Jesus realizes who He actually is,
he says: “Remember me when you come in your Kingdom.”
And Jesus' final words are an offer of hope to a humiliated criminal:
“Today you will be with me in paradise”
And so with this last act of generosity and kindness Jesus dies.
His body is placed in a tomb
and on the first day of the week some of Jesus disciples come to the tomb
only to find it empty.
And there are two angelic figures they're telling them that Jesus is alive
that He's risen from the dead and so they leave with their minds blown.
and it's right here that Luke tells one of his most beautiful stories:
two of Jesus' disciples they're leaving Jerusalem for a town called Emmaus
and they're heartbroken over Jesus's death.
And then suddenly Jesus is there just walking alongside them
but they don't recognize Him.
He asked why they're so sad and they go on to talk about all of their hopes
that Jesus would have been the one to redeem Israel but now He's dead.
it was all for nothing.
But then later as Jesus has a meal with these two
He breaks bread for them just as He did at the Passover meal
and it's in that moment that they recognize Him.
Then He disappears.
Luke is telling the story to make a powerful point about following Jesus.
When Jesus' disciples impose their agenda and their view of reality on Jesus
He remains invisible and unknown to them.
It's only when we submit ourselves to the upside down Kingdom of Jesus
that epitomized in His broken body on the cross offered in self-giving love;
it's only then that we see and know the real Jesus.
The book's concluding scene is yet another meal as Jesus appears to His disciples
and He explains to them from the Old Testament Scriptures
how this was all a part of God's plan that the Messiah would become Israel's King
by suffering and dying for their sins
and conquering their evil with His resurrection life.
And so now as Simeon the Prophet promised back in chapter 2:
Jesus' Kingdom will move outward from Israel
so God's forgiveness can be announced to the nations
and everyone invited to follow Jesus.
But Jesus tells His disciples wait in Jerusalem
for the coming of the Spirit to empower them for this new mission.
And this of course keeps you reading right into Luke's second volume,
the book of Acts.
But for now that's the Gospel according to Luke.