Epiphany

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FEAST OF THE HOLY FAMILY

Did you not know that I must be in my Father's house?

Lk 2:41-52

G. B. CAIRD

To illustrate the thirty years of growth which led to the climax of his baptism, Luke records but one incident.

At the age of twelve a Jewish boy became bar mitzvah, a son of the Law, able to accept for himself the responsibilities and obligations to which his parents had committed him by the rite of circumcision. For Jesus this occasion was celebrated by a family visit to Jerusalem for the Passover. When the seven-day festival was over, his parents started for home along with a caravan of other Galilean pilgrims, not realizing that Jesus was left behind.

The great city had laid its charm upon him, and he was taking advantage of his opportunities to learn from the rabbis in the temple courts, so utterly engrossed in the exciting new world of intellectual adventure as to be oblivious to the consternation he was causing.

To Mary's mild rebuke he replied in words of profound significance for our understanding of his later career. His parents should have known where to look for him - in his Father's house. This description of the temple betokens that the doctrine of the divine fatherhood, long a tenet of Israel's faith, had become for him an intimate personal experience.

Besides becoming a bar mitzvah he had become intensely aware of being Son of God, and henceforth he was to live his life not merely under the Law but under the higher authority of his filial consciousness.

Luke's Gospel is more than the story of what Jesus did and taught: it is also the story of what Jesus experienced. He was, as the Epistle to the Hebrews has it, 'the pioneer of our salvation', blazing a new trail for others to follow. It was his calling to explore to the uttermost what it means to call God 'Father'.

4th SUNDAY OF ADVENT (C)

When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the infant leaped in her womb.

Lk 1: 39-45

From G. B. CAIRD

When Elizabeth and Mary met, the unborn herald leaped for joy to greet his unborn Lord. We cannot but remember that in later life John was by no means certain that Jesus was 'the Coming One' whose way he had been sent to prepare (7:18). This is idealized history, in which Luke is describing not the actual historical relationship between the two men but the prenatal relationship which existed in the predestining purpose of God.

We must exercise a similar .caution with regard to the Magnificat of Mary. Our inclination is to agree with Elizabeth and call Mary the most blessed among women. But another woman who called Mary blessed met with a rebuke from Jesus (11:27-28), which is also a rebuke to all sentimentality. Mary was not blessed because of any special understanding that she had for the mission of her son; for she and the rest of her family understood him as little as John did (2:50; cf.  Mark 3:21. 31-35). Her blessedness consisted simply in this, that, having been chosen for special service and having received an amazing promise, she believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.

3rd SUNDAY OF ADVENT (C)

The crowds asked John the Baptist, "What should we do?"

Lk 3:10-18

From G. B. CAIRD

The religious leaders ignored John (7:30), but for others, including the most unlikely people, his preaching had an irresistible fascination. To each class he spelled out in simple terms the meaning of repentance. 

• To ordinary, selfish folk, blind to the needs of others because of their preoccupation with security, 
• to tax collectors whose trade was a form of licensed extortion, 
• to soldiers accustomed to line their pockets by intimidation and blackmail, he gave the same injunction: 

renounce your besetting sin. 

When we compare such teaching with the profundity of the teaching of Jesus, we can see that John's passionate urgency was not matched by any penetrating analysis of man's moral problem. There were depths which John, for all his heroic stature, was unqualified to explore.

At least John was aware of his own limitations. His task was to create an immense tide of messianic expectation, and then to make way for the Messiah. His baptism with water was but a prelude to another baptism. It is, however, open to question whether John regarded this other baptism as a promise or a threat. According to Mark, the coming baptism was to be with the Holy Spirit (Mark 1:8); and, if this is what John had in mind, he was echoing the ancient prophecy that on his restored people God would bestow the gift of the Spirit (Ezek. 3:27, Isa. 44:3, Joel 2:28).

According to Q, the source Luke is here following, the baptism was to be with the Holy Spirit and with fire; and this may be taken either as a hendiadys - 'with the sacred flame of the Spirit' - or as a description of a dual baptism, the gracious gift for the penitent and the rigors of retribution for the obdurate. 

A third possibility is that what John really predicted was a baptism of fire (i.e. judgment), and that the versions given by Mark and Q are the result of reinterpretation by the Christian Church in the light of the experience of the apostles at Pentecost, when the Spirit was seen to descend in tongues of flame. The theory fits well with John’s repeated emphasis on a fiery judgment, and with the fact that twelve of his disciples professed never to have heard of the Holy Spirit (Acts 19:2); and a prediction of this kind seems to be reflected in a saying of Jesus in which his death is described as a fire that he has been sent to kindle and a baptism that he must undergo (12:49f).

Even if this third view is adopted, however, it must not be thought that John was a prophet of unrelieved gloom. This would be to do less than justice to his winnowing metaphor. The ancient method of winnowing was to toss shovelfuls of mixed grain and chaff into the air, so that the wind might blow away the chaff, while the grain fell back on the threshing floor. The primary purpose of the winnower was not to dispose of the chaff, but to gather the wheat into his granary. In the same way, the Messiah would come to gather to himself the new Israel over which he was to reign as King, and it is for this reason that Luke can describe even the fulminations of John as a preaching of good news.

2nd SUNDAY OF ADVENT (C)

A voice of one crying out in the desert:"Prepare the way of the Lord."

Lk 3:1-6

WILLIAM BARCLAY

To Luke the emergence of John the Baptist was one of the hinges on which history turned. So much so is that the case that he dates it in no fewer than six different ways.

• Tiberius was the successor of Augustus and therefore the second of the Roman emperors. As early as A.D. 11 or 12 Augustus had made him his colleague in the imperial power but did not become sole emperor until A.D. 14. The fifteenth year of his reign would therefore be A.D. 28-29. Luke begins by setting the emergence of John against a world background, the ground of the Roman Empire.

 The next three dates Luke gives are connected with the political organization of Palestine. The title tetrarch literally means governor of a fourth part. In such provinces as Thessaly and Galatia, which were divided into four sections or areas, the governor of each part was known as a tetrarch: but later the word widened its meaning and came to mean the governor of any part. Herod the Great died in 4 B.C. after the reign of about forty years. He divided his kingdom between three of his sons and in the first instance the Romans approved the decision.

• (a) To Herod Antipas were left Galilee and Peraea. He reigned from 4 B.C. to A.D. 39 and therefore Jesus' life was lived in Herod's reign and very largely in Herod's dominions in Galilee.
• (b) To Herod Philip were left Ituraea and Trachonitis. He reigned from 4 B.C. to A.D. 33. Caesarea Philippi was called after him and was actually built by him.
• (c) To Archelaus were left Judaea, Samaria and Edom. He was a thoroughly bad king. The Jews in the end actually petitioned Rome for his removal; and Rome, impatient of the continual troubles in Judaea, installed a procurator or governor. That is how the Romans came directly to rule Judaea. At this time Pilate, who was in power from A.D. 25 until A.D. 37, was Roman governor. So in this one sentence Luke gives us a panoramic view of the division of the kingdom which had once belonged to Herod the Great.

 Of Lysanias we know practically nothing.

Having dealt with the world situation and the Palestinian political situation, Luke turns to the religious situation and dates John's emergence as being in the priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas. 

There never at any time were two high-priests at one time. What then does Luke mean by giving these two names. The high-priest was at one and the same time the civil and the religious head of the community. In the old days office of high-priest had been hereditary and for life. But with the coming of the Romans rule the office was the object of all kinds of intrigue. The result was that between 37 B.C. and A.D. 26 there were no fewer than twenty-eight different high-priests. 

Now Annas was actually high-priest from A.D. 7 until A.D. 14. He was therefore at this time out of office; but he was succeeded by no fewer than four of his sons. And Caiaphas was his son-in-law. Therefore, although Caiaphas was the reigning high-priest, Annas was the power behind the throne. That is in fact why Jesus was brought first to hirn after his arrest (John 18: 13), although at that time he was not in office. Luke associates his name with Caiaphas because, although Caiaphas was the actual high-priest, Annas was still the most influential priestly figure in the land.

Verses 4-6 are a quotation from Isaiah 40: 3-5. 

When a king proposed to tour a part of his dominions in the east, he sent a courier before him to tell the people to prepare the roads. So John is regarded as the courier of the King. But the preparation on which he insisted was a preparation of heart and of life. “The King is coming,” he said , “Mend not your roads, but your lives.” There is laid on everyone of us the duty to make his life fit for the King to see.