Advent 2
Preaching
Preaching Luke's Gospel
A Narrative Approach
Many commentators note that these verses are really the begin-ning of Luke's Gospel. Luke anchors the story very concretely in time: "In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius...." It is this historical aspect of revelation, of course, that is unique to the biblical religions.
John the Baptist, the preacher to whom the word of God came in the fifteenth year of Tiberius, opens the drama. This is the first time we come to John the Baptist's story in the lectionary cycle. There are no texts appointed for Advent from Luke 1 until the Fourth Sunday in Advent. This means that John the Baptist pops up in our story out of nowhere. Such is not Luke's intention. Luke 1 tells a long story of a double annunciation and the birth of two sons: John and Jesus. It is vital that the beginning of the ministry of John the Baptist be set in its broader Lukan context. If you have access to the Anchor Bible commentary, The Gospel of Luke, by Joseph Fitzmyer, you can find a chart on the step-parallelism in the stories of John and Jesus on p. 313ff. (See further com-mentary on the annunciation stories in Chapter 1 of this work.)
John the Baptist is presented by Luke as a prophetic figure (the "word of God" came to him) who is to usher in a new age of salvation. The story of John the Baptist, therefore, has many nar-rative connections to the Old Testament. The song of Gabriel (1:14-17) and the song of Zechariah (1:67-79) hymn those Old Testament allusions as they prepare the way for the one who would prepare the way. John's prophetic call in these verses reminds us of the call of prophets in the Old Testament. See Isaiah 6 and Jeremiah 1:4-19 as parallel examples of prophetic calls. John the Baptist stands in this tradition! What we must finally say here is that the ministry of John the Baptist is meant to prepare humankind for the fulfillment of the whole of Old Testament promise!
John preached a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. We understand this baptism to be a Jewish ritual of cleansing and preparation. It is not Christian baptism. The New Testament does not teach two forms of Christian baptism, one of water, one of Spirit. Rather, there is this pre-Christian baptism of human action which prepares the human for the coming of the new, and Christian baptism which is baptism in water and Spirit. The agent of action in pre-Christian baptism is the self. The agent of action in Christian baptism is God present through the work of the Holy Spirit. See John 3:15-17.
The basic message of John's preaching is to call people to re-pentance and forgiveness. This forgiveness theme is already pres-ent in Zechariah's song: "And you child, will ... give knowledge of salvation to his people by the forgiveness of their sins" (1:76-77). We will hear an intriguing word on the repentance theme when we deal with the parable of the Prodigal Son.
There are many narrative connections in Luke's Gospel and in Acts for this repentance and forgiveness theme. When Jesus was in his hometown synagogue in Capernaum he read from Isaiah 61:1-2. Jesus identifies his ministry as the ministry of the One upon whom the Spirit of God rests. Among other things he will proclaim release to the captives. The word for "release" is trans-lated by some as forgiveness. We shall see later that these Isaiah verses in the mouth of Jesus, along with the Magnificat and Jesus' answer to John the Baptist (7:22), form the base line of the message of Jesus in the Gospel of Luke. (One or all of these verses could be on banners for the Lukan year.) Part of Jesus' fundamental ministry is the ministry of forgiveness of sins.
There is a wonderful story of forgiveness told in Luke 5:17-32. This passage, which does not occur in the Lukan lectionary cycle, is a wonderful story of Jesus' power of forgiveness. The scribes and the Pharisees quite properly accuse Jesus of blasphemy, of doing the work only God can do, when they hear him announce forgiveness. The bottom line of the story, however, is that "I have come to call not the righteous but sinners to repentance" (5:32).
The "Christological drama" in Luke 7 also ends with a story about forgiveness. (Many of the Luke 7 stories occur in the lectionary in the Pentecost season.) The Christological drama arises in 7:16 where the crowd speculates that Jesus must be a prophet since he can raise the dead. In the next story John the Baptist wonders about the identity of Jesus and sends his disciples to ask Jesus Israel's question of the ages: "Are you the one who is to come or are we to wait for another?" (7:19). The end of the drama in this chapter which seems to focus on Jesus' identity is the story of a woman who was a sinner and who entered the house of one of the Pharisees. Having entered the room she began to wet Jesus' feet with her tears, and wipe them, and anoint them with oil. The Pharisees could see that Jesus was certainly no prophet, for if he were a prophet he would know what kind of woman this was who cradled and caressed his feet. She was a sinner! In the course of the story Jesus announces the word of forgiveness to this woman: "Your sins are forgiven" (7:48). Luke only mentions forgiveness in this way in this story and in the one we have discussed from Luke 5:17-32, 20.
There are many passages in Luke-Acts which deal with the theme of repentance. See 10:13-15; 11:29-32; 13:1„5:15; 16:30-31.
The combined theme of repentance and forgiveness is to be the message preached by the post-Easter church: "... that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his (Christ's) name to all nations beginning from Jerusalem. You are my witnesses to these things" (24:47-48). The conclusion of the first Christian sermon „ the sermon preached on the first Pentecost „ is precisely a call to repentance and forgiveness. When the crowd was cut to the heart by his sermon and asked what they could do, Peter answered: "Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit" (Acts 2:38).
This means that when John comes preaching a message of repentance and forgiveness of sins he comes as a prototype of the Christian evangelist. John is recalled by the early evangelists as they proclaimed Jesus to the Gentiles. See Acts 10:34-43, 37; 13:17-27, 24, 25.
A final narrative connection is an allusion to the Old Testament that we are well aware of. John the Baptist announces the purpose of his mission by quoting from the book of the prophet Isaiah. Luke continues the quotation from Isaiah a bit further than do Matthew and Mark. Luke concludes with the verse: "... all flesh shall see the salvation of God." In Luke's Gospel even John the Baptist's ministry points to the salvation of all flesh: the Gentiles! The theme of salvation for the Gentiles is a one of the dominant themes in Luke-Acts. For more on this theme in Luke see the comments on Luke 10:25-37.
Homiletical Directions
The possibilities for making narrative connections with this text from Luke 3:1-6 are almost endless. You can tell the birth story of John the Baptist to set his ministry in context. You can make connections with any number of Old Testament passages, for John appears as a prophet sent to prepare the way for the ful-fillment of the promises of old. You can pursue the theme that the One whose way is prepared by John will bring salvation even unto the Gentiles. All of these are advent themes!
It is here recommended, however, that you work with the repen-tance and forgiveness theme that is the theme of John the Baptist's ministry and central to the ministry of the One for whom John prepares the way. Tell the textual story first with an accent on the repentance/forgiveness motif. Move then to the story of Jesus in his hometown synagogue of Nazareth. This story (4:14-21) will occur on the Third Sunday after the Epiphany, so the focus in this telling of this absolutely central passage in Luke's Gospel ought to be most simply on the words "release to the captives" which many interpreters see as an allusion to Jesus' ministry of for-giveness.
Next tell the story in Luke 5:17-32. The focus for this telling should be on Jesus' word of absolution to the paralytic: "Your sins are forgiven." Focus secondly on the follow-up story which finds the Pharisees and scribes upset with Jesus once again for his association with sinners. This man eats with the wrong people! Jesus replies: "I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners."
You can next move to the stories in Luke 7. These texts do appear in the Pentecost season and you may wish to omit them for consideration at this time. In using Luke 7 you might briefly set up the Christological drama that is woven through this chapter. The focus, however, needs to be on another sinner. The woman who comes to caress and cradle Jesus' feet is clearly labeled as a sinner (7:37). Jesus is still eating with the wrong people! It is often true in Luke's Gospel that meal time is a time of revelation! So it is here. What is revealed is that God loves sinners in Jesus Christ. Focus your story here, as with the story in 5:17-32, on Jesus' word of absolution. "Your sins are forgiven," says Jesus to a sinful woman.
If time allows, you can point out how Jesus' last words to the disciples commission them precisely to be about a ministry of repentance and forgiveness in his name (24:46). The climax of the first day of the life of the Christian church, Pentecost, is a sermon which finally calls people to repentance and forgiveness in the event of Christian baptism (Acts 2:38).
This theme of repentance and forgivness is, of course, an absolutely central aspect of the Christian proclamation. Don't we do this all the time? Why do it again with this John the Baptist text? Answer: because this is one of the few occasions in the Lukan year that you can naturally bring this theme to center stage.
The climax of this sermon on repentance and forgiveness needs to be a call to repentance today and the announcement of the for-giveness of sins to all who hear and repent. After having told the Lukan stories you might quickly find ways to identify yourself and your people as sinners. As sinners we are called upon to repent. We are called upon to acknowledge our sinfulness and admit that we do not have the power within us to stop our sinful ways. We need someone to help us! The Advent message today is that there is someone who can help us. There is One who is coming, there is One who now is, who says to you today what he said to a paralytic man and sinful woman long ago: Your sins are forgiven.
In whatsoever way you do it, this sermon should end with these simple words of absolution in the mouth of Jesus. Say it „ and sit down! Now the work of the Holy Spirit begins. The Holy Spirit works to take the word you have proclaimed on the longest journey of all. The Holy Spirit works to take the word of absolution all the way from human ears to human hearts!
John the Baptist, the preacher to whom the word of God came in the fifteenth year of Tiberius, opens the drama. This is the first time we come to John the Baptist's story in the lectionary cycle. There are no texts appointed for Advent from Luke 1 until the Fourth Sunday in Advent. This means that John the Baptist pops up in our story out of nowhere. Such is not Luke's intention. Luke 1 tells a long story of a double annunciation and the birth of two sons: John and Jesus. It is vital that the beginning of the ministry of John the Baptist be set in its broader Lukan context. If you have access to the Anchor Bible commentary, The Gospel of Luke, by Joseph Fitzmyer, you can find a chart on the step-parallelism in the stories of John and Jesus on p. 313ff. (See further com-mentary on the annunciation stories in Chapter 1 of this work.)
John the Baptist is presented by Luke as a prophetic figure (the "word of God" came to him) who is to usher in a new age of salvation. The story of John the Baptist, therefore, has many nar-rative connections to the Old Testament. The song of Gabriel (1:14-17) and the song of Zechariah (1:67-79) hymn those Old Testament allusions as they prepare the way for the one who would prepare the way. John's prophetic call in these verses reminds us of the call of prophets in the Old Testament. See Isaiah 6 and Jeremiah 1:4-19 as parallel examples of prophetic calls. John the Baptist stands in this tradition! What we must finally say here is that the ministry of John the Baptist is meant to prepare humankind for the fulfillment of the whole of Old Testament promise!
John preached a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. We understand this baptism to be a Jewish ritual of cleansing and preparation. It is not Christian baptism. The New Testament does not teach two forms of Christian baptism, one of water, one of Spirit. Rather, there is this pre-Christian baptism of human action which prepares the human for the coming of the new, and Christian baptism which is baptism in water and Spirit. The agent of action in pre-Christian baptism is the self. The agent of action in Christian baptism is God present through the work of the Holy Spirit. See John 3:15-17.
The basic message of John's preaching is to call people to re-pentance and forgiveness. This forgiveness theme is already pres-ent in Zechariah's song: "And you child, will ... give knowledge of salvation to his people by the forgiveness of their sins" (1:76-77). We will hear an intriguing word on the repentance theme when we deal with the parable of the Prodigal Son.
There are many narrative connections in Luke's Gospel and in Acts for this repentance and forgiveness theme. When Jesus was in his hometown synagogue in Capernaum he read from Isaiah 61:1-2. Jesus identifies his ministry as the ministry of the One upon whom the Spirit of God rests. Among other things he will proclaim release to the captives. The word for "release" is trans-lated by some as forgiveness. We shall see later that these Isaiah verses in the mouth of Jesus, along with the Magnificat and Jesus' answer to John the Baptist (7:22), form the base line of the message of Jesus in the Gospel of Luke. (One or all of these verses could be on banners for the Lukan year.) Part of Jesus' fundamental ministry is the ministry of forgiveness of sins.
There is a wonderful story of forgiveness told in Luke 5:17-32. This passage, which does not occur in the Lukan lectionary cycle, is a wonderful story of Jesus' power of forgiveness. The scribes and the Pharisees quite properly accuse Jesus of blasphemy, of doing the work only God can do, when they hear him announce forgiveness. The bottom line of the story, however, is that "I have come to call not the righteous but sinners to repentance" (5:32).
The "Christological drama" in Luke 7 also ends with a story about forgiveness. (Many of the Luke 7 stories occur in the lectionary in the Pentecost season.) The Christological drama arises in 7:16 where the crowd speculates that Jesus must be a prophet since he can raise the dead. In the next story John the Baptist wonders about the identity of Jesus and sends his disciples to ask Jesus Israel's question of the ages: "Are you the one who is to come or are we to wait for another?" (7:19). The end of the drama in this chapter which seems to focus on Jesus' identity is the story of a woman who was a sinner and who entered the house of one of the Pharisees. Having entered the room she began to wet Jesus' feet with her tears, and wipe them, and anoint them with oil. The Pharisees could see that Jesus was certainly no prophet, for if he were a prophet he would know what kind of woman this was who cradled and caressed his feet. She was a sinner! In the course of the story Jesus announces the word of forgiveness to this woman: "Your sins are forgiven" (7:48). Luke only mentions forgiveness in this way in this story and in the one we have discussed from Luke 5:17-32, 20.
There are many passages in Luke-Acts which deal with the theme of repentance. See 10:13-15; 11:29-32; 13:1„5:15; 16:30-31.
The combined theme of repentance and forgiveness is to be the message preached by the post-Easter church: "... that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his (Christ's) name to all nations beginning from Jerusalem. You are my witnesses to these things" (24:47-48). The conclusion of the first Christian sermon „ the sermon preached on the first Pentecost „ is precisely a call to repentance and forgiveness. When the crowd was cut to the heart by his sermon and asked what they could do, Peter answered: "Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit" (Acts 2:38).
This means that when John comes preaching a message of repentance and forgiveness of sins he comes as a prototype of the Christian evangelist. John is recalled by the early evangelists as they proclaimed Jesus to the Gentiles. See Acts 10:34-43, 37; 13:17-27, 24, 25.
A final narrative connection is an allusion to the Old Testament that we are well aware of. John the Baptist announces the purpose of his mission by quoting from the book of the prophet Isaiah. Luke continues the quotation from Isaiah a bit further than do Matthew and Mark. Luke concludes with the verse: "... all flesh shall see the salvation of God." In Luke's Gospel even John the Baptist's ministry points to the salvation of all flesh: the Gentiles! The theme of salvation for the Gentiles is a one of the dominant themes in Luke-Acts. For more on this theme in Luke see the comments on Luke 10:25-37.
Homiletical Directions
The possibilities for making narrative connections with this text from Luke 3:1-6 are almost endless. You can tell the birth story of John the Baptist to set his ministry in context. You can make connections with any number of Old Testament passages, for John appears as a prophet sent to prepare the way for the ful-fillment of the promises of old. You can pursue the theme that the One whose way is prepared by John will bring salvation even unto the Gentiles. All of these are advent themes!
It is here recommended, however, that you work with the repen-tance and forgiveness theme that is the theme of John the Baptist's ministry and central to the ministry of the One for whom John prepares the way. Tell the textual story first with an accent on the repentance/forgiveness motif. Move then to the story of Jesus in his hometown synagogue of Nazareth. This story (4:14-21) will occur on the Third Sunday after the Epiphany, so the focus in this telling of this absolutely central passage in Luke's Gospel ought to be most simply on the words "release to the captives" which many interpreters see as an allusion to Jesus' ministry of for-giveness.
Next tell the story in Luke 5:17-32. The focus for this telling should be on Jesus' word of absolution to the paralytic: "Your sins are forgiven." Focus secondly on the follow-up story which finds the Pharisees and scribes upset with Jesus once again for his association with sinners. This man eats with the wrong people! Jesus replies: "I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners."
You can next move to the stories in Luke 7. These texts do appear in the Pentecost season and you may wish to omit them for consideration at this time. In using Luke 7 you might briefly set up the Christological drama that is woven through this chapter. The focus, however, needs to be on another sinner. The woman who comes to caress and cradle Jesus' feet is clearly labeled as a sinner (7:37). Jesus is still eating with the wrong people! It is often true in Luke's Gospel that meal time is a time of revelation! So it is here. What is revealed is that God loves sinners in Jesus Christ. Focus your story here, as with the story in 5:17-32, on Jesus' word of absolution. "Your sins are forgiven," says Jesus to a sinful woman.
If time allows, you can point out how Jesus' last words to the disciples commission them precisely to be about a ministry of repentance and forgiveness in his name (24:46). The climax of the first day of the life of the Christian church, Pentecost, is a sermon which finally calls people to repentance and forgiveness in the event of Christian baptism (Acts 2:38).
This theme of repentance and forgivness is, of course, an absolutely central aspect of the Christian proclamation. Don't we do this all the time? Why do it again with this John the Baptist text? Answer: because this is one of the few occasions in the Lukan year that you can naturally bring this theme to center stage.
The climax of this sermon on repentance and forgiveness needs to be a call to repentance today and the announcement of the for-giveness of sins to all who hear and repent. After having told the Lukan stories you might quickly find ways to identify yourself and your people as sinners. As sinners we are called upon to repent. We are called upon to acknowledge our sinfulness and admit that we do not have the power within us to stop our sinful ways. We need someone to help us! The Advent message today is that there is someone who can help us. There is One who is coming, there is One who now is, who says to you today what he said to a paralytic man and sinful woman long ago: Your sins are forgiven.
In whatsoever way you do it, this sermon should end with these simple words of absolution in the mouth of Jesus. Say it „ and sit down! Now the work of the Holy Spirit begins. The Holy Spirit works to take the word you have proclaimed on the longest journey of all. The Holy Spirit works to take the word of absolution all the way from human ears to human hearts!
