Sermon 12-8-24

Sermon 12-8-24 Luke 3:1-6 2nd Advent

In the second year of the Presidency of Jimmy Carter, when Jim Thompson was Governor of Illinois and Albert Hillestad was Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Springfield and Sydney Breese was the Vicar of St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Salem, Illinois, the word of Elizabeth Griggs came to Danny Shuler while he was in the wilderness.

The word said, “Straighten up, we're going to get married”. And we did, right there.

All four of the Gospels begin Jesus' ministry with two things in common, John the Baptist and the words of Isaiah chapter 40, verse 3: “A voice cries: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God”.

All four tweak Isaiah's verse just a little, but keep in mind 98% of the population of that time and place couldn't read or write. If they were lucky the synagogue they attended on Saturday had most of the Old Testament scrolls, but probably not all of them.

The majority of the people only heard the scrolls read aloud. In order for them to quote scripture they would have had to memorize what they heard. That is a difficult thing to do.

The author of our reading today seems to be an educated man. He has studied the life of Jesus, the man, for some time, and done his homework. He wants to write a careful and orderly account of the adult life of Jesus for his friend “most noble Theophilus”.

Luke's version is the only one with a fixed date in gospel chronology. Luke probably fixed a definite and confirm-able time of the two ministries, John the Baptist and Jesus to strengthen his arguments. The dates can be confirmed by historic documents, thanks to the Roman and Hebrew records.

At that time there was no organized and recognized dating standard like we have today, August 12th, 1978 or December 8th, 2024. We can, however, use those ancient Roman and Hebrew records to get within a year or so of when these events actually happened.

Luke's dating is the basis for modern yearly numbers. Traditional church dating varies somewhat with the dating of Luke, but only slightly.

Luke starts large with the government of the whole known world and moves down step by step to the local Jewish community. Tiberius was the third of twelve Caesars or Emperors of Rome, and the world as they knew it. He was a very bad man.

Herod the Great was the king of what is now Israel for about 40 years. Herod was the last name, like Shuler the Mediocre. He was alive for Jesus' birth, but died in 4 BC. He was the one who ordered all the male children in Bethlehem put to death.

The Herod Luke mentions today is one of his sons, Herod Antipas, we would say, Antipas Herod. Father and son both live large in the Gospels. We will read quite a bit about Antipas Herod between now and Easter. He is the one who beheads John the Baptist and deals with Jesus during the passion week.

Pontius Pilate, the Roman appointed governor of the southern part of Israel, to replace one of the deposed Herod boys, was also well known. In fact all of the men mentioned in this reading were well known then and even now, thanks to Jesus. Well maybe not Lysanias, very little is known of him, but I'm pretty sure during Luke's time he was well known, too.

He moves on down. The list is set up like triangle with the wide part at the top. We would think, national government, state government, local and so on.

The office of High Priest was the Civil, as will as, the religious leader of the Jewish community, mostly in Jerusalem itself. Luke says the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas. There was only one high priest at a time. Listing both of these men here was an anomaly.

During this time the Roman rulers appointed the office of high priest. They usually only held the position for a couple of years. Annas, however, was the exception rather than the rule. He held the office for about eight years and was succeeded by four of his sons and then Caiaphas, his son-in-law.

The local folks probably all knew that during that period Annas was the man behind the curtain. Jesus was in fact brought to Annas first after His arrest.

That is Luke's point. He mentions these men as a way for his readers to pinpoint, as far as they could, a date certain of when all these things happened. Most adults alive in time to hear Luke's narrative read to them could remember when these men were in office. Just like when the word of Elizabeth came to me.

Then we get to the bottom of this up-side-down triangle, the tip, the point and the point Luke is trying to make here.

Luke is alone among the New Testament writers in associating the preaching of John with a call from God. He identifies John with the prophets. In Luke's seventh chapter he says, “John is more than a prophet”. He lists John as the fulfillment of God's prophecy and promise.

For about 180 years before this and 225 years after, a baptism movement existed in Palestine. Lots of Hebrew sects had their own brand of baptism as well as, the Essenes, the Ebonites, a bunch of Gnostic sects, the followers of Jesus. John, however, was a horse of a different color.

In his heyday, he very well could have been the most well known and popular of the baptizers. For some years after John's death his followers were still using his baptismal methods. Luke says, John's was a baptism of repentance, for the forgiveness of sins.

John must have been quite the dashing fellow to have made it into all four of the Gospels. By dashing I don't mean an Errol Flynn sort of dashing, maybe just the opposite. There is a rather long reading about him for next Sunday, go ahead read ahead. And also go to page 858 in the Book of Common prayer and read about being baptized in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Luke, as well as the rest of the Gospel writers, felt the combination of John and Isaiah stressing us to mend our lives, not necessarily our roads, for the coming of the King is the important part.

Amen.