Plymothian

⁴¹ Now his parents went to Jerusalem every year at the Feast of the Passover. ⁴² And when he was twelve years old, they went up according to custom. ⁴³ And when the feast was ended, as they were returning, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem. His parents did not know it, ⁴⁴ but supposing him to be in the group they went a day’s journey, but then they began to search for him among their relatives and acquaintances, ⁴⁵ and when they did not find him, they returned to Jerusalem, searching for him. ⁴⁶ After three days they found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. ⁴⁷ And all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers. ⁴⁸ And when his parents^[f] saw him, they were astonished. And his mother said to him, “Son, why have you treated us so? Behold, your father and I have been searching for you in great distress.” ⁴⁹ And he said to them, “Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?”^{[g] 50} And they did not understand the saying that he spoke to them. ⁵¹ And he went down with them and came to Nazareth and was submissive to them. And his mother treasured up all these things in her heart.

⁵² And Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature^[h] and in favour with God and man.

Mary’s Great Distress

Mary is anxious, she is distressed.  The Bible emphasizes this distress in the original language.  The focus of the passage is no the development of Jesus, but I think of Mary’s anxiety each time I have read this passage recently.  I understand anxiety, I have not been able to escape it without Jesus.  It is a kind of fear and it is akin to worry.  What was Mary worried about?  Any parent can empathize with what it would be like to lose a child, but what is it like to misplace the Messiah?

However, when she tries to transfer her anxiety on Jesus and blame him for it, he throws it right back on her.  He calmly but firmly tells her what he is about.  He has developed into a man, but a young man – he still knows he has to grow, but he chooses the leaders of Israel to help sharpen his thinking.  Mary has to let him grow up and as she sees her remarkable son she contemplates the significance of his actions.  She knows that he is different in some way, every mother knows that about their child, however in this case she is cataloging the traits of God made flesh.

Prayer

I can’t imagine what it would have been like to watch you grow up, Jesus.  Mary must have been shocked by where you were and how you responded when she found you in the temple.  I would be shocked to see that maturity in a 12-year-old.  Yet you still submitted yourself to her.

Questions

1. What does this account tell us of Jesus?
2. What does this account tell us about Mary?
3. Why do you think Jesus waits until he is 30?
4. What should our attitude to our parents be?
5. How does Jesus help us with our ideas for raising children?

²² And when the time came for their purification according to the Law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord ²³ (as it is written in the Law of the Lord, “Every male who first opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord”) ²⁴ and to offer a sacrifice according to what is said in the Law of the Lord, “a pair of turtle-doves, or two young pigeons”. ²⁵ Now there was a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon, and this man was righteous and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him. ²⁶ And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Christ. ²⁷ And he came in the Spirit into the temple, and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him according to the custom of the Law, ²⁸ he took him up in his arms and blessed God and said,

³³ And his father and his mother marvelled at what was said about him. ³⁴ And Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother, “Behold, this child is appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is opposed ³⁵ (and a sword will pierce through your own soul also), so that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed.”

³⁶ And there was a prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was advanced in years, having lived with her husband seven years from when she was a virgin, ³⁷ and then as a widow until she was eighty-four.^[e] She did not depart from the temple, worshipping with fasting and prayer night and day. ³⁸ And coming up at that very hour she began to give thanks to God and to speak of him to all who were waiting for the redemption of

³⁹ And when they had performed everything according to the Law of the Lord, they returned into Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth. ⁴⁰ And the child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom. And the favour of God was upon him.

Thoughts From Many Hearts

When Jesus is encountered by a righteous elder, Simeon,  who has been faithful in service to God, warns Jesus’ mother that her son will cause her pain.  What can pain a mother more than being rejected when you try and prevent him from making a fool of himself (Matthew 12:46-50)?  What can be more painful than standing powerless as Jesus walks a way that will get him killed?  What can be more painful than standing and watching as your son’s body is mutilated beyond recognition and life slips from his body?  It is a joy to imagine a son who restores the hopes of Israel, but not in the ways that she has to suffer.  It will be like a Roman soldier takes his sword and runs her through as she watches his life unfold and seemingly unravel.

Jesus reveals hearts.  He is not a superficial person.  He is not ultimately interested in the excuses that we make or the self-medication that we choose.  He wants to expose the source of our pain and heal it at the root.  He is not interested in our many achievements, our rewards, our affirmation of our flesh.  He is interested in the vacuous hall of our heart that aches with emptiness although it hangs plaques and trophies on the walls.  He will take residence there and fill the chambers with warmth and joy, but only if the Christian opens the door and lets him in.  Most hearts are revealed to be cold stone castles wrought for defence and isolation.  We fill our moats with sarcasm, business, games, and noise.  Jesus has to assault us, he has to be patient as he lays siege.  He waits.  He knocks. He knocks. He knocks.

He knows what reality dwells in the deepest layers of our subconscious.  In quietness and solitude he may reveal rooms that we never knew existed.  He develops capacity and courage to venture into the darkest dungeons and he takes thoughts captive.  He demolishes the objections of our futile thinking and disarms our memories of their venomous sting.  Self-recrimination is exiled with its weapons of guilt and shame.  Pride is abandoned in the presence of one who is so much more powerful.  We allow him free access and we bow before him.  From being an alien in the heart he has conquered, he becomes king.  We are adopted and he raises us up as heirs to a royal throne.  We become lion-hearted.  We also become humble servants, and we aid him as he lays siege to the hearts of others, knowing the hospice he brings.

Prayer

God, be my light.  Jesus reveal to me the heart I have constructed made of rotted flesh and death.  Create in me a pure heart by stripping away the putrefied cathedral I have constructed in honour of apathy, guilt, lust and fear.  It is not who I am.  It is not who you called me to be.  You have made in me a humble heart of a lion.  You have given me words of truth from your word to life.  Let me be healed and then heal.  Let me be a hospitaler for the healing of the nations.

Knights Hospitalers formed an order which cared for those who were sick and dying.

Questions

1. What role does righteousness play in this passage?
2. How are righteousness, blessing, and the heart related?
3. How is Mary a microcosm of Jesus’ mission?
4. How is your heart deeply dredged by Jesus?
5. How are you a healer when others have their hearts exposed?

⁵⁷ When it was time for Elizabeth to have her baby, she gave birth to a son. ⁵⁸ Her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown her great mercy, and they shared her joy.

⁵⁹ On the eighth day they came to circumcise the child, and they were going to name him after his father Zechariah, ⁶⁰ but his mother spoke up and said, “No! He is to be called John.”

⁶¹ They said to her, “There is no one among your relatives who has that name.”

⁶² Then they made signs to his father, to find out what he would like to name the child. ⁶³ He asked for a writing tablet, and to everyone’s astonishment he wrote, “His name is John.” ⁶⁴ Immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue set free, and he began to speak, praising God. ⁶⁵ All the neighbors were filled with awe, and throughout the hill country of Judea people were talking about all these things. ⁶⁶ Everyone who heard this wondered about it, asking, “What then is this child going to be?” For the Lord’s hand was with him.

⁶⁷ His father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied:

⁸⁰ And the child grew and became strong in spirit^[d]; and he lived in the wilderness until he appeared publicly to Israel.

Sharing Their Joy

The expectation in Luke 1 is strong.  Both Mary and Elizabeth are holding remarkable children in their wombs.  9 months is a good amount of time for the tension to build.  Then finally John does come onto the scene and now Zachariah’s joy is visible and his song is heard.  He longs for the restoration of Israel.  His song has a national air to it.  Maybe he thought his son would prepare the way for an uprising like that of the Maccabbees over Antiochus.  However, he knows his people have been living in dark oppression and he is thrilled that his son will be a part of the light that is coming into the world.

I have spoken with Moody students today and felt the joy rise within me as I see the Holy Spirit direct the discussion.  I can not predict his movement, but I can see it at work.  I struggle with joy in different venues, but when I see myself used as an instrument in God’s plans I sense that I am part of something larger than  myself.  Like the characters in Jesus’ story, we all need to submit to God and be available for him to work.  As we see the Creator work through us, his creation, we have a sense of this is how the world was meant to be.  Then joy breaks out.

Prayer

I have shared the joy of those who I have met with today.  I have seen how you have worked in their lives and how you have worked in mine for their good.  I am grateful for that.

Questions

1. What is the cause of joy in this passage?
2. How does Zechariah respond?
3. How does God reveal himself through these characters’ lives?
4. What causes you joy?
5. How could God use you to bring about real rejoicing in your church and community?

³⁹ At that time Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea, ⁴⁰ where she entered Zechariah’s home and greeted Elizabeth. ⁴¹ When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. ⁴² In a loud voice she exclaimed: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! ⁴³ But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? ⁴⁴ As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. ⁴⁵ Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill his promises to her!”

⁴⁶ And Mary said:

⁵⁶ Mary stayed with Elizabeth for about three months and then returned home.

Extending Mercy

God extends mercy, but our world is losing its need for mercy.  Of course, I don’t mean this in real terms, but in perception.  We define children as good.  I heard over the weekend a number of parents complaining about their children, but then saying that they are a ‘good kid’.  Why do they use the term good? Are they thinking that the child is justified and made right with God through the blood of Jesus?  I think that isn’t the case.  We are assuming that we are born with a predisposition to good.  The way we are born is just fine.  Lady Gaga makes the argument this way:

It doesn’t matter if you love him, or capital H-I-M
Just put your paws up
‘Cause you were born this way, baby

Verse:
My mama told me when I was young,
We are all born superstars.
She rolled my hair and put my lipstick on
In the glass of her boudoir.
“There’s nothin’ wrong with lovin’ who you are”
She said, “’cause He made you perfect, babe”
“So hold your head up girl and you’ll go far,
Listen to me when I say”

Chorus:
I’m beautiful in my way
‘Cause God makes no mistakes
I’m on the right track baby
I was born this way
Don’t hide yourself in regret
Just love yourself and you’re set
I’m on the right track baby
I was born this way

Post-chorus:
Ooo there ain’t no other way
Baby I was born this way
Baby I was born this way
(Born this way)
Ooo there ain’t no other way
Baby, I was born this way
Right track baby
I was born this way

Don’t be a drag – just be a queen
Don’t be a drag – just be a queen
Don’t be a drag – just be a queen
Don’t be!

Verse:
Give yourself prudence
And love your friends
Subway kid, rejoice your truth
In the religion of the insecure
I must be myself, respect my youth
A different lover is not a sin
Believe capital H-I-M (hey hey hey)
I love my life I love this record and
L’amour a besoin la foi

Repeat chorus + post-chorus

Bridge:
Don’t be a drag, just be a queen
Whether you’re broke or evergreen
You’re black, white, beige, chola descent
You’re lebanese, you’re orient
Whether life’s disabilities
Left you outcast, bullied, or teased
Rejoice and love yourself today
‘Cause baby you were born this way
No matter gay, straight, or bi,
Lesbian, transgendered life
I’m on the right track baby
I was born to survive
No matter black, white or beige
Chola or orient made
I’m on the right track baby
I was born to be brave

Repeat chorus + post-chorus

Outro/refrain:
I was born this way hey!
I was born this way hey!
I’m on the right track baby
I was born this way hey!

I was born this way hey!
I was born this way hey!
I’m on the right track baby
I was born this way hey!

Gaga sings against the church like she is some kind of rebel, but of course she represents the mainstream.  She assumes that the way you are born is the way that you should remain, which does not allow for moral growth or change if it was literally true.  I have many desires that I was born with that I have grown out of.  I have natural desires which would be worked out in polygamy (most men do), but I keep them in check and am shaped by God’s plan of monogamy.  Just because I start life with something, that doesn’t make it right or wrong.  However, our stance in society is not one of just self-acceptance, but a lack of a need for change.  We work toward accepting ourselves with our flaws, we do not accept ourselves and deny our flaws.  As God extends mercy to us and saves us from the effects of our flawed nature, he then lavishes gifts on us, which are grace upon grace.

Our society is losing the beauty of grace and replacing it with entitlement for exactly the same reasons as I mention above.  If I am perfection when I am born, I am entitled to only good things.  All bad things that happen to me are an injustice.  Evil things happen and so there can not be a good God.  A good God would not let bad things happen to good people.  However, I am flawed at birth and I live in a flawed world.  I receive good things because of God’s grace.  That is why Mary sings.  Even though she is righteous by the standards of the world, she knows she does not deserve anything good.  With this stance of submissive humility, God lavishes on her the greatest gift a woman could receive.  She becomes the vessel God uses to enter our human world.

Unfortunately Gaga and the majority of America do not understand the relationship between their entitlement and the withdrawal of God’s grace and mercy.  Of course, there have always been evils in society and today many of those are exposed and make the past look less than ideal.  However, extrapolate a decline in gratitude for God’s grace and mercy into the future and how can America expect God to bless them.  How can an entitled generation serve others well in the military?  How can those without a sense of depravity, grace and mercy serve in the police and justice system?  If all moral standards are relative the very fabric of reality does not enable society to function in anything other than an anarchy.  The lives of the Sex Pistols might serve as a warning.

Prayer

I am grateful for the mercy you have shown Israel in the pages of the Bible.  It shows me that there may still be hope from the entitled and depraved western world.  I am no-one of significance, and yet I feel I need to speak.  I am a bold in you, but my flesh has a tendency to fear.  May you give me confidence to sing a song like Mary.  May you let me speak words of truth and proclaim your mercy.

Questions

1. Where did Mary go?
2. What does the relationship between the women in this passage foreshadow?
3. How would you summarize Mary’s song?
4. How does God teach you from this passage?
5. How could the world today authentically improve its awareness of God’s mercy?

⁵ In the days of Herod, king of Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah,^[a] of the division of Abijah. And he had a wife from the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. ⁶ And they were both righteous before God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and statutes of the Lord. ⁷ But they had no child, because Elizabeth was barren, and both were advanced in years.

⁸ Now while he was serving as priest before God when his division was on duty, ⁹ according to the custom of the priesthood, he was chosen by lot to enter the temple of the Lord and burn incense. ¹⁰ And the whole multitude of the people were praying outside at the hour of incense. ¹¹ And there appeared to him an angel of the Lord standing on the right side of the altar of incense. ¹² And Zechariah was troubled when he saw him, and fear fell upon him. ¹³ But the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John. ¹⁴ And you will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth, ¹⁵ for he will be great before the Lord. And he must not drink wine or strong drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb. ¹⁶ And he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God, ¹⁷ and he will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared.”

¹⁸ And Zechariah said to the angel, “How shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in years.” ¹⁹ And the angel answered him, “I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I was sent to speak to you and to bring you this good news. ²⁰ And behold, you will be silent and unable to speak until the day that these things take place, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their time.” ²¹ And the people were waiting for Zechariah, and they were wondering at his delay in the temple. ²² And when he came out, he was unable to speak to them, and they realized that he had seen a vision in the temple. And he kept making signs to them and remained mute. ²³ And when his time of service was ended, he went to his home.

²⁴ After these days his wife Elizabeth conceived, and for five months she kept herself hidden, saying, ²⁵ “Thus the Lord has done for me in the days when he looked on me, to take away my reproach among people.”

Skeptical about Joy

The ancient peoples of the earth did not want children as a stop on the road to personal fulfillment.  The desires and rights of the individual were subsumed in the rights and desires of the larger community.  To have children was part of nation-building.  It was a person’s duty to populate the world.  When Don Pedro, in Much Ado About Nothing, finally gives up his life of bachelorhood, he proclaims, “The world must be peopled.”  In more ancient times nations understood the bearing of children as a mandate from God and a gift bestowed by the gods.  Our modern idea that at about 30 a woman must decide if she wants to be a mother or a career woman, or some admixture of the two, is quite alien to the ancient mind.  Elizabeth and Zachariah are not able to retreat into excuses about personal choices or career plans.  A woman’s role was to create a home for children and raise the next generation of Israel for the glory of God and Israel.  As a priest, the absence of a child would be humiliating.  Zachariah serves God faultlessly as a priest, he and his wife are from a tribe set apart for God’s service, but they have no children.  They are not serving God in line with one of God’s first commandments, “Be fruitful and multiply.  Fill the earth.”  I have met childless women who become bitter and twisted.  Either they try and suppress their desire for a child and lie to themselves about the havoc it is wreaking on their souls.  Or they allow the guilt and shame they feel to overwhelm them and sometimes this metamorphosizes into bitterness and cruelty.  A woman like Elizabeth has learned to be at peace with a sinful world, even when her body is not allowed to carry the child she longs for.  In an entitled world, it is a rare person today who truly lays aside their own plans to let the plans of God work through her.

Zachariah is told that he will be joyful.  He replies like a depressed skeptic, resigned to a barren future.  As a sign to himself and others he is silenced.  I think that I, like Zachariah, have learned to expect little from God.  He is beginning to lead me beyond myself, but I am skeptical about the academic ability he has given me, I scoff at my social opportunities, I am insecure about my preaching.  Still Jesus leads me to know him, to be secure in him and with him I study, socialize, and I preach.  I am not depressed like I was, but what is this life of joy?  What is this life lived with God where we rejoice at what God does each moment of the day?  Firstly we need to see God.  However, God does not reveal himself so much to the busy and distracted.  We need to be still and know that he is God.  We need to cherish the lack of distractions on a long commute, we need to pause as we la our heads on our pillows, we need to set aside a time to cherish with a saviour we learn to love.  Then the joy he has promised will seep from him through us and out to others.  In this gray world, the colour of true joy would draw some attention.

Prayer

It is easy to see how we can be faithful in our practices like Zachariah, but skeptical about your desire to work powerfully in us.  Nothing is impossible for you.  May it be to me as you desire it to be.

Questions

1. How are Elizabeth and Zachariah described?
2. How do they respond to God’s blessing?
3. What does this story teach about God?
4. How is it possible to be righteous and skeptical at the same time?
5. What does God want to do through you?  How are you responding?

Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us, ² just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us, ³ it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, ⁴ that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught.

Enter the Academic?

When I was growing up and I went to college I lost some friends.  They felt like I had become irrelevant or too much a person with his head in the clouds.  I started using, unintentionally, words they didn’t know.  My sentence structure was convoluted to them.  I never did learn how to change the oil on my car and that was proof of how useless I had become.  Because I didn’t immerse myself in the practical world of the senses, I was of no earthly good. 

I was a waster of my time and energies to some degree.  They had a point.  However, the fact that I studied educational theory did not make true the axiom, “Those who can do, and those who can’t teach.”  As I learned to teach, I learned to manage a classroom and I learned how children learn.  Now that I am much older and have considered more theory and read more books, I am able to help people to become teachers and also to see what practical steps need to be taken in order to help people grow spiritually.

Peter, through Mark, and Matthew by himself had written accounts of Jesus’ life.  They were ‘this is Jesus as I saw him’ kinds of accounts.  Mark has all the immediacy of an account patched together by an impetuous fisherman.  Matthew has the details of a Jewish toll-booth operator who expected a king to rule Israel.  Luke builds on these two accounts in a methodical and scholarly way.  He takes the gospel writings that exist and he interviews everyone else he can find who saw Jesus and had a credible memory of the events.  There is a place for the impassioned testimony of an eye-witness, but there is also a place for an academic treatment of the events.  It tends to be that scholarship stands the test of time and trickles down from the ivory towers into the minds of the populace in ways that they do not understand.  For example, scholarly minds in France developed a skeptical school of thought which we know as postmodernism and that has filtered down into the man on the street when he insists that no-one has the truth and no-one can tell anyone else what is right for them to do.

Academic procedures bring credibility and justification for knowledge.  Someone who doubts that Jesus existed might dismiss easily a fisherman and a booth-operator, but are they so quick to dismiss a thorough historian going about his task?  If they are fair, they must take time to evaluate the claims being made.  Of course, many have an irrational opposition to any faith and leave their own prejudice and fears unexamined.

How do you feel about the role of scholarship?  How do you love God with your mind?  Luke committed his talents to recording a thorough account for Theopholis (Lover of Wisdom).  Do you love wisdom enough to give Dr. Luke some credit for his scholarship?

Prayer

I’d rather learn from a conversation than read a book.  I’d rather play games than study.  I am thinking of how my entry into my doctoral studies program may make me lay some things aside and make me more into the person that you want to be.  In some ways, though, I am ashamed of study.  In other ways I am ashamed of how little I know.  I stand torn between my anti-intellectual experiences in church and with my friends, and my academic circles at Moody Bible Institute and at conferences.  Help me to know more who you have designed me to be and help me to commit to that path, even if it is to be a bridge between both worlds like Luke was in his writing.

Questions

1. To whom is the book written?
2. How was it compiled?
3. What is the role of scholarship in the composition of scripture?
4. How do you justify the things you say?
5. How do you develop the life of the mind for the glory of God?

I have spent a lot of time in Matthew and Mark, and I have read through the NIV Application Commentary on Luke by Darrell L. Bock.  However, I was challenged in my reading that I have read to know about God rather than to know God.  In my relationships with people in evangelical circles, I have found that many Bible studies have focused on the technical reading of the text, developing context, and not the relationship of the text to real life.  A woman at our church is trying to help her group apply the text to life, but they keep replying in the third person.  They distance themselves from the text and speak in theoretical terms.  It is easy in an introduction to Luke to see how Theophilus needed to know a history of Jesus.  Perhaps he needed a solid foundation, perhaps he was a lawyer putting together a defence of Paul, perhaps he was a Roman official needing to see how Judaism and Jesus were connected.  However, I think he was a follower of Jesus whose faith was reinforced by knowing more about the Jesus he was committing to.  From the outside it would be an interesting academic exercise to talk about Jesus and his early followers.  I think that Jesus would have Luke act as a person who introduces him more fully to us.  What does he require of us?