St Luke’s Day
Bishop Albino Luciani, who later became Pope John Paul I, used to write fictional letters to people with whom he could never have come into contact as a way of instructing his flock.
He wrote letters - among others to Mark Twain, St. Joan of Arc and St. Luke. (They have been published in a book Illustrissimi: Letters from Pope John Paul I ) ]
This is part of his letter to St. Luke:
“Dear St. Luke, I have always been fond of you because you are a man of great sweetness filled with the spirit of conciliation.
In your Gospel you stress that Christ is infinitely good, that sinners are the object of a special love on God’s part, that Jesus almost ostentatiously made the acquaintance of those who did not enjoy any consideration in the world.
You are the only one who gives us the story of Christ’s nativity and childhood which we hear read at Christmas always with renewed emotion.
One little phrase of yours in particular captures my attention, ‘wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.’
It is the phrase that inspired all the Christmas crèches in the world and thousands of stupendous paintings. I set beside this phrase a stanza of the breviary,
he was willing to lie on straw,
he was not afraid of the manger,
he was nourished with a little mouth,
he who feeds even the least of the birds.
Having done that -I asked myself, ‘If Christ took that very humble place, what place do we take?’”
St. Jerome said “Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ” and certainly as we read Luke we feel that we are getting to know Christ. (from Fr Tommy Lane) (http://www.frtommylane.com/homilies/daily/proper_of_saints/october_18_Saint_Luke.htm)
For many of us St Luke is a rather background character in the Bible.
All we know for a fact about the person of Luke was that he was a medical doctor, a Gentile – ie a non Jew and a friend of St Pauls.
But before we write him off it is worth remembering he wrote about 26% of the New Testament.
Only Paul wrote more (28%) and St John comes in third place with 16% of the NT.
And he is the only Gentile writer – that is non Jewish writer in the whole Bible.
1. Historian
Luke is a consummate historian – and much of his history in Luke and Acts has been shown to be historically accurate.
In the late 19th Century, Sir William Ramsay (1851-1939), went out to Asia Minor with the aim of proving Acts to be an inaccurate history but to his surprise he changed his mind.
Ramsay’s study led him to conclude that
“Luke’s history is unsurpassed in respect to its trustworthiness” (Sir William Ramsay, St. Paul The Traveler and Roman Citizen. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1962, p. 81)
and he went on to say
“Luke is a historian of the first rank; not merely are his statements trustworthy . . . this author should be placed along with the very greatest of historians” (Sir William Ramsay, The Bearing of Recent Discoveries on the Trustworthiness of the New Testament. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1953, p. 222).
But Luke is not just a “distant“ historian – who wrote the twofold treatise of Luke-Acts (which was originally one book) addressed to “Theophilus” – whose name means “Friend of God”.
2. Living testimony
Luke is also a companion in the history he recorded in the Book of Acts
He turns up in the Book of Acts – but you would miss it unless you were looking for him
We see him appear on the scene in Acts as follows.
As I read it – see if you can pick it up – starting in Acts 16:6:
6 Paul and his companions travelled throughout the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been kept by the Holy Spirit from preaching the word in the province of Asia.
7 When they came to the border of Mysia, they tried to enter Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus would not allow them to.
8 So they passed by Mysia and went down to Troas.
9 During the night Paul had a vision of a man of Macedonia standing and begging him, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.”
10 After Paul had seen the vision, we got ready at once to leave for Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them.
11 From Troas we put out to sea and sailed straight for Samothrace, and the next day we went on to Neapolis.
12 From there we traveled to Philippi, a Roman colony and the leading city of that district of Macedonia. And we stayed there several days.
Do you see it.
The narrative goes from the impersonal THEY to personal WE at Troas.
Was St Luke a local in Troas or did he just live there?
Was he converted through the preaching of St Paul?
3. A Physician
We know he was a physician – a medical doctor - and he was probably a great help to St Paul on his missionary journeys.
Paul went through a lot for the Gospel of Christ and he records some of the horrendous things that happened to him
In 2 Corinthians 11 Paul wrote:
24 Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one.
25 Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was pelted with stones, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea,
26 I have been constantly on the move.
I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my fellow Jews, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false believers.
27 I have laboured and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked.
And if that happened to Paul, Luke his constant companion would have suffered similarly too
And as a doctor he would have been there to treat Paul wounds and illnesses.
Being a companion to Paul would have been no easy ride.
But we see St Luke as a loyal companion: Paul in his last letter 2 Timothy wrote in 2 Tim 4:11
“Only Luke is with me…”
Luke – the loyal one.
So what can we draw from the character of St Luke:
1. He was an intensely LOYAL man
You could not want for a more loyal man than Luke in your team.
Paul had many companions on his missionary journeys but only Luke stuck it to the end.
2. He was a teacher of the faith who bothered to research his facts well
Very often preachers don’t do their research and sadly make claims which are without foundation.
Story: I once read a wonderful story about a chess game that was depicted in a painting in the Louvre in France where the devil plays chess with Faust.
The story goes that it looked as if the game was lost for Faust but an ingenious Grandmaster looked at the painting and says no it isn’t.
There is just one move that not only gets Faust out of trouble but delivers a winning combination to defeat the Devil.
The preacher then used the story to show that the devil thought he had won when Jesus was nailed to a Cross but God had the final check mate when Jesus rose again from and the devil lost the game.
I thought it was a wonderful illustration until I found out that there was no such picture in the Louvre.
But I liked the story so much that I got a local artist (when I was down in New Romney) to paint a picture of such as a scenario.
I put it up in St Nicholas’ in New Romney – and then I felt able to use the story.!!
Show pic on Projector
But I think my successor took the picture down
In my opinion, by not doing our homework, we bring the very Gospel we want to illustrate and teach into disrepute.
3. Luke put the Gospel in his own words to his own people
Luke was a Gentile and wrote to Gentiles and he recorded a number of well known parables, which none of the other writers record – The Prodigal Son, the Good Samaritan.
But we also see glimpses of Luke the Physician – for example when he records that Peter’s mother in law had a high fever and that Jesus healed her.
Or the rather intriguing story of Jesus restoring Malchus’ ear, when Peter cut off in the Garden of Gethsemane defending Jesus with a sword.
I wonder if Luke was a patient man who listened to Jesus’ aging mother telling stories of Jesus birth, which he records in the opening Chapters of his Gospel.
Ruth Gillett in Reflective Worship summed up St Luke as follows:
“Reading Luke’s Gospel we gain the impression that he was someone
i) who loved the poor,
ii) wanted the door of God’s kingdom to be open to all,
iii) who respected women and
iv) who saw hope for everyone in God’s mercy”
(http://www.st-cuthberts.net/crgnl14.php)
I don’t think I would disagree with that summation at all.
I think there is a lot of the character of St Luke.
In particular - that he cared both for the body (as a physican) and the soul (as an Evangelist).
And perhaps a particular bugbear for me - he put in the time to carefully research the background to his writings (Luke-Acts), a lesson in we preachers also need to observe as we preach the Gospel. If we are wrong with our facts,that can be checked why should people trust us when we speak of the Gospel, that they cannot so easily check.
