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The Gospel of Luke is one of the three Synoptic Gospels, generally thought to be written towards the end of the first century when the message of Jesus and the early Church had extended beyond the boundaries of Palestine. It is the Gospel of the outsider, thought to be written by a Greek — Luke, a travelling companion of Paul — and the first part of a two-volume work which starts with the announcement of the births of John the Baptist and Jesus in the Gospel and ends with Paul preaching openly in Rome in Acts of the Apostles. Thus, the writer has a long perspective covering several decades in the two volumes of theological history and sees all that he reports to be a crucial stage in salvation history as God works out his purposes among his chosen people of Israel and the Gentiles.
Luke’s inf luence
Luke himself remains in the background, apart from some passing third-person plural allusions (the ‘we’ passages in Acts), but his influence permeates the whole Gospel. As a Greek, possibly a doctor, and conceivably with high-ranking contacts, he addresses those who had been on the margins of Judaism — those Greeks who loved all that Judaism had to offer, but who were forced to remain outside looking in, entering the Court of the Gentiles in the Jerusalem Temple, but unable to offer a sacrifice or participate in worship. As far as Luke’s Gospel is concerned, however, the Gospel of Jesus offers them a lifeline. Gentiles are not excluded from the fellowship of the early Church; neither are tax collectors, women, lepers, Samaritans or the socially despised. The kingdom of God is for the lost and for those who had found themselves wanting in the eyes of Judaism.
Luke, like Matthew, includes a birth and infancy narrative, using the opportunity to introduce vital themes of holiness, sacrifice and obedience as Jesus is both anticipated and welcomed by the poor (Mary, Joseph and the shepherds) and the pious religious enthusiasts who lived day and night in the temple awaiting the coming of the Day of the Lord (Simeon and Anna). John the Baptist’s birth and infancy run in parallel, their ministries coinciding on the shores of the River Jordan when Jesus comes for baptism. Jesus is a self-conscious Messiah, telling his parents that they should have known he would be in his father’s house on the famous occasion when he is left behind in Jerusalem, and some 20 years later telling the congregation in the synagogue at Nazareth that Isaiah’s prophecy is fulfilled in their hearing.
Observations and narrative
Jesus’ ministry in Luke follows the model set by Mark and shared by Matthew in the passages from the mysterious Q source, but he also draws on his own L material.
Some of the most famous passages in the Gospel tradition are in this source, including the parables of the Lost Son and the Good Samaritan, the healing of the Widow of Nain’s son and the calling of Zacchaeus. The L source passages invariably reinforce Luke’s primary concern for the excluded, the lost and the socially challenged. Some of the most intriguing observations in the Gospel tradition are to be found in Luke’s Gospel. It is Luke’s Gospel that tells us Mary Magdalene was not, as is so often erroneously claimed, a prostitute, but a devoted disciple from whom Jesus had cast out seven devils, and which includes the striking parables of the woman and the unjust judge and the Pharisee and the tax collector.
Luke’s passion narrative is highly distinctive, including the trial before Herod which is featured nowhere else, and presenting Jesus as the innocent martyr who dies flanked by the two criminals with whom he shares a final and crucial conversation.
In Luke’s account of the crucifixion there is no cry of dereliction, but rather forgiveness of his executioners and a ready submission to God’s will while the centurion at the foot of the cross announces that Jesus is a ‘righteous’ or ‘innocent’ man (not the son of God as per Mark). The long resurrection account is dominated by Luke’s distinctive account of the appearance of Jesus to two fringe disciples on the road to Emmaus and he alone includes an allusion to the ascension, which is to appear again in a useful recapping section at the beginning of Acts.
Luke declares at the beginning of this Gospel that he has set out to write an orderly account of Jesus’ ministry for the benefit, it is thought, of a wealthy patron, ‘the most excellent Theophilus’. He has selected his material carefully and the result is a Gospel that tells a vibrant story, but in so doing makes clear that the ministry of Jesus had an important purpose — to seek and save the lost, to raise up the broken-hearted and to bring good news to the poor.