Every several years I am asked to speak to a women’s group that Janet is a member of. They are fundamentally a Christian group and each month they have a speaker present a short program that would be of interest to the ladies. I have had the joy to present on occasion throughout the years and last year I was asked to asked to do the program this week leading up to Advent.
We are now in the liturgical season of what is called Ordinary Time and on Dec. 1st, we will enter the official season of Advent. This is the period of time leading up to the birth of Jesus which we celebrate, of course, on December 25th. Many folks don’t realize that the new liturgical year starts with the season of Advent.
A number of people think that the season of Lent and Easter are the start of the church year, but that isn’t the case. Because Good Friday and Easter Sunday wouldn’t have happened unless God sent Jesus to earth to live among us several thousand years ago in the city of Bethlehem. The Gospel of Mark starts with the beginning of the story of Jesus. But Mark, presumably the first Gospel that was written, is just about the facts. Mark doesn’t go into the birth story of Jesus at all. He starts with John the Baptist, who was slightly older than Jesus, and moves the story forward from there.
Matthew, on the other hand, wrote to the Jewish population and starts his Gospel with a genealogy, something that would have been very important to his audience. In fact, he takes the lineage all the way back to Abraham. This ties the father of the Jewish nation directly to Jesus. And then, we have Luke. Luke wrote to a very different audience, and he wanted to make sure that after careful investigation, he recorded the truth, the whole truth, about Jesus. He even went back farther than Matthew, starting with the parents of John the Baptist, giving us the most accurate account of the birth story in the Scripture.
It is Luke’s account that we have heard since we were little kids. The birth in a stable, shepherds in the fields, the arrival of the wise men and the abundance of angels are all things that we learn from the good doctor Luke. It is a result of this narrative that so many Christmas carols have been written and put to music. We owe Luke a great deal for the detailed and orderly account that he gave us about the life of Jesus.
John’s Gospel, written about 30 years later than Matthew and Luke, was probably written in response to a division by members of the church who thought they new more than the leaders who were teaching them. They were called gnostics or false teachers. John was a very old man, probably in his late eighties, when he penned his story about the life of Jesus. John was the only writer who takes us all the way back to what we can only perceive as the “ex nihilo” beginning. That is the time when the original creation came about – something from nothing. Our human minds can’t comprehend this idea that takes us to eternity past. John is on fire for Jesus and rather than use parables, John relies on discourses. Those are true stories followed by spiritual lessons that demonstrate the deity of Jesus. This includes the fact that He is “living water”, the “bread of life” and the “light of the world.” Jesus holds several other titles that John reveals to us throughout the pages of his Gospel as well.
John’s book is clearly about the lessons that we can learn and apply to our lives when it comes to Jesus and our eternal life with Him. All four of the Gospels help paint a detailed picture of Jesus, His mission and various points of view that all reveal that He is God.
As we enter this season of Lent on December 1st, our verse for tonight includes the opening of Luke’s Gospel that points us to the certainty of the narrative that unfolds in its pages. Luke tells us, in Luke 1:1-4, “Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. Therefore, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, it seemed good also to me to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.” Luke investigated everything “from the beginning” and wants to make sure that he provides us details and certainty in his narrative of the life of Jesus.
My encouragement this evening is that we can depend on the accuracy of the writers of the Gospels to give us the true stories of the life of Jesus. My prayer, as we look forward to entering the season of Advent in several weeks, is that we will prepare our hearts as we celebrate Thanksgiving and look forward to the beginning of the new liturgical year, celebrating the birth of our Savior. Have a great day in the Lord, grace and peace…