Come As You Are, Leave As You Aren't: Meeting Jesus in the Gospel of Luke

As a congregation, we spent last fall studying the Book of Acts.  We’ll spend the first part of 2014 studying a work by the same author, the Gospel of Luke.  Commentator Leon Morris notes that when you take both books into account, Luke is responsible for more of the New Testament than any other single author.  That said, we know little about Luke himself.  He was not one of Jesus’ disciples, and is unique from them in a few ways.  The most notable are that Luke is a Gentile, and that Luke exhibits extensive formal education.  Luke first encounters Jesus in the Spirit-filled ministry and teaching of the apostles.  Like many Gentile converts, Luke was undoubtedly drawn to the early church’s warm hospitality and rich community life, as well as the remarkable impact and miraculous power of the apostles' ministry.  Like many, Luke witnessed the crowds of people converting to faith in Jesus, as well as the amazing life transformation that accompanied the new faith, and wondered how it was that simple Galilean fisherman could generate such a movement.  When Luke reports in Acts 4,

When [the Sanhedrin] saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus. (Acts 4:13), he is no doubt recounting the astonishment he too experienced when he first encountered the apostles.  Yet herein lay the explanation: these men had been with Jesus.  It was not their innate character or ability but rather the transformative power of Jesus Christ and his Holy Spirit that inspired their teaching and empowered their ministry.  Luke can only conclude one thing: that Jesus is precisely who and what the apostles claim him to be: God in the flesh, and the Savior of the world.

This is why Luke writes his gospels.  To convince an unbelieving world that Jesus is real.  To introduce skeptics not to a new religion but to a life-changing relationship.  And to invite those who have always stood outside the circle of God’s grace to enter in through the new way of Jesus Christ.

In his commentary, Morris contrasts Luke with the other “synoptic” gospels of Matthew and Mark.  He concludes,

“The great thought Luke is expressing is surely that God is working out his purpose.  This purpose is seen clearly in the life and work of Jesus, but it did not finish with the earthly ministry of Jesus.  It carried right on into the life and witness of the church.

“Luke sees this divine purpose as intimately bound up with the love and mercy of God.  A feature of this Gospel is the way God’s love is portrayed as active in a variety of ways and among a variety of people.  This is not an occasional theme, but one which runs through the whole writing.” (Leon Morris, Luke, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries, Eerdmans, 2002. pp. 15-16)

The Gospel of Luke is a Gospel of love.  It is punctuated throughout with the stories of encounters with Jesus.  And the people whom Luke brings into contact with Jesus are outsiders – sinners; ethnic and economic outcasts; Gentiles like Luke himself – all of whom Jesus engages in conversation and invites into a new world.  Each one of these meetings results in transformation.  The person comes to Jesus as one thing and leaves as another.  Luke is the only one of the four Gospel writers to consistently call Jesus “Savior”.  Luke does so from personal experience because it was through Jesus that he was welcomed, once and for all, into the family of God.  But what Luke demonstrates again and again is that the effectiveness of Jesus’ salvation lies not only in accepting people as they are, but in leaving them as they are not.  Jesus changes people. 

Jesus still changes people.  The only way for the salvation of Jesus Christ to take effect in your life is to allow Jesus into your life.  Not as a spectator or one-time commentator.  Not as a renter or interloper.  But as the permanent inhabitant and owner.  Jesus challenges and conquers.  Jesus also heals and restores.  We can’t have one without the other.  So if you dare, read Luke’s Gospel.  Do so understanding that the Jesus Luke introduces is not a character in a story but a real and living person who invites you into a new world and a new kind of life.  Come as you are; leave as you aren’t.