Read Luke 23

On February 27, 2015, Boris Nemtsov was another critic of Russian president Vladimir Putin found shot to death in Moscow. Although the Kremlin has denied any involvement, a growing number of journalists, aid workers, and political opponents have been arrested or assassinated in Russia. Nemtsov had spoken publicly about corruption within the government and had been preparing a paper documenting the experiences of Russian soldiers in Ukraine.

When corrupt political leaders want either to seize power or to protect it, they consider the strategy of assassination. We see this in our reading today. Though the Jewish religious leaders wanted Jesus dead, they had to make a political case for His execution. They had to prove that Jesus wasn’t just a religious problem that threatened their regime of temple worship. They needed to paint Jesus as an insurrectionist and a threat to Roman rule. He had to be portrayed as a self-appointed candidate for king, who refused to bow the knee to Caesar.

And they were right, of course, about the radical nature of the message that Jesus preached. When Jesus announced the coming of a new kingdom, He wasn’t simply speaking about how people get to heaven when they die (although this is important). He was proclaiming a transfer of power. He was saying that He deserved worship and allegiance—not Caesar.

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Read Luke 20

Students of American history know John Wilkes Booth assassinated President Abraham Lincoln. They may not be as familiar with George Azterodt, who was part of Wilkes’s conspiracy. Wilkes had instructed Azterodt to kill Vice President Andrew Johnson—but Azterodt lost his nerve and went out drinking instead. He was still convicted as an accomplice of Wilkes and executed by hanging in July 1865.

In our text today, Jesus had entered Jerusalem and the plot to kill Him intensified. The Pharisees and religious leaders were looking for a way to accuse Him; they were afraid of the crowd’s reaction if it seemed they were attacking Jesus for no reason. First, they tried to entrap Him on religious grounds: By what authority did He teach in the temple (v. 2)? Second, they tried to entrap Him on political grounds: Should faithful Jews pay taxes to the Romans (v. 22)?

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Read Luke 19:28-48

At the Berlin Conference in 1884–1885, the continent of Africa was carved up between European colonial powers. The new arbitrary boundaries did not reflect natural tribal divisions. When African nations began achieving independence in the 1950s and 60s, long-simmering tribal and ethnic conflicts often erupted, destabilizing the new governments with military coups, civil wars, and ethnic genocide.

Since Luke 9:51, Luke’s narrative has described Jesus’ resolute march toward Jerusalem—and some still expected that He would lead a violent coup and take political power. Jesus had often told His disciples that He expected to suffer and die in Jerusalem, but they did not grasp the significance of His words. And no doubt Jesus’ words were often strangely confusing—even in the closing of yesterday’s reading, we read the politically charged story of the king who intends to slaughter his enemies.

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Read Luke 19:1-27

During the 2014 Commonwealth Games, two Australian field hockey players captured a celebrity in the background of their selfie photo. The two women are smiling at the camera—and right behind them, also smiling at the camera, is Queen Elizabeth II! The queen was making her way over to greet the team during an unscheduled visit to the games.

Jesus was an unexpected guest at the home of an unsuspecting host. He invited Himself to the house of Zacchaeus, a well-known tax collector (v. 5). Tax collectors had the reputation for collecting more from the Jewish people than required by the Romans, and they were despised as greedy collaborators. Jesus’ decision to share a meal with Zacchaeus caused no small stir among the people.

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Read Luke 18

In ancient society, a widow was one of the most powerless members of society. Without a man to speak for her in the public square, she had no voice and no recourse against injustice. When her husband died, his property passed to the nearest male relative. Apart from family charity, the widow was almost assuredly cast into poverty.

Jesus tells a story about a widow pleading her case before an unjust judge (vv. 1–8). It’s likely that this judge had refused to grant the widow justice in her case because she was too poor to pay the necessary bribe. Because of her persistence, however, he finally ensured that justice was done, and the case was resolved. If even a corrupt, unjust judge would eventually do the right thing, how much more will our perfect Judge, who hears our cry and delivers us.

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Read Luke 17

Author Lesley Leyland Fields writes about the journey of learning to forgive her absent, abusive father. Though she had long held against him his litany of sins, in later adulthood she moved toward him in forgiveness. With sympathy, she recognized the brokenness of her father’s past, and this fueled new compassion and greater willingness to forgive.

Forgiveness is just one manifestation of the faith that Jesus says will be required to enter the kingdom of heaven. Humility is another evidence of kingdom faith, in which we count our work for God the Master not as some extraordinary achievement of our own doing but as something necessary that flows from His work for us (v. 10).

Kingdom faith must also be grateful, giving thanks as the healed Samaritan leper did (v. 16). And finally, by faith in Jesus our perspective is transformed, allowing us to see beyond the banality of the everyday to a greater spiritual reality—both of our sin and of the gospel (vv. 20–21).

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Read Luke 15

When William Penn designed Philadelphia, the “City of Brotherly Love,” he envisioned a more humane setting than the overcrowded streets of London. Penn wanted every family to have room for a garden, and he widened city thoroughfares and promoted religious freedom. No doubt he would be disappointed by the homicide rate, which is hardly evidence of “brotherly love”; in 2014, Philadelphia counted 248 murders.

The parable of the prodigal son depicts little brotherly love between the two sons, despite the gifts of a loving father and stable home. The younger brother demands a share in the family estate before his father’s death. The older brother labors for his father and yet resents that his hard work isn’t sufficiently repaid. The younger brother leaves the family estate for a “distant country,” where he squanders his inheritance (v. 13).

The older brother remains dutifully at home—although he is no less estranged from his father than his younger brother. He may not be corrupted by parties and prostitutes, but his sins of bitterness and self-righteousness are no less scandalous. He resents that his father would generously forgive his younger brother, whom he has regarded as unworthy (vv. 28–30).

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JESUS, THE VINE

Whenever a tragedy causes the deaths of many people—a natural disaster, a terrorist attack, a building or bridge collapse—some people speculate about the deeper causes. Is it God’s punishment? Did sin cause this suffering?

When we try to determine the meaning of historical calamity, at best we can usually offer only guesses. In today’s reading, Jesus rebukes those in His day who would blame all suffering on sin (vv. 2–4). We can’t assume a mechanistic connection between sin and tragedy, although it’s true that without repentance, everyone will die. But those who are victims of tragic events are not inherently more sinful. Indeed, as Jesus reminds us, every human life, like a fig tree, will be uprooted when it fails to produce the fruit of repentance (v. 7).

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Read Luke 7

Before his death, Steve Jobs was known both inside and outside of Apple for his exacting standards. He involved himself in the design details of Apple products and frequently lambasted employees when their vision and execution fell short of his genius. Jobs may have been a brilliant CEO, but he was also a difficult boss.

As a boss himself, the Roman centurion in today’s story understood the dynamics of power. When he told his servants to come or to go, they obeyed him immediately for fear of reprisal. Strangely, however, though the centurion noted that he had the ability to give orders to his servants, he described himself as “under authority” (v. 8). He seemed to understand his authority less as self-derived power and more as delegated power. Others with greater authority (namely, the emperor) had invested him with his authority to command others.

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Read Luke 6:20-49

In 1949, one of the leading scholars of Christian liturgy, Gregory Dix, quipped to a colleague, “Our understanding of our forms of worship underwent a radical transformation when it finally occurred to someone that Jesus was a Jew.” Until the middle of the twentieth century, the Jewish context for early Christianity’s faith and practice went largely understudied and underemphasized.

Luke uses his Gospel to situate the biographical details of Jesus’ life and ministry in their Jewish context. In this record of Jesus’ famous sermon, Luke intentionally recalls the Jewish Exodus from Egypt and Moses’ famous final sermon in the book of Deuteronomy. After forty years of wandering in the wilderness, Moses stood before the ancient Israelites and renewed the covenant. He announced blessings and curses, assuring them that if God’s people obeyed His laws they would inherit and live long in the Promised Land. If they did not, God would exile them from the land and scatter them among the nations (Deuteronomy 6–8).

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Read Luke 5

General George Washington was not keen on becoming the first American president. Just as he served his new country militarily in the Revolutionary War, however, he also chose to serve politically. Nevertheless, after two presidential terms, Washington humbly retired to his country estate, refusing what could have easily become unilateral power.

Jesus was a humble man, living among common people. In a single chapter of Luke’s Gospel, we see the variety of settings for His ministry and the diversity of people with whom He interacted. From a boat, He taught a gathered crowd on the shore of the Lake of Gennesaret. He helped a group of fishermen make a surprise catch. He attended a banquet hosted by an unseemly group of tax collectors. Jesus’ good-news campaign wasn’t launched from afar. He walked among people and touched even the most untouchable.

The crowds continued to flock to hear Jesus’ authoritative teaching and be healed, and Jesus, eager to perform physical and spiritual miracles, did both—albeit in unexpected ways. For example, when a paralyzed man was lowered from the roof by faithful friends, Jesus first pronounced the forgiveness of his sins. Then, when the Pharisees accused Him of blasphemy, He demonstrated His authority to forgive sin by exercising His power to heal.

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Read Luke 4:31-44

In her mid-thirties, author Theresa Brown left her career as a writing professor at Tufts University and became a trained nurse, first in oncology then in palliative care. She has written several books describing the difficult—though at times, blessed—task of preparing patients (and patients’ families) for death.

The good news of God’s kingdom is a proclamation of healing and deliverance from death—both physical and spiritual. Today’s reading marks the end of Luke’s long introduction to Jesus’ ministry: the angelic visits, birth narratives, ministry

of John the Baptist, and wilderness temptation. Now we begin to study Jesus’ life of ministry, and we see Jesus traveling throughout Galilee with crowds flocking to the Miracle Worker. The news was spreading quickly that Jesus of Nazareth was doing extraordinary things.

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