Evangelho segundo Lucas!

Luke 1:1-4; 4:14-21

Luke 1:1-4,4:14-21

Seeing that many others have undertaken to draw up accounts of the events that have taken place among us, exactly as these were handed down to us by those who from the outset were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word, I in my turn, after carefully going over the whole story from the beginning, have decided to write an ordered account for you, Theophilus, so that your Excellency may learn how well founded the teaching is that you have received.

Jesus, with the power of the Spirit in him, returned to Galilee; and his reputation spread throughout the countryside. He taught in their synagogues and everyone praised him. He came to Nazara, where he had been brought up, and went into the synagogue on the sabbath day as he usually did. He stood up to read and they handed him the scroll of the prophet Isaiah. Unrolling the scroll he found the place where it is written:

The spirit of the Lord has been given to me, for he has anointed me. He has sent me to bring the good news to the poor, to proclaim liberty to captives and to the blind new sight, to set the downtrodden free, to proclaim the Lord’s year of favour.

He then rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the assistant and sat down. And all eyes in the synagogue were fixed on him. Then he began to speak to them, ‘This text is being fulfilled today even as you listen.’

Food for thought!

As we know, there are four gospels, all similar to and different from each other. Why are there four Gospels rather than one? Certainly things would look a lot easier if there was only one Gospel. Everything we read in that one Gospel would then be the gospel truth, pure and simple. Now that we have four Gospels that often differ significantly from one another, things can be quite confusing. When you come to think of it, however, you begin to realize that things would be a lot worse if we had only one Gospel. If we had only one Gospel we would think that there is only one way of understanding Jesus and how he relates to us. But now that we have four different Gospels, each of them telling a significantly different story of Jesus and his mission, it becomes easier for us to see that no story of Jesus can exhaust the whole truth of what Jesus is. As limited human beings we can only tell part of the story of God.

This reminds us of the story of the six blind men who set out to discover what the elephant is. The first blind man feels the elephant's side and says the elephant is like a wall. The second blind man feels the elephant's tusk and says it is like a spear. The third feels the trunk and says it is like a snake. The fourth feels the elephant's leg and says the elephant is like a tree. The fifth feels the ear and says it is like a fan. And the sixth blind man feels the elephant's tail and concludes that the elephant is like a rope. You could imagine the bitter disagreement that would ensue among them if they got together to discuss the nature of the elephant. Every one of them would insist that he is right and the others wrong. But the truth of the matter is: yes, he is right, but then so also are all the others. Each of them has a valid experience of the elephant but no one of them possesses the full knowledge of the total reality of the elephant. Even when you put all the six images of the elephant together it still does not capture the full mosaic of the elephant.

The Church follows on Sundays a three-year cycle: year A for the gospel of Matthew, year B for Mark, and year C for Luke. The gospel of John is read on certain Sundays interspersed within the three years, such as the Sundays of the Easter season. We are now in year C, the year of Luke. The question we shall be asking ourselves this year is, What does Luke say Jesus is? How does he present Jesus? Matthew highlights the Christ of majesty (who heals by word of mouth alone, never touches people, never hungry, never angry, etc.), Mark highlights the Christ of might (who proves he is the Messiah by his acts of power and authority over natural and demonic forces), Luke highlights the Christ of mercy (who reaches out to the poor, the outcasts, foreigners and women) and John highlights the Christ of mystery (who was with the Father from all eternity and who has come into the world to reveal this hidden mystery, the truth that leads to life).

Today we begin reading the Gospel of Luke. In his opening preface (1:1-4) Luke tells us why he wrote the gospel. It was to explain to Theophilus what Christianity was all about. It is about Jesus Christ. That is why, in telling Theophilus about the Christian faith, Luke finds the incident in Jesus’ life extremely useful. In this incident Jesus makes a solemn declaration of his mission in the world. We can call it the Jesus Manifesto. People who initiate a revolution usually start off with a declaration of their manifesto. Karl Mark started by publishing the Communist Manifesto. Martin Luther started off with the publication of the 95 theses in Wittenberg. Jesus has come to start a revolution of mercy and love in the world. And here in today's Gospel reading he publishes the Christian manifesto:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour. (4:18-19)

In these few words we see Jesus’ Mission Statement. Jesus came and comes "to bring good news to the poor, to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour." As you can see, we all need Jesus’ Good News.