Announcing the Saviour
For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord (Luke 2:11, AV).
Luke writes his Gospel to a friend called Theophilus, and it’s as though he was writing a personal letter to us all. He introduces us to the world into which Jesus was born: a world dominated by the Roman Empire. Only Matthew and Luke write of the circumstances and events of Christ’s birth. Matthew writes from a Jewish background and Luke as a Gentile. Luke gives more detail, beginning with the miraculous events surrounding John the Baptist’s birth, before describing the vital truth of how Mary was chosen to be the mother of Jesus Christ. He tells us of the faith and worship which flowed from the hearts of Elizabeth and Mary. He describes the ordinary people whose lives became the focus of God’s greatest intervention in the history of the world: the birth of the Saviour of the world. Luke puts into perspective the mighty world power of Rome and the authority of Caesar Augustus when he orders a census of his empire. This was not the power of a great monarch, but the power of God moving the whole world so that Mary and Joseph would be led to Bethlehem. Luke records the moment when the Person who occupied the centre of heaven was laid in a manger “because there was no room in the inn.” These simple words describe to our hearts the arrival of the Lord of glory into His creation as a homeless child, hidden in the small crowded city of David.
It is in the hearts of ordinary people that Luke traces God’s goodness. He alone tells us about the angels’ glorious appearing to the shepherds in the fields outside Bethlehem. The world was oblivious to the birth of Jesus on that holy night, but heaven was not:
“Glory to God in the highest,
And on earth peace, good will toward men!”
Luke’s Gospel reveals to us that, although the Lord was rejected as a homeless stranger on earth, He never ceased to occupy the attention and the thoughts of heaven. He records the opened heaven at the beginning of the Lord’s life in Bethlehem and the opened heaven when Jesus returned to heaven in glory (Luke 24). He alone tells us of the welcome the Lord receives as a baby in the temple. His parents came with two turtle doves as a sacrifice. It was the smallest sacrifice, brought by those who could afford no more. It demonstrated the reality of the Lord Jesus entering into the poverty of this world. At the same time, worship poured out of the hearts of Simeon and Anna. This witnessed to the power of the Saviour held in the arms of this old servant of God (Luke 2:29-30).
Luke uniquely records the young boy Jesus staying behind in Jerusalem to confound the wisest men of the day. The “Ancient of Days” as a twelve-year-old! Luke gives us the first words of Jesus: “Why did you seek Me? Did you not know that I must be about My father’s business?” He also records the last words of the Lord Jesus on the cross, “Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit” (Luke 23:46). Luke’s Gospel describes the astonishing grace of the Lord Jesus. He traces the quiet pathway the Lord took from Bethlehem, Jerusalem and Nazareth until He is no longer hidden from the nation but announced as the Saviour of the world. Luke, the shepherds, Simeon and Anna all came to Jesus and then witnessed to the Saviour in a world that did not know Him. Now we have the privilege to do the same.
