Luke 1

An introduction tells us a lot about what we need to know.

This morning we will be looking at the introduction into the Gospel of Luke. Introductions are helpful because they often tell you key information that is needed to understand the rest of the story.

the following are all opening lines in either movies or books:

“Call Me Ishmael.”

"I was 12 going on 13 when I first saw a dead human being." Stand by me

“Rosebud.” Citizen Kane

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”

"3 billion human lives ended on August 29th, 1997. The survivors of the nuclear fire called the war Judgment Day." T2

“The key to faking out the parents is the clammy hands. It’s a good non-specific symptom; I’m a big believer in it."Ferris Bueller

If you’ve seen any of these movies or read these books then you know what a good introduction does. A good introduction will point us in the right direction. It will show us what really matters.

And that is what happens here in the book of Luke.

Luke takes the opening lines of his gospel and points us in the right direction. We get what we need to know from what Luke tells us in these four verses.

This introduction orients us into the story. It is a warm welcome that helps us to understand the necessary next steps to take and the things we need to be looking for.

Introductions are helpful because sometimes we enter into things that we can’t really figure out.

You’ve experienced this if you have ever entered into a movie halfway through or heard someone describing a book from the middle. It makes no sense. There are people you haven’t heard of, doing things for no particular reason, in places that don’t make sense. This is a story without an introduction.

You just get thrown into some kind of situation and need to figure out who is who and what is what.

Sometimes life feels that way. We get turned around and can’t seem to find out which way is forward. Maybe you have relied on a relationship that has become complicated or difficult. Or maybe someone you love has passed away and you now have to reorient around that loss.

As I am now peak middle aged I talk to my other peak middle aged friends and I have noticed a very interesting experience. Middle age is where your kids, who have historically needed you more now need you less and your parents who have needed you less now need you more. Middle age is a strange vertigo that shifts your responsibility. Maybe you are peak middle age and are shifting your responsibilities and because of that, your identity. Or maybe you have changed jobs or retired or moved. And suddenly the things around you don’t look familiar any longer.

Here’s one more introduction:

At the mid-point of the path through life, I found Myself lost in a wood so dark, the way Ahead was blotted out. The keening sound I still make shows how hard it is to say How harsh and bitter that place felt to me— Merely to think of it renews the fear— So bad that death by only a degree Could possibly be worse. As you shall hear, It led to good things too, eventually, But there and then I saw no sign of those,   10 And can’t say even now how I had come To be there, stunned and following my nose Away from the straight path. And then, still numb From pressure on the heart, still in a daze, I stumbled on the threshold of a hill Where trees no longer grew.

Canto 1: Divine Comedy

In the Divine Comedy there is a lostness that comes mid-point in life for Dante. He looks around and no longer notices anything familiar. And in his mid point approach he stumbles on the threshold of a hill where trees no longer grew.

We might find ourselves at this precipice. At this place. And we need to find something that can sustain us at this altitude.

That is why I like Luke’s introduction. It gives us what we need to orient ourselves in the right way regardless of the familiarity of place. As we are introduced into the story of Jesus we find that no matter what kind of place we find ourselves we can find Christ. That His story is big enough to find ourselves in it.

His introduction is ours as well.

This morning we will see that the story of Christ is one whose ending is told from the beginning, where it is always located in a person and the story bears up under reliability.

The end is told from the beginning

Luke 1:1–2 ESV

Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us, just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us,

Luke is clear to tell us that there are others who have written the story of Jesus, and that he will do the same thing, to communicate what has been “accomplished among us.”

The Gospel tells us the end in the beginning.

The only time Luke uses this word, “accomplished” is when he is referring to the work that Christ has completed. The first occurrence in this passage uses the Greek word, πληροφορέω, meaning to “bring full measure: satisfy fully.”

The idea is not just to communicate that something is done, like finishing a race, it is being able to communicate that what was done is something to be completely certain about, be be fully assured, convinced or persuaded.

To accomplish in this sense is not about simply finishing a task, but about getting every part of it fulfilled. If you think about running a race, to consider it accomplished in this sense is not just to think about a finish line, it is about including everything you did to get to the finish line. It includes every meal, every practice run, every glass of water, every conversation about the race, the application, the clothing, the family and friends that cheer you on.

This sense of accomplish invites others to experience what is satisfied and completed. It is not just a series of events, it is everything that it took to complete a final, ultimate goal.

Luke uses the word “accomplish” in this sense, not just to communicate that something has happened, but to bring in all the events, all of history, all of human desire and suffering, every tear or moment of rejoicing, longing for something more, together. That Christ accomplishes the desire and hope of human activity. That Christ already knows the end.

When Jesus says at the cross, it is finished, He is not talking about His life. He is saying that He entirely completed what He set out to do. He is not just finishing something, He is satisfying all of human longing. Christ knows how it is going to end. He is at the place of everything being completed. And He calls us to follow Him there.

The work of God in Christ is reliable enough to rest in. He has completed it and will continue to complete it.

As we get oriented toward the story of Christ this morning we recognize that we can rest in how it ends. Christ has accomplished it. All the trouble, the cross, is in the accomplished work of Jesus, it’s joy.

Hebrews 12:2 ESV

looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

In Christ, all of human history, all pain and celebration is found in what Christ accomplished. Because God has accomplished His work, He knows the end. That’s why there is joy.

I’ve shared this story before but when Asher was a toddler we had to fly from Oregon to Wisconsin. He was too young to really get what a plane was or what we were doing so on the flight home to Oregon, Asher got a little fussy. He started crying and then yelling, loudly, I want to go home! I want to go home! While you can’t really reason with a toddler I began to tell him what I could see out the window.

I looked out and saw the Columbia River. The Columbia river snakes its way east to west and empties in the Pacific ocean. It cuts right through Portland, near where we were living. I was telling him that I know it doesn’t seem like it but we are almost home. I saw the landmarks and I could feel we were descending. Even though it didn’t feel like home to him, I was telling him, we are home.

God knows the landmarks of your life and He knows where you are and where you need to be. He has accomplished what He set out to do and now leads us by His Spirit to our home in Him. Trust the one who has accomplished all things to lead you home.

You might be in the middle of something that you don’t know the end to. You might feel the pressure of some kind of situation that you don’t know the end yet. Even in these opening passages we see that Christ already know the end. And We can trust Him in that.

Certainty

Luke 1:3–4 ESV

it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught.

Luke writes to Theophilus. Maybe Theophilus is a patron and is bankrolling Luke’s work, or they are connected in other relational ways, but in any case, Luke wants for Theophilus to know the certainties of the events that have taken place.

Luke tells Theophilus he will write and “orderly account” so that he will be able to have “certainty” regarding what he has been taught. This idea of certainty is helpful as we make our way through Luke.

The narrative that Luke will tell Theophilus is something reliable. It is trustworthy material that creates a certain security against stumbling and falling.

Luke states there is certainty in knowing what He is saying. More than that, what he is saying is reliable. It can be trusted. Not only is the introduction and the accomplishment clear, Luke is asserting that the path is trustworthy.

Reliability of something is dependent on what William Alston calls a consistent track record that has piled up over a “suitable number and variety of employments.” That, given different situations and contexts, that object behaves the same way over a period of time (Alston, William P. 2010. Perceiving God: The Epistemology of Religious Experience. Cornell University Press, 104).

For you to consider something reliable is to recognize there is something outside of yourself you can trust because it is suitable in variety of employments.

The proclaimed Gospel of Christ is reliable. The events that will be communicated are strong enough for Theophilus to put his whole weight into. This is the nature of God. Over and over in the Scriptures we are called to lean into God, to put all of ourselves in Him, to trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understandings (Proverbs 3:5-6). And that as we trust we will see how strong that things is.

Look briefly at Isaiah 28:16

Isaiah 28:16 ESV

therefore thus says the Lord God, “Behold, I am the one who has laid as a foundation in Zion, a stone, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone, of a sure foundation: ‘Whoever believes will not be in haste.’

This cornerstone is the principle stone used for a building. It is the first stone that is laid that every other stone aligns itself to. It is a stone that every other stone becomes connected to. A building is built to the alignment of a cornerstone.

It is the most reliable object in the building. Isaiah calls the stone a tested stone. One that is reliable because other stones are built upon it.

It is sure and reliable because it has been tested. It has held up. We know that in the New Testament, Christ Himself is the cornerstone. He is the principle and the reliable place where we align ourselves to.

As we trust Christ, as we test Him, we find that He is trustworthy, He is reliable.

As G.K. Chesterton has famously said:

“The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.”

These first four verses in Luke lay out the Gospel. It is accomplished and complete, it is reliable and trustworthy.

We are shown where to look. We are shown that the path is reliable.

But we still have to go there. We have to act on it. This action is where we meet the God of the universe. We act on what James KA Smith says, that

“Conversion is not an arrival at our final destination; it’s the acquisition of a compass.” ( Smith, James K. A. 2019. On the Road with Saint Augustine: A Real-World Spirituality for Restless Hearts. Brazos Press).

This is a helpful metaphor for what it means to follow Christ in the world. We are given the ability to know which way to go, to know who is there when we arrive. That is the benefit of the Christian life.

Given that you know the end, you know the path with certainty, you are given a compass. How will you spend your week? What is the next thing Christ has called you to?