'Luke the historian' earns his nickname

December 3, 2006 -- First Sunday of Advent

By Fr. Michael Stubbs

	Fr. Mike Stubbs

If a potential employee applies for a job, it is good to investigate his or her background. On one hand, such an investigation can reveal problems that could interfere with work. If someone regularly calls in sick on Mondays, I, as an employer would like to know. On the other hand, an investigation can also reveal talents that would help the employer to make the best possible use of a worker.

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We can think of the books of the Bible as servants that God has given to work for us. But we can only use them well if we know something about their background.

When Advent begins, a new liturgical year starts. We will begin cycle C of the Sunday lectionary, in which Luke's gospel predominates. Since we will hear from that gospel so often this next year, I would like to investigate that book's background.

Many scholars believe that Luke wrote between 80 and 85 A.D., for an audience of Gentile origin. From his use of the Greek language, Luke appears to have been well-educated.

Luke also has a strong sense of history. His historical sense especially stands out in the sequel to the gospel, the Acts of the Apostles. This second work, while focusing on the apostles Peter and Paul, also presents a history of the early church. His interest in history has earned Luke the nickname "Luke the historian."

This description of Luke as a historian does not imply that the other gospels are less factual. Luke's gospel is more historical insofar as it attempts to situate the events of the gospel in the broader range of other events happening elsewhere.

Luke presents the life and ministry of Jesus, not as isolated incidents in some insignificant corner of the world, but rather as part of the world's history. It is because Jesus' life is connected to the world's history that Luke can point to it as the central moment of that history. World history then becomes salvation history, God's plan for the human race. And it all revolves around Jesus Christ.

We see a good example of how Luke accomplishes that in the gospel reading for Dec. 10, Luke 3:1-6. Like the other synoptic gospels of Matthew and Mark, Luke describes John the Baptist and his ministry. Unlike Mark and Matthew, though, Luke situates John the Baptist in the context of world history.

"In the fifteenth year of the rule of Tiberius Caesar, when Pontius Pilate was procurator of Judea, Herod tetrarch of Iturea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias, tetrarch of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God was spoken to John son of Zechariah in the desert."

This long list of rulers is unique to Luke's gospel. He mentions them, not to impress us with his knowledge, or to cause the reader to stumble over their names, or even to provide us with a means to date the start of John's ministry through cross-reference. Rather, Luke wishes to place the itinerant preacher John the Baptist on the same level as these Mediterranean bigwigs.

Luke is signaling that the spiritual leader heralded by John will rival these earthly leaders. Christ the King will prove superior to all these petty Mideastern princes, even superior to the Roman emperor.

(Fr. Stubbs, a priest of the Archdiocese of Kansas City, Kansas, has a master's degree in theology from Harvard.)