Familiarity. Luke 1.

One of the things I have to remind myself to do when reading such a familiar passage is to slow down. That starts, of course, by praying before beginning to read, and asking for help in doing that. I don't want to only skim the passage, remembering what it's about, noticing a couple of touch points, and then putting a check mark in a box -- Luke 1? Check. Read that. And while I might be even more inclined to do so in the next couple of chapters of Luke, these first passages describing the conception and birth of Luke's gospel, John the baptist, and Jesus, not quite born, are familiar enough to warrant the precaution.

What then is in the passage that we don't want to overlook? How about the clues Luke gives us at the beginning of the gospel, concerning his motivation in writing this account, the care which he took, and the implications for understanding the message within? For example, the fact that it's written for someone with a Greek name, Theophilus, with phrasing that makes it sound like he's an official, and whose name means "God-lover", provides some indication of the target audience Luke had in mind. The audience is always a key to better understanding of the author's meaning. Luke also indicates this is an orderly account of the testimonies of eyewitnesses, indicating this gospel is factual and complete. That's cool. (Ooooh, I feel it coming on, I can't help it, Paul did it, oh, I was going to avoid it, but, could we say "Cool Hand Luke"?) Have fun pulling out your own keys from the first few verses.

We also get an immediate sense of how Luke writes by observing they way he's structured this parallel account of the announcements, miraculous conception, and births of John and Jesus (anticipated in this chapter). He shows sensitivity in portraying what happened, poetry in the two songs, and attention to detail as he said he would by providing date markers by which to know when this took place. The "song of Mary" in verses 1:46-56, makes one wonder if she was one of the eyewitness accounts Luke gathered.

The miraculous nature and direct hand of God at work is, of course, overwhelmingly apparent in this account. Imagine if we had only Mark's account to go on -- there's John, baptizing; there's Jesus, being baptized; there's Jesus beginning His ministry. No precursors to the moment of public ministry. No indicators of God's intervention from the beginning of these two men, only the assumption that it must have been so.

We learn something about angels, specifically the angel Gabriel. We learn of John's connection to the priests by birth, and to the prophets by calling and through Spirit-empowerment. And we learn that in Jesus, with John as the forerunner, that Israel's long wait, the long silence of God has ended.

"For he has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David,
as he spoke through the mouth of his holy prophets from long ago,
that we should be saved from our enemies,
and from the hand of all who hate us.
He has done this to show mercy to our ancestors,
and to remember his holy covenant –
the oath that he swore to our ancestor Abraham.

This oath grants
that we, being rescued from the hand of our enemies,
may serve him without fear,
in holiness and righteousness before him for as long as we live.
And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High.
For you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways,
to give his people knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their sins."
(Luke 1:69-77 NET)

I love how this chapter ends, and could meditate on just this one verse alone, considering where in my life is the wilderness where I might grow strong in the spirit. "And the child kept growing and becoming strong in spirit, and he was in the wilderness until the day he was revealed to Israel."