Fragments on Luke

Contents

Reading pages: 311–333 · 335–351 · 353–369

1. 311Luke's preface distinguishes the four Gospels written by the Spirit from the many that others "undertook", and stresses that the events really happened.
2. 313Every friend of God is a Theophilus, and Luke's eyewitnesses saw the Word himself, not merely a body, as contemplatives and servants.
3. 315Zacharias and Elizabeth were righteous before God, who alone sees the heart, and blameless because they kept the commandments without vainglory.
4. 317The angel came down to Zacharias's level and calmed his fear, and Zacharias's silence is read as the silence of prophecy among the former people of God.
5. 319The angel came to Mary, not Joseph, and John leaped in the womb at her greeting, receiving the Spirit before his mother.
6. 321Elizabeth confesses Mary as mother of the Lord, Mary's soul magnifies God by living according to his image, and Zacharias's tongue is loosed when he names John.
7. 323Zacharias's tongue, freed from unbelief, prophesies, and the patriarchs and prophets too shared in Christ's coming through his descent into Hades.
8. 325The Father's true temple is the church, and Luke's list of rulers in 3:1 shows that the Gospel was for the whole world.
9. 327John's call to prepare the way levels the proud and fills the humble, and his answer to the crowds leads them from the law's shadow to love, its fulfilment.
10. 329Zacharias's silence is a type of those who cast out the Word, John's name means one who points to the present God, and Mary called Joseph Jesus' father because of others' suspicions.
11. 331The rulers of Luke 3:1 show the Gospel reaching Jews and gentiles alike, and the devil's use of Psalm 91 at the temptation is answered: the psalm speaks of the righteous man, not of Christ.
12. 333The sick were brought to Jesus at sunset because of the Sabbath, and the leper's cleansing in the law pictures putting off dead works and receiving baptism.
13. 335Every disciple's mind is a lamp to be set on the lampstand of the church, and the healed Gadarene, sent home, stands for the gentiles to whom Jesus came.
14. 337The swine and the anointing woman picture stages of the soul's healing, and Jairus's daughter and the bleeding woman stand for the synagogue and the church of the nations.
15. 339The healing of the bleeding woman before Jairus's daughter foreshadows the nations believing before Israel, and those "standing" by Jesus are those who see the Word in his kingly glory.
16. 341Those who "will not taste death" are those fed on Christ the living bread, and Scripture distinguishes degrees of spiritual death.
17. 343The transfiguration is seen by those who rise above the six days of the world: to them the Word appears as God, his garments are the Gospel words made clear, and Moses and Elijah are the law and prophets in harmony with him.
18. 345The voice at the transfiguration makes law and prophets one with the Gospel, and the healings, especially of the moonstruck boy, are types of the healing of souls.
19. 347The moonstruck boy pictures souls whose virtue waxes and wanes like the moon, healed only by the faith that moves mountains; the Son of Man is handed over by the Father, by Judas and by the devil.
20. 349Christ was handed over by the Father in love, by Judas in malice and by the devil, and by his death destroyed death; the call to follow him comes when the "father", the devil, has died to us.
21. 351The sending of disciples two by two follows a pattern from Moses and Aaron onward, and cities that reject the apostles have the broad streets of the road to destruction.
22. 353Martha and Mary stand for action and contemplation, or for Jewish and free believers; the Lord's Prayer and the parable of the friend at midnight are expounded.
23. 355God gives the soul its needed bread and relish of learning, never stones or snakes; Zacharias, by one tradition, was killed for defending Mary's virginity.
24. 357God forgets no sparrow, though the soul that sinks to earthly things falls like one; the leaven hidden in three measures is the Holy Spirit given through Wisdom to body, soul and spirit.
25. 359Believers become one spiritual bread; the workers in the vineyard stand for those called at every age of life, or in every age of history, all receiving the one denarius of God's image.
26. 361The hours of the vineyard parable match the ages of salvation history and the five senses; the poor and maimed whom the host invites are the untaught whom the true teacher serves without seeking glory.
27. 363The excuses in the parable of the great supper are false doctrine, love of the senses and love of pleasure; God is likened to a man only for our sake, until we can see him as he is.
28. 365The fatted calf is ethical and contemplative teaching, the iota of the law is Jesus, the leprosy laws picture the growth of reason in the soul, and Jesus' citing of the commandments refutes those who reject the law.
29. 367Jesus loved the rich man who kept the law, though he fell short of perfection; the untied colt is the soul freed for Christ, which no earlier teacher had ridden.
30. 369The coin bearing Caesar's image is the earthy image taken on through sin, which we must give back so as to bear again the image of God.