Born in Bethlehem: Savior, Christ and Lord

The Gospel of Luke is the longest of the four Gospels and the first half of a two-volume work whose second volume is Acts (Luke 1:1-4; Acts 1:1). Early church tradition names the author as Luke, the physician and companion of Paul (Colossians 4:14; Philemon 24; 2 Timothy 4:11), and the 'we' passages of Acts (from Acts 16:10) fit an eyewitness traveling companion. Some critical scholars doubt that the author knew Paul personally. This class follows the traditional attribution.

The date is debated. Many conservative scholars argue for the early 60s AD, because Acts ends with Paul under house arrest in Rome and neither volume mentions the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70. Most critical scholars place Luke around AD 80 to 90, holding that Luke used Mark and that Luke 21 reflects knowledge of Jerusalem's destruction. This belongs to the 'synoptic problem', the question of how Matthew, Mark and Luke are related. The most common solution is that Mark was first and that Matthew and Luke each used Mark and a collection of Jesus' sayings called Q. Others reject Q, and some defend the older view that Matthew came first. Luke 2 is material Luke has to himself.

Luke writes to 'most excellent Theophilus' (1:3), a name meaning 'friend of God', and mainly for Greek-speaking, largely Gentile readers who needed assurance about what they had been taught (1:4). His distinctive interests, visible from the first chapters, are salvation for all peoples, God's care for the poor and humble, women, the Holy Spirit, prayer and joy. The setting is the reign of Caesar Augustus, the first Roman emperor (27 BC to AD 14), and the last years of Herod the Great, who died in 4 BC by the most common reckoning. Bethlehem, about six miles south of Jerusalem, was David's town.

Luke 2 is historical narrative with embedded poetry and speech. Luke ties the story to named rulers and to the Old Testament pattern of birth stories: an angel appears, a sign is given, God's people respond in praise. The angelic words and Simeon's song are in poetic form and carry the main theology. The narrative tells; the songs explain.

Three interpretive principles apply.

• First, the chapter must be read with Luke 1, since the promises of 1:32-33 (a Son who will receive David's throne and reign forever) are what Luke 2 begins to deliver.
• Second, Luke repeatedly says that Mary 'treasured' and 'pondered' these things (2:19, 51). He signals that he is reporting what was kept in memory and handed on, and that the meaning is not exhausted by what the characters grasped at the time.
• Third, Luke's careful naming of rulers invites readers to treat the story as history, and the claim itself is that God acted within history. Matthew also tells of the birth (Matthew 1-2), but from Joseph's side, with the Magi, Herod's murderous fear and the flight to Egypt; Mark and John have no birth story. The accounts do not contradict each other, and each selects. Luke tells it through Mary, the shepherds and the temple.

The census in 2:1-2 is the best-known historical difficulty. The Jewish historian Josephus describes a census under Quirinius, governor of Syria, in AD 6, after Herod's son Archelaus was removed (Acts 5:37 refers to the revolt it sparked). That is about ten years after Herod's death. Proposals include: that Luke's Greek means 'this was the registration before Quirinius was governor'; that Quirinius held an earlier office in Syria in Herod's time; or that Luke made an error. The class does not depend on settling this. Luke knew of the later census, since Acts 5:37 refers to it.

Verses 1–7

Luke begins with a decree from Caesar Augustus that the Roman world be registered, a census for taxation. Joseph, of David's house, goes up from Nazareth to Bethlehem, 'the city of David', with Mary, who is pregnant. The birth is told in a sentence: she wraps the baby in cloths and lays him in a manger, a feeding trough, because there was no room in the 'inn'. The Greek word is kataluma, which Luke uses elsewhere for a guest room (22:11), so some scholars think the family was in a crowded relative's home. Either way, the Savior is laid in a feeding trough, with no royal house waiting.

Verses 8–14

The first announcement goes to shepherds, who stood low on the social scale. An angel appears, the glory of the Lord shines, and they are afraid. The message is good news of great joy for all the people. The verb is euangelizomai, 'to bring good news', the root of 'gospel'. The child is given three titles in one sentence: Savior, Christ (the anointed king) and Lord. The sign is a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger. Then the heavenly host praise God and announce peace on earth among those with whom he is pleased. 'Peace' here means the fullness of God's blessing, and the Roman emperor was already hailed as the one who brought peace. Luke sets one claim beside the other.

Verses 15–20

The shepherds go, find the child as they were told, and report what the angels said. All are amazed, and Mary treasures these things and ponders them. The shepherds return glorifying God.

Verses 21–24

On the eighth day the child is circumcised and named Jesus, the name the angel gave (1:31), the Greek form of Joshua, 'the LORD saves'. The law required purification after childbirth (Leviticus 12) and consecration of the firstborn (Exodus 13:2). The offering of two birds was the one permitted to those who could not afford a lamb (Leviticus 12:8). Luke shows a devout, poor family and a child born under the law, as Paul also says (Galatians 4:4).

Verses 25–35

Simeon is righteous and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Spirit had told him he would see the Lord's Christ before he died. Taking the child in his arms, he says in the song called the Nunc Dimittis that he may now depart in peace, for his eyes have seen God's salvation, a light of revelation for the Gentiles and glory for Israel. The language draws on Isaiah 42:6, 49:6 and 52:10. He then tells Mary that the child is appointed for the falling and rising of many in Israel, a sign that will be opposed, and that a sword will pierce her own soul. This is the first hint in Luke that Jesus will divide people, and the first shadow of the cross.

Verses 36–40

Anna, a prophetess of the tribe of Asher, never leaves the temple but worships with fasting and prayer. The Greek can mean that she was 84 years old or that she had been a widow for 84 years. She speaks of the child to all who await the redemption of Jerusalem. Luke pairs a man and a woman as witnesses, as he often does. The family returns to Nazareth, and the child grows, filled with wisdom, with God's grace on him.

Verses 41–52

At twelve, Jesus goes up to Jerusalem for Passover with his family. On the way home he is missing, and after three days his parents find him in the temple among the teachers, listening and asking questions, and all are amazed at his understanding. Mary tells him that his father and she have searched anxiously. Jesus replies, in his first recorded words in Luke, that he must be in his Father's house, or possibly 'about my Father's affairs', since the Greek can be read either way. 'Must' (dei) is Luke's language of divine necessity. His parents do not understand. Yet he goes down to Nazareth and is subject to them, increasing in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and men.

Luke 2 holds together several doctrines that the rest of the Bible develops. The first is the incarnation. The eternal Son, whom Luke 1:35 calls 'Son of God', is born as a human child, wrapped in cloths and laid in a feeding trough. John 1:14 says the Word became flesh, and Philippians 2:6-8 says he took the form of a servant. Luke tells the same truth as a story.

The second is the fulfillment of promise. The child is born in the city of David, and God had promised David an heir whose kingdom would have no end (2 Samuel 7:12-16). Micah 5:2, which Matthew quotes (Matthew 2:5-6) though Luke does not, names Bethlehem as the birthplace of a ruler for Israel. Luke's concern is that the old promises are now being met by real people in real places: Simeon, Anna and the shepherds are exactly the kind of waiting, humble people that the Psalms and Prophets expect to see salvation.

• The third is the universal scope of salvation. Simeon says the child is for 'all peoples', a light for the Gentiles and glory for Israel. This is how Luke announces the reach of the Gospel and the book of Acts. Isaiah had said that the servant would be a light to the nations (Isaiah 49:6), and Paul quotes this verse of his own mission in Acts 13:47.
• The fourth is the Passion that casts its shadow over the infancy: the sign to be opposed and the sword through Mary's soul. The Gospel's joy and its sorrow arrive together.

Luke 2 presents Jesus as the fulfillment of what God promised to Israel. The angel gives him three titles. As Savior, he brings the rescue that the Old Testament says the LORD alone provides (Isaiah 43:11). As Christ, he is the anointed king from David's line promised in Luke 1:32-33 and in 2 Samuel 7. As Lord, he bears the title that the Greek Old Testament uses for the God of Israel. The same word group will be used of the risen Jesus in Acts 2:36.

Simeon's song gathers Isaiah's promises of light for the nations (Isaiah 42:6; 49:6) and applies them to the child he holds. The New Testament itself makes this connection: Acts 13:47 applies Isaiah 49:6 to the mission of Jesus' witnesses, and Acts 26:23 says that the Christ would proclaim light to the people and to the Gentiles. The word about a child set for the falling and rising of many echoes Isaiah 8:14-15, where the Lord is a stone that causes stumbling. Peter and Paul apply stone passages to Jesus (1 Peter 2:6-8; Romans 9:32-33).

The boy's words in the temple, 'my Father's house', are the first sign in Luke that Jesus knows God as Father in a unique sense. The conversation with Mary distinguishes 'your father' from 'my Father'. The final line, that Jesus grew in favor with God and men, echoes the description of the boy Samuel in 1 Samuel 2:26. It is offered here as an echo, not as a strict type. Luke is showing that Jesus lived a fully human growth in obedience while being the Son who must be about his Father's business.