Relating to the Galilean phase of Jesus’ ministry, the larger section of Luke 4:14 – 9:50, to which 4:14–44 belongs, is marked by certain discernible patterns. First, the next five chapters are characterized by a sustained rhythm between deeds and words. The alternation between these two poles is almost certainly intentional. Perhaps Luke saw no other way to do justice to the programmatic citation of Isaiah in 4:18–19 than by showing how his inaugural sermon would work itself out in word and deed. Second, here Jesus begins to encounter very different reactions to his ministry or ‘release’ (an important word in this passage): some extremely negative, others extremely positive. These early controversies foreshadow later developments en route to Jerusalem and in Jerusalem itself. But it all begins in Galilee.
Having been baptized and tested, Jesus in 4:14–44 is now finally ready to undertake his ministry. He does so in his home town of Nazareth. A sudden burst of ministry activity without explanation would risk leaving his observers mystified on too many fronts. So in his inaugural sermon, Jesus announces his agenda – and he does so, strikingly, with the words of Isaiah. Mary had perceived that the return from exile was nigh and that the climax of the covenants was underway (1:46–55); now Jesus confirms the same point.
14–15. This couplet of transitional verses takes up a double duty in the narrative. Advancing beyond Jesus’ last-mentioned whereabouts at the temple (v. 9), verses 14–15 note his transition to the surrounding country before eventually returning to Jerusalem (9:51). At the macro level, verses 14–15 introduce the entire Galilean ministry (4:14 – 9:50). Yet on a smaller scale, the two verses provide a bridge between the confirmation of Jesus’ messianic identity (4:1–13) and his early implementation of his messianic ministry (4:16–30). The thread of continuity is the Spirit: whereas Jesus is filled with the power of the Spirit (v. 14) as an extension of the Spirit-indwelling before the temptation (v. 1), soon enough he himself will interpret that fullness in the terms of Isaiah’s climactic prophecy (v. 18). Meanwhile, John’s testimony about Jesus, the ‘voice of one crying out in the wilderness’ (3:4), now morphs into a collective report that is spread through the populated region of Galilee. Jesus’ reputation is now preceding him, and that on account of the baptism and temptations, not to mention healings unreported by Luke (v. 23). All the while, verse 15 has a prospective force: when Jesus teaches in their synagogues and is praised (doxazomenos) or ‘glorified’ by everyone, this offers a fairly accurate preview of 4:14 – 9:50. The very glory which Jesus rejected in the second temptation (v. 6), then, is already circling back to him. Yet as 4:14 – 9:50 will also make clear soon enough, it is a glory deeply tinged with hostility.
16. Returning to Nazareth (2:39–40), Jesus now makes his home town the geographical point of departure for his ministry. While one might ordinarily expect Jesus to utilize his home base to garner popular support, it is almost as if he launches from Nazareth precisely because of the resistance he expects to find there (vv. 23–24). Scepticism from his kith and kin here will soon prove to be a bellwether of his cool reception among the Jews in general.
Almost as if to reaffirm the intramural nature of Jesus’ conflict with his fellow Jews, Luke confirms his Torah piety by noting that synagogue attendance was his Sabbath custom (cf. 1:9; 2:22, 39, 42). Having absented himself from Nazareth long enough to be considered both a ‘home town boy done good’ and a visitor, Jesus is granted the honour of offering the reading from the Prophets (which followed the reading of Torah but preceded the sermon proper) – a privilege appropriate to a distinguished visitor. Although in a typical synagogue service the ensuing sermon would often fall to a separate individual, Jesus retains the stage to elaborate briefly on the scriptural text.
17–19. Our knowledge of first-century synagogue practice is too scanty for us to be certain whether Jesus’ passage would have been his choice or merely the assigned lectionary reading for the day. Either way, he reads from Isaiah 61:1–2 with a portion of Isaiah 58:6 tacked on for good measure. Also attracting the interest of the Qumran sectarians (e.g. 1QH XVIII, 14; 4Q521; 11Q13), Isaiah 61:1–2 seems to have been a major plank in the Ancient Jewish vision of eschatological restoration.1 It is easy enough to see why, given the text’s far-reaching promises. The passage envisions an anointed herald who declares the Jubilee (the year of the Lord’s favour), involving (1) the proclamation of good news to the poor, (2) release to the captives, (3) recovery of sight to the blind and (4) the liberation of the oppressed.2 Legislated in Torah, Jubilee was an institution that was supposed to have been implemented by the regnant high priest every forty-nine (or fifty) years (Lev. 25:8–17). It called for debt remission, the emancipation of slaves and the restoration of property holdings to their erstwhile owners.3 According to at least some Jewish eschatological hopes (11Q13), an eschatological high priest was expected to announce a kind of super Jubilee, exactly as envisioned in Isaiah 61, coinciding with the cashing out of Israel’s eschatological promises. This would entail full return from exile, recouped land, a retrieval of Israel’s political autonomy, restored worship and the Spirit’s renewed presence. By declaring these events as having been fulfilled in the here and now, Jesus retrospectively interprets his baptism (3:21–22) as the anointing of the Jubilary high priest (Isa. 61:1) and prospectively signals a number of central themes awaiting development (the Spirit, good news to the poor, economic and spiritual release or forgiveness). With Luke’s framing this text as a kind of inauguration speech unto itself, one could not imagine a more forceful demonstration of the organic unity between Jesus’ vocation and the scriptural story of Israel.
20–21. Following his account of the reading from Isaiah, the Evangelist creates narrative tension by methodically describing Jesus’ subsequent actions, namely, closing up the scroll, returning it to the attendant and sitting down. The actions mirror Jesus’ movements in taking the synagogue floor: standing up, receiving the scroll and unrolling it (vv. 16–17). The effect is a chiasm, with the central term being the Isaianic phrase ‘the Spirit of the Lord is on me’.4 The thrust of these words is central to this episode, even as it is programmatic for the entire book.
As the audience intensely stares at him in wonder, Jesus declares the present-day fulfilment of the same scripture with the emphasis on today, a word which recurs in Luke consistently in connection with salvation (2:11; 5:26; 13:32; 19:5, 9; 23:43). Again, the Isaianic passage explains the linkage; here lies the root of all Luke’s ‘todays’. Through his reading and his declaration that this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing, Jesus has effectively unleashed the benefits enumerated in Isaiah 61. The ensuing narrative will soon bear this out.
22. The immediate response to Jesus’ astounding assertion is mixed. On one level, the synagogue attendees support Jesus’ claims by bearing witness (emartyroun) to him (NRSV spoke well of him); there is also a sense of astonishment (in keeping with earlier positive reactions to Jesus; cf. 2:18, 33) and wonder. Still, for the townspeople, other questions remain, not least Jesus’ filial relationship to Joseph. Nazareth was a small village with a population numbering in the dozens. Here the highly unusual circumstances of Jesus’ birth could hardly have been kept a secret. Even if Mary and Joseph had their supporters within the town, one can only imagine that there were a good number of sceptics as well. Now by drawing attention to Jesus as Joseph’s son, the more vocal members of the synagogue are expressing their own sense of dissonance. To put the townspeople’s unstated question bluntly: is it even possible that our local town bastard (mamzer) has become Israel’s Messiah?
23–24. Sensing the resistance of his hearers, Jesus confronts them with two well-known aphorisms, connected here by the recurring catchword patridi (home town). With supernatural perception Jesus intuits that his childhood acquaintances will require an extraordinary amount of evidence before they accept his claims. Even though the people of Nazareth are aware of reports of healings performed in Capernaum (unrecounted in Luke’s narrative), Jesus’ abilities as a healer would apparently have to be scrutinized de novo by the folk of Nazareth prior to their giving any serious credence to his claims. However reasonable this approach may appear to many modern readers, for Luke their demand to do here also was nothing less than putting God to the test (cf. v. 12). Towards explaining the reasons for this unbelief, Jesus then goes on (in v. 24) to quote a second aphorism observing that no prophet is accepted [dektos] in the prophet’s home town. Ironically, though Jesus offers the acceptable (dekton) year of the Lord’s favour (v. 19), he remains the prophet who is not accepted (dektos) in the eyes of his own home town.
25–27. Now extending the point, Jesus appeals to two scriptural examples. In the first, Jesus capitalizes on the irony that although Elijah could have been sent to any one of countless widows among the Israelites during the three-and-a-half-year drought, he is sent only to a widow of non-Jewish pedigree (cf. 1 Kgs 17:8–24). A similar irony marks the second example: although there must have been countless Israelites with leprosy in Elisha’s day, not one is recorded as being healed by the prophet – only Naaman the (Gentile) Syrian (cf. 2 Kgs 5:1–19). In the context of Luke–Acts, such examples lay the initial groundwork for the church’s universal mission (Acts 10).
28–29. Whatever positive impressions Jesus had made at the synagogue, these are now quickly forgotten in the wake of intense anger. All too mindful of their oppression at the hands of this empire of godless pagans, the townspeople are indignant at Jesus’ hint that the eschatological climax would enfold rather than exact justice on the Gentiles. Not long after Jesus ‘stood up’ (anestē, v. 16) to declare the day of Jubilee, the people got up (anastantes) with a view to inflicting bodily harm. More exactly, in a makeshift act of excommunication, the townspeople expel (exebalon) him from the village limits (anticipating the vineyard workers’ expulsion [ekbalontes auton exō] of the son, 20:15), only to lead him up on a nearby hill so that they might hurl him off the cliff. Such mob violence was not without its reasons: the community is seeking to execute Jesus for blasphemy, an offence which typically required death by stoning, just as Stephen would be stoned at the close of his first sermon (Acts 7:58).5
30. The Gospel tradition contains several stories in which Jesus narrowly escapes stoning (John 5:18[?]; 8:59; 10:31), but none is more inexplicable than this one. Luke informs us that Jesus passed through the midst of them and went on his way. Even if the Evangelist’s description of the escape is tantalizingly spare, his readers would recognize the similarity between this miracle and the devil’s dare in the third temptation (Luke 4:10–11). While Jesus had refused to put God to the test on the devil’s prompting, it remains the case that, when necessity demands as much, God is able to intervene miraculously.
31–32. At some later date, Jesus (re)enters Capernaum (cf. v. 23), a sizeable city on the north-west corner of the Sea of Galilee and home to Simon Peter (v. 38), among other future disciples.6 Like the previous passage, this episode falls on the Sabbath and involves Jesus in a formal role in the synagogue service. Also like the previous episode, the present story offers a paradigmatic example of the activities described in verse 15. If at Nazareth the synagogue attendance was impressed by Jesus’ gracious words, here they are moved because he spoke with authority. The authoritative quality of his presentation and content will soon (v. 36) be augmented by demonstrated authority over the spiritual world.
33. Jesus’ teaching is suddenly disrupted by a man possessed by a spirit of an unclean demon, also translatable as an epexegetical genitive, thus: ‘a spirit, that is, an unclean demon’. Language of uncleanness in connection with the demonic is unusual in the ancient literature overall, but standard in the Gospel tradition. Almost certainly it points back to the ‘unclean spirit’ of Zechariah 13:2, to be eradicated on the day of Israel’s eschatological cleansing.7 The Evangelists’ specialized terminology, then, suggests that Jesus’ exorcistic activity is to be understood as a facet of the redemptive-historical shift envisaged by Zechariah.
34. The Greek word ea may be translated either as an interjection, something like ‘Ha!’ (ESV), or as an imperative form of eaō with the meaning Let us alone! (NRSV). Perhaps the former makes slightly more sense, as it conveys the demon’s combatively mocking stance. The following phrase (ti hēmin kai soi) is standard Greek idiom, here best captured by the NLT’s ‘Why are you interfering with us?’ By identifying Jesus as a Nazarene, the demon seeks not only to control Jesus by identifying him and his origins, but also – through a wordplay – to expose his messianic credentials.8 By identifying his exorcist as the Holy One of God (ho hagios tou theou), the demon confirms Jesus’ sacerdotal right to declare the Jubilee release (vv. 17–21), for as the Holy One, Jesus is being designated as none other than the high priest (Num. 16:7; Ps. 106:16).9 As the eschatological high priest, Jesus is also expected to wage a holy war against the kingdom of darkness – an expectation which clearly surfaces in the demon’s question (Have you come to destroy us?). Ironically, while human observers struggle to grasp Jesus’ identity and mission, the demon summarizes both with unsurpassable concision and clarity.
35. Swiftly rebuking (epetimēsen) the demon, Jesus reduces his adversary to silence. Like his source Mark, Luke embeds this episode within a larger theme of secrecy, commonly known as the ‘messianic secret’. Jesus is more interested in controlling the timetable of his self-revelation than in accelerating a full disclosure of his identity, which could in turn lead to premature misunderstanding as well as (once the priesthood discovers there is another high priest in town) an untimely demise. With so many mistaken assumptions in place in the culture, Jesus will need the course of his ministry to show exactly what kind of Messiah he intends to be – a piece no less crucial than the fact of his Messiahship.
36–37. Like many accounts of Jesus’ miracles, this scene closes out by registering the response of the gathered crowd. The people’s speculation regarding the power of Jesus’ utterance (logos) may at another level – allowing for a porous boundary between the spoken word of Jesus and the Word who is Jesus – be understood as Christological musing: ‘Who is this Word [logos] that he commands . . . ?’ (cf. John 1:1). No less significantly, Jesus’ remarkable demonstration of authority and power (exousia kai dynamei), within a large struggle between clean and unclean forces, situates the exorcism within the narrative of Daniel 7. In that Danielic chapter, after all, the Son of Man will eventually prove his ‘authority’ (Dan. 7:14; cf. 7:6, 12, 26, 27, LXX) over the unclean, demonic beasts of the competing kingdoms. Jesus’ exercise of authority (exousia) over the demonic world reinforces the significance of Jesus’ earlier refusal of exousia issuing from the demonic world (v. 6). Not surprisingly, Jesus’ reputation continues to penetrate the region.
38. Having departed from the synagogue, Jesus entered the house of Simon (Peter), who is now mentioned for the first time in Luke.10 He appears with the seemingly modest task of connecting Jesus with his mother-in-law who is stricken with a high fever. Her afflicted state is expressed with the verbal adjective synechomenē, which, though having the simple meaning of ‘to suffer from’, also denotes the sense of being hemmed in or held captive. Jesus’ imminent healing of her fever is related as an outworking of his vocation to release the captives (v. 18). That this healing follows logically on the fact that they asked him about her implies faith on the part of the unnamed enquirers, who likely include Peter and other family members (though also cf. Mark 1:29).
39. Rebuking (epetimēsen) the fever just as he had rebuked the demon in the synagogue earlier in the day (v. 35), Jesus releases the woman from her affliction. More exactly, it left her, just as the demon had also exited the bodily space it had once occupied before Jesus’ rebuke. While in Jewish antiquity not all illnesses are ascribed to demonic forces, some are – this one included.11 The healed woman responds immediately. Rising up (anastasa), she begins to wait (imperfect: diēkonei) on them. If the afflicted mother-in-law is paradigmatic of those whom Jesus came to save, then the same woman now healed – having been raised up to serve – functions as a model of grateful discipleship.
40. The early evening influx of patients reflects that Jesus’ healing of Peter’s mother-in-law occurred on the Sabbath (the Sabbath like any Jewish day begins and ends at sundown). Once the Sabbath is over (or near enough over!), crowds begin to bring their loved ones for healing. The emphasis falls on Jesus’ unflinching effectiveness as a healer: as for all those who had any who were sick, they do not leave disappointed.
41. As was the case with Peter’s mother-in-law, many of these physically afflicted individuals are also severely spiritually afflicted, for demons also came out of many. Again, in these cases (which do not coincide with all the cases Jesus treats), an interconnection between demonic activity and disease is suggested. As the demons are exorcised, they mimic the wording of the baptismal voice. But Jesus is once again quick to silence them.
42. Marking the time of Jesus’ departure, the transitional phrase at daybreak hints that his healing duties had occupied him the whole night, evidence of not only the numbers of the unwell in waiting but also the indefatigable dedication of the healer. Jesus now goes into a deserted place (cf. 5:16), perhaps to experience afresh the presence of the Spirit who had been closely associated with his last desert visit (v. 14). On discovering his whereabouts, the crowds follow in hot pursuit. On finding Jesus, they seek to detain him.
43–44. In response, Jesus insists on taking his leave, explaining that his proclamation of the good news of the kingdom of God to the other cities is necessary (dei ). The verb dei is a favourite Lukan verb (e.g. 9:22; 13:33; 17:25; 19:5; 22:37; 24:7, 26, 44), denoting here and through the Gospel divine necessity. Just as the boy Jesus found it ‘necessary’ (dei ) to be about his Father’s business (2:49), so now the adult Jesus appeals to the same transcendent constraint. More exactly, he appeals to the necessity of proclamation (euangelisasthai ) as well as to the fact of his sending (apestalēn), two key terms drawn from his programmatic Isaianic text (vv. 18–19). The proclamation centres around the kingdom, a term first signalled in 1:33 and now set into motion as a central concept in Luke’s narrative. In the Greek sentence, the phrase other cities occupies the primary position, underscoring that Jesus’ kingdom proclamation must have far-reaching scope, even reaching to the synagogues of Judea, which in Luke’s parlance includes those situated in Galilee (cf. 23:5).
Sometimes modern-day Christians and their churches feel as if they are forced to choose between one of two roads: the path of proclamation or the path of social justice. Some churches pride themselves on ‘preaching the Word’; others seek to engage with local communities through programmes, events or more personal involvement. All too rarely do we meet a church that truly excels at both. This is a false and unfortunate dichotomy.
This phenomenon may not be unrelated to two different kinds of criticism sometimes levelled against the church. It is no secret that people outside the church have sometimes regarded Christians – justly or unjustly – as busybodies who have nothing better to do than to make their orthodoxy a basis for telling others how they ought to think and act. Meanwhile, observers both inside and outside the church are rightly suspicious of Christian-style moralism bereft of convincing foundations. In this vein, the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche once complained – perhaps fairly – of the great British novelist George Eliot that inside her circles ‘one must rehabilitate oneself after every little emancipation from theology by showing in a veritably awe-inspiring manner what a moral fanatic one is’. Some are fanatical about the finer points of their theology; others are fanatical about their moral stance on social-political issues.
When the townspeople of Nazareth converged in order to inflict violence on their Sabbath-day preacher, it was a misguided act of fanatical outrage which had foreclosed on the word of Jesus Christ and his ministry of release. Luke presents Jesus’ acts of healing and exorcisms as the embodiment of his preaching; his preaching, as a commentary on his mighty acts. Together preaching, healing and exorcism were Jesus’ ministry of release. In the person of Jesus, Christological word and Christological deed are mutually corroborating. And the necessary condition for the continuing integration of word and deed in the life of the church, Luke just might add, is the anointing of the Spirit described in Isaiah 61. The gospel is good news because the gospel – and only the gospel – brings freedom, and that freedom can be mediated only through a Spirit-endowed community.
From the baptism up until now, Jesus has been functioning as a ‘solo act’. The reader has still not met his disciples, all of whom would become pillars in the movement, and some of whom would play a leading role in Acts. Just as Jesus’ itinerant ministry is beginning to broaden out in geographic scope (4:43–44), the master now directs his attention to individual beneficiaries. The better part of Luke’s remaining narrative is peppered with one-to-one encounters, each provoking an existential crisis. This is the first of such encounters. But what makes this meeting extraordinary is not only the stunning chain of events preceding Simon Peter’s moment of decision, but also his significance in the early church. Luke wants to demonstrate the personal impact wrought by Jesus and, fittingly, there is no more paradigmatic example of this than in the life of the lead apostle Peter.
1–2. Whatever the duration of the preaching tour reported in 4:44, Simon’s presence in this episode leads us to believe that Jesus has now returned to Capernaum (cf. 4:31, 38). Apparently, Capernaum has now become a home base for Jesus, perhaps in place of unbelieving Nazareth (4:16–30). The episode is clearly one and the same as that recounted in Mark 1:16–20, but also clearly different – notwithstanding their striking similarities – from a story recounted in John 21:1–14.
Setting the scene, Luke describes a crowd pressing in to hear the word of God. The presence of so many fervent listeners is an indicator of Jesus’ mounting popularity; it may also serve as a point of reference for his later insistence that eager listening is insufficient (6:46–49; 8:13). There must also be faithful obedience, precisely as it is expressed in the response of Peter and the other disciples. Equating Jesus’ preaching with the word of God (cf. 8:11, 21; 11:28), Luke characterizes it as both a word about God and a word from God contained in the person of Jesus. In order to secure some breathing space from the crowds, the teacher positions himself beside the lake of Gennesaret (cf. Mark 4:1–2; 2:13; 3:7–9), a body of water some 8 miles west to east and 14 miles north to south. Eventually, Jesus decides it is not enough to stand beside the water; he must get on to the water, and spots two boats, either one of which might help accomplish just that. The craft’s owners (whom on the basis of Mark 1:16–20 we surmise to be Simon, Andrew, James and John) had vacated them so as to wash the nets after a long night of luckless fishing.
3. The typical first-century Galilean fishing boat, roughly 26 feet (8 m) long by 6.5 feet (2 m) wide, would have been too big for Jesus to move himself. So on entering one of the two boats, the one which happened to belong to Simon, Jesus must enlist his friend’s help in putting out from shore. Ostensibly this would be to achieve a better angle for communicating with the audience which was now lining up along the water’s edge. Though it cannot be proved that Jesus knew whose boat was whose, Luke’s detail that he had chosen the one belonging to Simon hints that the imminent call – sealing not only Simon Peter’s salvation but also his role as a first among equals (primus inter pares) among the Twelve – is grounded in a larger elective purpose. Simon cannot be far away, since he complies with the request immediately; his prompt compliance is understandable, given Jesus’ earlier healing of his mother-in-law (4:38–39). Now taking a seat on the boat (the typical posture of a teacher), Jesus continues to teach (edidasken).
4–5. Having concluded his teaching, Jesus repeats his request to Simon that the boat be put out, this time into the deep so that the fisherman and his hired help together might let down the nets for a catch of fish, more specifically, a species of tilapia today known as musht or St Peter’s fish. Responding to Jesus, Simon addresses him as Master (epistata), a term of respect appropriate to rabbis, but a term too which will come to stand in sharp contrast to the fisherman’s later form of address, ‘Lord’ (v. 8).12 Simon hardly conceals his reluctance, naturally enough since he and his partners have just spent the night toiling with no results. Yet what tips the scales for Simon, despite these reservations, is the person doing the bidding: strictly on account of Jesus’ word he agrees.
6–7. Simon’s obedience is quickly repaid with phenomenal success. The size of the catch, underscored by the near breaking of the nets and the virtual swamping of the two boats, would also be unprecedented for even the most experienced of fishermen.13 Given that the other three Evangelists frame their boat scenes as symbolic narratives about the church, and given, too, Peter’s remarkable sermon in Acts 2, the miracle is almost certainly meant to foreshadow his apostolic ministry.14
8–10a. The spectacular nature of the catch literally forces (now called) Simon Peter to Jesus’ knees. The shift from Simon to Simon Peter is certainly intentional: it is Luke’s way of signalling the fisherman’s destiny, as the rock of the church (Matt. 16:16) is just now coming into view (cf. Luke 6:14; Acts 10:5, 18, 32; 11:13). Prostration is a typical response to theophany, and though it is unlikely that the astonished fisherman is inferring Jesus’ full-blown divinity at this point, he has certainly become convinced of his divine origins in some sense. Now calling Jesus Lord (kyrie) (which may mean ‘Sir’ but in Luke’s narrative carries far weightier connotations), Peter urges him to depart on account of his painful consciousness of sin.15 Confronted by the holiness of Jesus, he recognizes that he is a sinful man (anēr hamartōlos) – not necessarily a profligate man (although the word can have that meaning in Luke [5:30; 19:7]), but a man who has in an instant discovered his unworthiness before the divine. Yet the astonishment is not Peter’s alone. All who were with him share his reaction of amazement or a gripping fear (the sense of thambos gar perieschen), as do the now-identified owners of the second boat, James and John, sons of Zebedee.
10b. In response to Simon’s request, Jesus issues a command typical of theophanic encounters: Do not be afraid (cf. 1:13; 2:10), only then to make an assertion which is part prediction and part promise. By Jesus’ reckoning, it is no longer sufficient for Simon to dedicate himself to catching fish: now is the moment to begin catching (zōgrōn) people. While the verb can be applied to contexts of fishing and hunting, its core meaning pertains to the notion of capturing alive or keeping alive (especially in the LXX; cf. Num. 31:15, 18; Josh. 2:13; 6:25). In this sense, to ‘catch’ is to enfold.
11. Although the episode has focused almost exclusively on Peter up to this point, now the lens widens to include the response of the other key players. Having beached the boats, the men now desert their trade in order to follow the ‘master’ who has just become their ‘Lord’. Undoubtedly, Luke intends the movement from encounter to ‘all-in’ allegiance as a paradigm for all discipleship. For the Evangelist, here as elsewhere, the test of true repentance and discipleship is a willingness to hold loosely one’s worldly goods.
Jesus had asked Simon two favours. The first was to put the boat out in the water so that Jesus might carry out his teaching more effectively. This was an entirely reasonable request. The second favour was to put out into the deep and put down the nets for a catch. This was not at all reasonable, at least not by Simon’s reckoning. Regardless of the fact that his experience counselled him otherwise, our professional fisherman chooses to obey his carpenter master. He obeys strictly on the basis of Jesus’ word. According to Luke, in other words, acts of faith take flight not in response to gut instinct or intuition or personal fancies, but in response to the word of God. Though Simon’s faith was a begrudging faith, it was a sufficient faith to secure the miracle.
On recognizing God’s activity through Jesus, Simon Peter is undone by his own sense of unworthiness and begs him to depart. Not budging an inch, Jesus instead calls the ‘sinful man’ to catch other sinful people like Simon Peter himself. It is this glorious task that prompts the disciples to leave everything in order to follow Jesus. And yet following Jesus is no guarantee of instant ‘success’. Simon himself does not begin to embrace this vocation until Pentecost in Acts 2. For Peter, between Luke 5 and Acts 2 stands a long and winding road of discipleship. As far as Luke is concerned, leaving all for Jesus’ sake is no guarantee of evangelistic or ministerial success. It is, however, the first step in a long journey of day-in, day-out following.
With the calling of his first disciples (5:1–11), Jesus has taken on all the appearances of a movement leader. This, combined with the spectacular miracles performed in 4:31 – 5:11, now makes him a force to be reckoned with, at least so far as the official religious leadership is concerned – and a threatening force at that. In this string of three passages (5:12–16, 17–26, 27–32), the conflict between Jesus and his opponents comes to the forefront, beginning with the healing of a man with leprosy (5:12–16). As impressive as the healing may be, the leaders’ determination to protect their own role as Israel’s gatekeepers, together with Jesus’ seemingly blasphemous words (5:21), causes them to turn a jaundiced eye on the next miracle (5:17–26). Finally, with Jesus’ consorting with the likes of tax collectors, early silent opposition (5:21–22) gives way to open grumbling (5:30).
The root cause for the Jewish leaders’ vexation is not unrelated to the fact that all three of these passages deal with atonement. In stipulating cases requiring atonement, the Hebrew Scriptures draw no hard-and-fast distinction between moral lapse and ritual uncleanness. Whether having incurred uncleanness due to a skin ailment (as in the case of the man with leprosy) or being in need of forgiveness of sin (as in the case of the paralysed man), or being compromised in terms of both moral failings and ritual uncleanness (as perhaps in the case of Levi), all such instances would have required atoning measures (cf. Lev. 5 – 6). In this section, Jesus shockingly presents himself as the sole agent of atonement. He extends such atonement outside the standard protocols, personnel and sacred space. To say that Jesus’ actions had implications for the entire Jewish cultus would be an understatement, and the Jewish leaders were among the first to realize this.
12. Jesus’ presence in a population centre within the region (one of the cities) helps explain the note in verse 15 regarding the broad circulation of the miracle’s report. Suddenly (idou) appears a man whose body is racked with leprosy, more likely to be any one of a number of skin ailments rather than Hansen’s disease.16 On seeing Jesus, the man literally ‘falls on his face’ (pesōn epi prosōpon), a posture similar to that adopted by Peter in the previous passage (5:8). His prostration serves not only to express deep homage, but also, again, to mimic the characteristic human response to theophanic encounter. The same double function attaches to the man’s address for Jesus, Lord (kyrie), which here conveys the simple sense of ‘Sir’, even as it betrays Luke’s deeper Christological agenda.17 While the man has no doubts regarding Jesus’ power to render him clean through healing (thereby re-enfranchising him in the cultic life and broader society; cf. Lev. 13:45–46), he is uncertain as to whether Jesus in fact wishes to do so.
13. Very quickly any such uncertainties are dispelled, as Jesus extends his hand (cheir; just as accurately translated ‘forearm’) and effects an instantaneous healing. Jesus’ touching the man with leprosy is remarkable not only because he does not ordinarily require physical contact in order to perform a healing (cf. 7:1–10), but also because the very act of touching an unclean individual normally rendered the toucher unclean. At a psychological level, Jesus may have recognized the man’s need for physical touch. Yet on another level, Jesus’ demonstrated ability to confer ritual cleanness by touch without himself incurring uncleanness marks him out as a kind of high priest, for only such could impart holiness/cleanness like a contagion.18 Meanwhile, Jesus’ extension of his arm in connection with leprosy brings to mind Moses’ stretching out of his leprous arm (Exod. 4:6–8), one of several signs that Israel’s redeemer enjoyed divine backing.
14. Jesus follows up the healing with a twofold instruction, first requiring the man who formerly had leprosy to tell no one, and, second, asking him to show himself to the priests for a testimony to them (eis martyrion autois) or perhaps a ‘testimony against them’. Jesus’ admonition of silence is part of a larger secrecy theme operative in all three Synoptic Gospels. Its historical origins in the life of Jesus can hardly be doubted and are easy enough to explain: on a very practical level, it would have been important for any would-be messiah to manage carefully the timing of the messianic ‘roll-out’. The second instruction, namely, that the man with leprosy report to the priests, may be motivated by at least two concerns. First, though having already usurped the priestly role by declaring, ‘Be made clean’ (katharisthēti) (cf. Lev. 13:6, 13, 17; etc.), Jesus still realizes the practical necessity of involving the priests in the man’s reintegration into the cultus.19 At the same time, when viewed against the backdrop of Moses’ outstretched leprous arm, which was essentially a witness against Pharaoh, Luke’s dative construction to them (autois) soon begins to look less like a simple indirect object and more like a dative of disadvantage: ‘as a witness against them’.20 Having experienced various levels of active and passive resistance from the Galilean religious leaders, Luke’s Jesus intends the cleansed man to serve as ‘Evidence A’ that continued resistance would ensure the relinquishing of their priestly role to another.
15–16. The news of the healing sends a fresh shockwave through the region. Now more than ever the word concerning him goes out. In response, the crowds now come with a double agenda: to hear Jesus and to have their diseases healed. Meanwhile, Jesus meets the heightened attention by continuing (note the iterative imperfect ēn hypochōrōn) to retreat into the wilderness where he could pray.
17. Jesus’ audience has now expanded to include religious authorities from every corner of Galilee and Judea, and within Judea, the greater Jerusalem area. They come to see this new teacher-healer for themselves and to investigate the basis for his meteoric rise (5:15). Meanwhile, in continuity with his inaugural activity (4:14, 36), Jesus retains the power of the Lord to heal. This is not necessarily to suggest that he had intermittent access to such power but rather to stress his continuity with the apostolic church, which also relies on the Spirit’s power (Acts 1:8; 3:12; 4:7).
18–19. In the midst of his teaching, Jesus is interrupted by a small gathering of men lowering a paralysed man from the ceiling. Initially, the men had been trying to find (imperfect ezētoun) a way to bring the paralysed man to Jesus, but they could not even get near the door. Undeterred, they create an alternative route through the roof of the house.21 In the end, they successfully lower – from at least 6 feet up – their companion both into the middle (eis to meson) of the gathered crowd and in front of or before (enōpion) Jesus. Luke’s emphatic description of the healing space seems intentional, perhaps as if to symbolize the in-the-midst (en mesō ) presence of the atoning high priest (cf. Lev. 16:16).
20. Strikingly the text yields no indication of the paralysed man’s faith; rather, Jesus responds on perceiving the faith of his supporters. Such an insight need not have been preternatural, since the men’s perseverance and ingenuity may themselves have been sufficient demonstration of their trust. If the paralysed man’s unconventional entrance is unexpected, Jesus’ response is all the more so: he declares that the man’s sins have been forgiven.22 The implications for communal, intercessory prayer hardly need elaborating.
21–22. On hearing Jesus declare the man forgiven, the scribes and Pharisees are instantly riled. For them, his assertion constitutes a blasphemous usurpation of authority, since declarations of forgiveness could only appropriately be made by either Yahweh (Exod. 34:7; Ps. 103:12) or Yahweh’s appointed agent.23 On the face of it, the teachers’ reaction is not entirely unreasonable, especially since Scripture clearly indicates that forgiveness is a strictly divine prerogative. But when Luke uses the verb to question (dialogizein), it usually conveys the sense of a perverse internal reasoning (12:17; 20:14); and given Jesus’ stern rebuke in verse 22, we surmise that the religious leaders’ mental processes are off the mark. Apparently, the furrowed brows should have known better. At this point, Jesus’ insight into the hearts of his detractors exceeds the range of ordinary human perception; at this point, too, the promise of God scattering those who are proud ‘in the thoughts of their hearts’ (1:51) begins to be realized.
23. Having forced one sort of crisis among his hearers by the declaration of forgiveness, now Jesus adds a second layer of complexity by asking whether forgiving or healing is easier. On reflection, the query admits no straightforward answer. On the one hand, it may be easier to say ‘Your sins are forgiven’ than to say ‘Stand up and walk’ simply because the first claim by itself cannot be empirically disproved. On the other hand, it may be said that the act of healing is easier inasmuch as it does not necessitate the same priestly office required for forgiving. Jesus’ question is rhetorical, designed not so much to solicit a specific answer as to force reflection on the monumental nature of his declaration.
24. Such a sign is immediately forthcoming in Jesus’ threefold command to the paralysed man to rise, take up his stretcher and go home. The imperative stand up (egeire) draws on resurrection language, which Luke arguably employs, here as well as in 6:8, to signal that Jesus is the source of resurrection hope. Such hope is provisionally intimated through this act of healing and, paradoxically, will come to take sharper form precisely through the very opposition which Jesus endures, even in this section of the Gospel. In complying with Jesus’ directives, the erstwhile paralysed man becomes something of a walking public sign, the beneficiary of a miracle wrought so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins. Of course, both in the original situation and in the house churches where Luke’s Gospel was first read, this would have been heard as an astonishing claim!
In this the first use of Son of Man in Luke, the Evangelist is – despite the doubts of sceptical scholars – preserving historical reminiscence of Jesus’ self-identification with the Danielic Son of Man. This supposition is supported by Luke’s triangulation (even as he depends on Mark) of key terms and phrases from Daniel 7: ‘Son of Man’ (Dan. 7:13), ‘authority’ (exousia [Dan. 7:14, three times; cf. 7:6, 12, 26, 27, LXX]) and ‘on the earth’ (epi tēs gēs [Dan. 7:17, Theodotion], en tē gē [Dan. 7:23, Theodotion]). At the same time, Jesus’ curious lead-in tag so that you may know flags up phrasing from the Exodus narrative (Exod. 8:22; 9:14, 29). Building on the Exodus imagery of Luke 5:12–16, the allusion establishes an analogy between Jesus’ forthcoming miracle and the plagues of judgment against Pharaoh. Jesus’ dependence on texts drawn from Daniel 7 and the Exodus plagues cycle suggests that his confrontation with the religious leaders finds its analogy in two familiar stories, both involving intense conflict between God’s agent and the forces of evil. Luke’s point is twofold: first, that the redemption which began in the exodus from Egypt was now about to come into its fullness in and through Jesus as a new Moses; and second, that Daniel’s vision, which foresaw the capitulation of the pagan kingdoms to the kingdom of God, was now also about to be fulfilled through Jesus as the Son of Man.
25–26. Promptly complying with Jesus’ command, the healed man exits the scene, glorifying God – no doubt hinting at Jesus’ divinity. The crowd likewise glorifies God but remains bewildered by the strange things (paradoxa).24
27–28. Following an indeterminate period (after this), Jesus spots a tax-collector (telōnēs) by the name of Levi and calls him to follow. Under contract with either the tetrarch or more local officials, Galilee-based tax collectors collected sales taxes, real-estate taxes and toll taxes imposed along travelling routes between cities. It was a role that lent itself all too well to extortionary practices. Given the high degree of contact between tax collectors and Gentiles in this profession, the stricter Jewish sects would have considered tax collectors inherently unclean, much like the man with leprosy of 5:12–16.25 The Evangelist identifies this figure as Levi, though according to Mark 2:14 he was the ‘son of Alphaeus’ and according to Matthew 9:9 he is ‘Matthew’. The discrepancy between Luke 5:27 and Matthew 9:9 has sometimes been said to reflect two different disciples, but this is unlikely. One explanation presents itself on the possibility that Matthew had followed Roman custom of retaining no fewer than three names (praenomen, nomen and cognomen).26 An alternative explanation is that ‘Matthew’ served as a nickname, perhaps imposed by Jesus himself. Like the paralysed man before him (5:25) and the man with the withered hand after him (6:8), Levi is prompted to get up or rise (ESV) (anastas). The repetition of the verb speaks of a certain appropriateness in all three men rising, since all three experience transformations that together anticipate a much fuller rising (anistēmi) at the resurrection. And like the fisherman of 5:11, Levi is led to leave everything behind and ‘follow him’. For Luke, following Jesus means leaving everything behind (cf. 14:33), not for the sake of duty or for the sake of sacrifice itself, but simply because Jesus says, Follow me.
29. Clearly out of a deep appreciation for Jesus’ calling on his life, Levi makes a great banquet (epoiēsen dochēn megalēn), much as Abraham had done – recounted with the very same Greek phrasing – on Isaac’s weaning (Gen. 21:8, LXX).27 If the connection is intentional, it would certainly be in keeping with Luke’s interest in marking out Jesus as the new Isaac, the true sacrificial victim, now on the cusp of his ministry career. Invitees to this occasion quite naturally include members of Levi’s network, whose reclining (katekeimenoi) posture conveys the formality of the event and therefore (with a large crowd in tow) its costliness.
30. The mixed company attending the banquet attracts the attention of the Pharisees and their scribes, presumably after the fact. Addressing their complaint (egongyzon) to a group of his disciples, they question the propriety of eating with tax collectors and sinners. The term for complaining (gongyzō ) means ‘to grumble’, an activity characterizing the disobedient among the Sinai generation (Exod. 15:24; 16:7–8; Num. 14:2; etc.).28 Given Luke’s interest in presenting Jesus as the driver behind a new exodus, this may not be an insignificant point.
31–32. Responding on behalf of his followers, Jesus counters with a riddle that identifies Jesus with a physician and essentially divides the rest of humanity into two categories: the healthy righteous or the unwell sinners.29 It is the latter whom Jesus calls to repentance. The riposte functions as a parable, forcing his hearers to identify themselves with one of the two groups, even as Luke forces his readers to do the same. Those who search their hearts and see themselves as unwell sinners will recognize that Jesus has come for them.
By touching a man with leprosy, imparting forgiveness and healing to a paralysed man, and having table fellowship with tax collectors, Jesus was breaking all the rules – and is criticized accordingly. As we will learn from the rest of the story, he was in fact uniquely qualified to do all these things, simply on account of who he was, though Pharisees and scribes are not mentally prepared to accept this point. But the more fundamental reason that the religious leaders are quick to take offence is because they do not understand that they, no less than the tax collectors and sinners, are in dire need of an atoning physician.
The religious leaders of Jesus’ day were not the only ones plagued by this tragic flaw. From experience, we know that sometimes members of a given social circle, network, race, tribe, demographic or political persuasion will gravitate towards an unbecoming us-versus-them polarity. In order to justify themselves, such group members will sometimes go so far as to denigrate these ‘others’ as especially sinful and therefore as unworthy of human embrace. Luke would remind his readers that whenever we consider ourselves morally superior to others, this not only dehumanizes those whom Jesus has called but also makes following the divine physician virtually impossible. Jesus came to call sinners. Yet it is a label that cannot finally be owned by those who are inwardly preoccupied with congratulating themselves on what they believe, what they do and what they stand for. Such, it seems, will tragically never hear Jesus’ call or experience a life of following him.
If there is a common thread connecting the three episodes contained in this section, it is controversy related to two basic Jewish observances: fasting and Sabbath-keeping. Yet as self-contained as this section appears, it also builds on what has gone before, for in 5:33–39 Jesus is simply offering a fuller explanation for his earlier dining (5:27–32). Meanwhile, he speaks into an ever mounting current of opposition. The silent murmurings of the religious leaders (5:17–26), which had soon enough given way to their interrogation of his disciples (5:30), now expresses itself in direct confrontation with Jesus himself. As these controversies unfold in the course of this section, matters only become more intense. Indeed, by 6:11 the opposition is already entertaining thoughts of inflicting physical violence on Jesus. For this reason, it is not so surprising that Jesus, even at this early point of the story, is already anticipating his death (5:35).
33. Censure involving food-related matters now arises from another quarter. If in the previous passage Jesus sought to defend his followers by critiquing the holiness code of the Pharisees, now certain unidentified critics are pointing out that the practices of the Jesus sect are at variance with both the Pharisees and the followers of the celebrated Baptizer. Since the Jesus community had enjoyed close ties with the latter, any conspicuous differences between the ‘Jesus group’ and the ‘John group’ might be exploited by anyone seeking to undermine the credibility of the former. In contrast to John’s followers, who frequently fast, Jesus’ disciples are again (cf. 5:30) charged with profligate eating and drinking.30
34–35. In response to his critics, Jesus turns to a parable. His rejoinder carries no criticism of the practices of either John or the Pharisees; instead, it is a salvation-historical argument buoyed by wedding imagery. In the ancient world, Jewish weddings were extended festive events involving considerable consumption of food and wine. To contemplate a fast during a first-century Jewish wedding would be, in short, to imagine the unimaginable – as well as the inappropriate. As Luke’s readers would have understood quickly enough, Jesus himself is the bridegroom; his disciples, the wedding-guests. Beyond that, the metaphor is somewhat puzzling. Equally mysterious would have been Jesus’ reference to the time when the bridegroom will be taken away from them. At least some of the mystery is solved at a later point in the story, when it becomes clear in retrospect that Jesus here is anticipating his own death. Given the recurring scriptural comparison between human marriage and Yahweh’s covenantal relationship with Israel, Luke’s post-Easter readers would have readily found in this language hints of both Jesus’ divinity and the announcement of a new covenant (Jer. 31:31–34). The exile, the time of Israel’s mourning, was over (cf. Dan. 9:1–3); Yahweh was now poised to once again be husband to Israel (Isa. 54:5–6), and that through the person of Jesus. Again, this was to be an unusual wedding, for a time would come when the bridegroom would be taken away. And at that time fasting would be fitting. There is no reason to infer, on the basis of either these verses or the several references to fasting in Acts (13:2–3; 14:23), that Luke understands Christian fasting as continuing mournful reflection on the passion. Rather, for attendants of Jesus the bridegroom, fasting is appropriate preparation for a special imparting of the Spirit (Luke 24:49–53; Acts 1:1–11).
36–39. The festive imagery now finds some continuity in two analogies, both of which press home the dangers of imposing outmoded forms of spirituality on to the new salvific reality being ushered in by Jesus. Jesus is introducing a new garment, reminiscent of the radiant wedding garments promised to Israel’s eschatological priesthood (Isa. 61:10); Jesus is also bringing new wine, like the wine of Isaiah 25:6, fitting for the messianic banquet at hand. To patch the Mosaic cultic system, symbolically torn (eschisthē ) in the rending of the temple curtain (Luke 23:45), with bits and pieces ripped (schisas) from the new economy would not only be a mismatch but would violate the integrity of that which Jesus is establishing. To force the substance of Jesus’ proclamation into the forms afforded under the law would be equally misguided. There is little choice but to receive what God is doing in the present day – to put on the new clothes and to drink the new wine.
1–2. A certain Sabbath day finds Jesus and his disciples neither harvesting nor storing up grain from the fields, which would be a clear violation of the Sabbath (Exod. 34:21), but helping themselves to free-standing produce, as permitted by Deuteronomy 23:24–25. Yet, on the Pharisees’ reading of Scripture, any rights granted by Deuteronomy 23:24–25 were rendered null and void by an overriding concern to maintain the sanctity of the Sabbath. According to the Pharisees, that is, the disciples’ actions constituted harvesting (m. Šabb. 7:2; Philo, Moses 2.4) and were therefore not lawful – a serious charge.
3–4. Jesus defends his disciples by making a surprising appeal to the precedent of David. More exactly, he points to the moment when one Sabbath day the anointed king partakes of the sacred bread of the Presence (1 Sam. 21:1–9), food ordinarily reserved for the priests (Exod. 40:23; Lev. 24:5–9).31 Hardly transparent in its meaning, Jesus’ argument has been variously interpreted. The passage is often taken to mean that in the case of emergency situations, human exigency trumps cultic prescriptions. One problem with this interpretation, however, is that there is no indication that either David or his men (or, for that matter, Jesus and his men) were in danger of malnourishment. Moreover, we agree with Edwards when he writes that it would be ‘inconceivable that Jesus or any other rabbi would declare human supremacy over’ the Sabbath.32 Another possibility is that Jesus as the Messiah had a right to transcend the law, just as David had a right to do in a smaller degree. But given countless indications of Jesus’ interest in keeping the law, this reading seems to render Jesus as a rather capricious devotee of Torah. A third and better interpretation begins with the premise that Jesus is invoking David not as a representative human but as a high priest (Ps. 110). In this case, Jesus is justifying his behaviour on the unstated grounds that he and his disciples are priests in the same order as David – not a levitical priest but a royal priest after the order of Melchizedek (20:41–44).33 This interpretation is confirmed in Jesus’ description of Davidic partaking (labōn ephagen kai edōken – and took and ate . . . and gave), which anticipates the phraseology of the Lord’s Supper (labōn arton . . . kai edōken – ‘took a loaf of bread . . . and gave’, 22:19), where Jesus announces his own high priestly, messianic atoning role.
5. In an exegetical move that was already standard in the first century, Jesus then combines the figure of the eschatological David with the Danielic ‘son of man’ (Dan. 7), and then aligns himself with both figures. Given certain evidence that the Son of Man, like David, was also a priestly figure, and evidence, too, that priests had certain extraordinary authorities to perform work on the Sabbath, Jesus’ point begins to come into view: quite apart from whether his disciples’ actions should be considered unlawful Sabbath ‘harvesting’, both he and his disciples could rightfully glean on the Sabbath because he was establishing a new priesthood around himself as lord of the sabbath. This is no small claim: as ‘Lord of the Sabbath’, Jesus is the creator of time!
6–8. A second Sabbath controversy brews around a man with a withered hand. Whatever the exact nature of his disability, the condition was not just a physical problem, but entailed spiritual and social implications as well. Those with deformed limbs were forbidden full participation in temple life. The Pharisees, now joined by the scribes, are scrutinizing Jesus, even as they will do two more times in the narrative (14:1; 20:20). Though posing as willing members of Jesus’ audience, they are less interested in the substance of his teaching than in finding grounds for legal charges. One such possible ground, so they thought, might surface if Jesus should choose to heal on the Sabbath, in contravention of Pharisaic practice (m. Šabb. 14:3–4; 22:6). Although aware of their inward thoughts (dialogismois, a term that consistently carries negative connotations in Luke; cf. 2:35; 5:22; 9:46–47; 24:38), Jesus nonetheless calls the man into the middle of the room. The first command in Jesus’ instruction (egeire kai stēthi; ‘Rise up and stand!’) in the fuller narrative gestures towards resurrection, likely suggesting that the healing is meant as a picture of Israel’s impending transformation from its withered spiritual state to resurrection.34
9. Moments before performing the miracle, Jesus turns to his opponents and asks whether it is better to do good and give life or to do harm and destroy life. Certainly, on any understanding of the Sabbath day (1 Macc. 2:39–41; m. Šabb. 16:1–7; m. Yoma 8:6–7; Mek. Exod. 31:13), the former option would have been the obvious choice. Thus the question is rhetorical, effectively serving a twofold purpose. On one level, Jesus is establishing the warrant for his own impending Sabbath healing, notwithstanding the inward objections of his opponents. On another level, Jesus is unmasking his adversaries’ dark thoughts which stand in stark contrast to his own life-giving actions.
10. Having fixed his gaze on his opponents, perhaps after the fashion of Yahweh who fixes his gaze in judgment (Jer. 16:17; Amos 9:4), he orders the debilitated man to stretch out his hand. As the man heeds Jesus’ instructions, his hand is immediately restored. The scene could hardly be more reminiscent, once again (cf. commentary on 5:13), of the moment when Yahweh instructs Moses to stretch out his hand as a sign for Pharaoh. Luke’s point is clear enough: just as Moses had stretched out his hand before unbelieving Pharaoh in anticipation of much greater judgments, so too does this beneficiary of Jesus’ healing powers.
11. The scribes and Pharisees respond to the miracle on both an emotive and a practical level. First, they are filled with fury (eplēsthēsan anoias), a quality that denotes not only rage but also rash foolishness. Second, they now begin to confer with one another about what they might do to Jesus. The irony of Jesus’ question to them has now come full circle. Having just been asked whether it is lawful to give or take life on the Sabbath, Jesus’ enemies are now unwittingly framing their own answer by making plans to take Jesus’ life.
In the aftermath of the French Revolution, in an effort both to eradicate earlier traces of a bygone rule and to show that a new day had dawned, the upstart regime implemented the so-called ‘French Revolutionary Calendar’. The shift from the monarchy to the Republic was so profound, the revolutionaries believed, that an entirely new way of thinking about time was in order. As these three episodes together illustrate, an analogous transformation of the calendar was underway in the impending transition to Jesus’ kingdom. In the first of these scenes (5:33–39), Jesus is not rescinding fasting in principle, for if that were the case it would be difficult to explain instances of fasting in the early church (e.g. Acts 13:2–3; 14:23). Rather, it seems, insofar as Second Temple Jews had long commemorated the destruction of the temple through fasting, such practices would no longer be necessary. This is because, as the Evangelist will make clear soon enough, Jesus is poised to establish a new and final temple (Luke 20:9–19). Meanwhile, whereas Judaism from the time of Moses observed the Sabbath on the last day of every week, early Christians chose, in the light of Jesus’ resurrection, to move the day of rest to the first day of the week (Luke 24:1; cf. 1 Cor. 16:2; Rev. 1:10). For Jesus’ followers, no less than for the French Jacobins, a new rule meant that the timing and particulars of earlier observances stood to be revised.
But what exactly did the coming of this new kingdom mean? Well, first, if we take the wedding imagery seriously, it meant worship in this new era was to be characterized by celebration. Second, just as new wine demanded new wineskins, Jesus anticipates his followers ever adopting new forms, new practices and new traditions, commensurate with this in-breaking reality. When it comes to their corporate practices, therefore, followers of Jesus must exhibit a Christ-honouring flexibility. Third, on the shared premise that Jesus was ‘Lord of the Sabbath’, Luke invites Christ-followers to enjoy – much as Jesus’ hungry disciples enjoyed – a Sabbath marked by restoration. Fourth and finally, a proper Sabbath must have an outward-facing, life-giving aspect: the key word here is mission. Now that the kingdom has come, Luke would have us realize, days of fasting and Sabbath days must be celebrative, flexible, restorative and missional.
Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan was an inaugural event (3:21–22); his temptation in the desert, an early milestone (4:1–13). Paralleling the sequence of events during and after Israel’s exodus (Exod. 14 – 17), Jesus’ movement from watery initiation to wilderness testing symbolically points to him as the new Israel, embodied in the Messiah.
In this passage, by noting that Jesus was ‘going out’ (Luke 6:12) to the mountain, Luke takes the Exodus parallelism a step further: just as Moses had gone out of Egypt to a special mountain, so it was with Jesus. Under this new Moses, a new set of twelve tribes is now taking shape in twelve very ordinary men. As Luke’s fuller story will demonstrate, these Twelve would witness revelatory events (e.g. 9:28–36) and acquire extraordinary authority (22:28–30). Eventually, these same apostles will be sent (Acts 1 – 2). If the apostolic ministry includes healing, exorcising and preaching, it is only because Jesus performs these same activities.
12. In order to pray, Jesus went out (exelthein) not to just any mountain but to the mountain (to opos). That Luke has a definite mountain in mind may indicate that, among the early Christians, this particular mountain was already famous for its significance as the birthplace of the apostolate. That Jesus went out after a series of escalating conflicts with the temple leaders, only to spend the night watching prayerfully, likely has something to do with the Exodus plot line. In the ancient story, Moses also ‘went out’ after protracted conflict with Pharaoh, summoning the twelve tribes by their divisions while God watched over them through the course of the night (Exod. 12:41–42).
13. After his night of prayer, Jesus calls a large gathering of disciples and selects twelve from among them. Whereas Mark (Luke’s source) never indicates that the Twelve were drawn from a larger category of ‘disciples’ (cf. Mark 3:13–19), Luke distinguishes between disciples and apostles, two groups having different functions as well as two different levels of access to Jesus.35 That Jesus chose twelve follows from the unique nature of his ‘new exodus’ mission. If the twelve tribes of Israel were brought into a formal alliance during a night of watching, then it was only appropriate that Jesus also spend the night watching before reforming Israel around his own twelve ‘tribal leaders’. These he names apostles (literally: ‘sent ones’), which in Greek usage can refer to a military operation, but ‘on occasion the term also designates a messenger or envoy (a herald, designated as apostolos, is sent to arrange a truce [Herodotus, Hist. 1.28])’.36 In Luke’s story, the sense of a military envoy fits well, for the Twelve will soon be enlisted in Jesus’ strange holy war (Luke 12:31–33), even as they will follow their king who sues for peace (cf. 14:32; 19:37–42).
14–16. Luke’s list of names was likely meant not only to document a historical reminiscence but also to authorize the Twelve. In this respect, Luke’s catalogue of names, along with the other ‘apostles lists’ in the New Testament (cf. Matt. 10:2–4; Mark 3:16–19; Acts 1:13), would have functioned as part of a charter for the apostolic church. With Simon, whom he named Peter given top billing and the traitorous Judas Iscariot assigned to the bottom rung, Luke’s list is not unlike those of Mark and Matthew. Given Peter’s dramatic conversion in the previous chapter (5:1–11), not to mention his sizeable role in the future church (cf. 22:31–32), it is no surprise that Luke follows his predecessors in giving Peter pre-eminence.37 The short interval between Jesus’ invitation to ‘catch people’ (5:10) and his call to Peter and the rest of the Twelve here implies that their election to the apostolate was an extension and intensification of Jesus’ earlier call to evangelize. For Luke, the role of the apostle was radically missional.
17. Whereas Matthew locates Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5 – 7) on a hill or mountain (Matt. 5:1), Luke’s Sermon on the Plain (Luke 6:20–49) sets a very similar set of ethical teachings on a level place. The difference in topography across the two Gospels is problematic only if one needlessly assumes that Jesus issued this teaching only once and in one location. That said, there is nothing inherently unlikely in the surmise that Matthew and Luke are in fact recording the same event, since after all our Evangelist may be envisioning Matthew’s mountain as a high plateau. In any case, Jesus is with a great crowd of his disciples together with a great multitude of people. Such phrases draw attention not only to Jesus’ increasing popularity but also to the geographical diversity of his following, perhaps invoking the ethnically ‘mixed crowd’ (epimiktos polys) of the exodus which had followed Moses out of Egypt (Exod. 12:38).38 They come from all Judea and Jerusalem to the south, as well as from the coast cities of Tyre and Sidon to the north. The presence of inhabitants from these two major coastal cities would not only further confirm the presence of Gentiles (cf. Mark 7:24–30) but also suggest that Jesus is – so to speak – conquering hearts from the boundaries of the land promised to Israel (Deut. 1:8). The responsiveness of crowds from these two cities here is likely related to Jesus’ later remarks regarding their relatively superior receptivity, at least in comparison to Chorazin and Bethsaida (10:13–14).39
18. The Gospel writer explains not just whence the people came but why they came. Earlier, we learned that this proclamation was not merely conveyed verbally but was supported by acts of healing and exorcism (cf. 4:31–37, 38–41, 43). Later, in recounting the early church’s practices of proclamation (Acts 2:14–41; 4:8–22, 33; 5:42; 6:4; 7:1–53; 9:20; 13:16–48; 16:10; 17:2–3, 10–13, 23; 18:4; 28:23–31), healing (Acts 3:1–10; 4:30; 5:12–16; 9:32–41; 14:8–10; 19:12a; 20:7–12; 28:5–9) and exorcism (Acts 8:7; 16:16–18; 19:12b–20), Luke will go on to imply that the mission of the church follows the pattern set by Jesus.40 For Jesus as for the early church, proclamation, exorcism and healing constituted a trifecta of mutually interpretative kingdom signs.
19. The crowds realize that merely by touching Jesus, they could tap into his healing power.41 Though this scenario does not necessarily entail notions of magic (especially since the action of touching Jesus’ body remains a fundamentally personal interaction), Luke wants to impress upon his readers that the magical powers touted by the priests of paganism (scattered across the Roman Empire) could not compare with the effectiveness of Jesus’ power.
The prophets had made clear that the regathering of the tribes would coincide with return from exile (e.g. Ezek. 34 – 37). In this light, Jesus’ decision to call – of all possible numbers – twelve men to himself symbolically yet powerfully indicated that Israel’s restoration was imminent. Yet it also clarified the pattern for God’s saving dealings in at least two ways. First, it was not Jesus’ disciples who called and chose Jesus, but Jesus who had called and chosen them. Though in the process of salvation human choice remains very real and vital, it is ultimately God who saves through Jesus’ initiative. Second, we note that the Twelve are ‘named apostles’, that is, designated as ‘sent ones’. This implies that whatever occupational, societal, tribal or familial identities these twelve men owned, these were to be secondary to their new God-given identity as those who had been chosen and sent out. The inference for Luke’s diverse readership is clear: whenever believers prioritize the interests of their affinity group over the gospel mission, it means that they have failed to grasp that like the Twelve they too are ‘sent ones’ above all.
Looking back to Luke 4:1 – 5:11, we discern an alternating sequence moving from opposition (4:1–13), to inaugurated calling (4:16–19), to more opposition (4:22–30), to another calling (5:1–11). Now we discover the continuation of the same pattern: further opposition (5:12 – 6:11) once again gives way to calling (6:12–16), an apostolic calling. The terms of this apostolic vocation are spelled out in a text now familiar to us as Luke’s Sermon on the Plain (6:20–49). Of course, Luke intends the Sermon on the Plain (much as Matthew intended his Sermon on the Mount) to be an ethical road map not just for the twelve apostles but for all those who would follow Jesus. Resisting the urge to regard 6:20–49 as an utterly self-contained unit, we should appreciate its placement within a broader pattern described here. That Luke inserts Jesus’ summative ethical blueprint in the midst of stories of persecution is worth pondering. The sermon itself divides neatly into four subsections: blessings and woes (6:20–26); love for enemies (6:27–36); on judging (6:37–42); and two ways (6:43–49).
20. Raising his eyes in the direction of his disciples, Jesus declares a series of blessings or ‘beatitudes’, beginning with what has now become the most famous of the Beatitudes: Blessed (makarioi) or ‘happy’ (CEB) are you who are poor. Luke’s omission of ‘in Spirit’ (as found in Matthew) unmistakably designates these poor (ptōchoi) simply as the impoverished. Since in its prior attested usage the Greek term has no other referent than the economically destitute, we should be cautious before spiritualizing the term, as if only an inner attitude were in view. Jesus’ down-and-out addressees are blessed (makarios) or happy because they possess the kingdom of God – here and now! For first-century ears as well as our own, Luke’s point is not far short of shocking: if the present advent of the kingdom in the person of Jesus creates a new reality of blessedness, it is a reality that is first and foremost (though not exclusively) on offer to the poor.
At the same time, given striking verbal similarities between the Beatitudes and Jesus’ inaugural sermon on Isaiah 61 which, we recall, was the scriptural basis for Jesus’ mission to the poor (Luke 4:18–19), the blessed poor must also be Isaiah’s poor, the returnees from exile (Isa. 41:17; 58:7; 61:1). Thus, the poor Jesus has in view are not only recipients of the kingdom but also the fulfilment of the return-from-exile movement Isaiah had envisioned so many centuries beforehand. What does all this mean? Just this, I think: that Jesus is inviting all the socially and/or economically marginalized among his hearers to take advantage of their socio-economic poverty (unencumbered by the trappings of position, power and possessions) by joining Jesus’ return-from-exile movement. For Luke, as for other New Testament writers (e.g. Jas 1:9), the poor more than make up in spiritual advantage what they lack in terms of material or social advantage.
21. Those who are hungry and those who weep will be blessed; the proof of this, Jesus continues, will be in their future experience of fullness and laughter. The promise that the hungry will be filled is integral to Mary’s vision of the messianic reign (1:53), as well as to the Lukan feeding miracle (9:10–17) and also to the messianic feast (14:15–24; 22:16). Under Jesus’ kingdom rule, in other words, the poor are now already being filled, a proleptic sign of the eschatological fullness to come. Likewise, when we meet the many mourners in Luke’s Gospel (e.g. the widow of Nain, 7:11–17; the sinful woman, 7:36–50; Jairus and his mourners, 8:40–56), these will be understood as those who will one day laugh out loud. The repetition of now (nyn) in both of the beatitudes only sharpens the contrast: if this age is now fraught with sin, now mired in death, disease, deprivation and loss, the coming age will be no less extreme in its reversal of such things.
22–23. Jesus next insists that, not ‘if’ but when his followers are hated, socially excluded, insulted or slandered on account of their commitment to the Son of Man, the appropriate response will not be despondency, self-loathing, anger or retaliation, but rather joy. Kingdom people are to rejoice in the face of social marginalization, Jesus says, because they have joined company with the rejected prophets of yesteryear, a fellowship that both Jesus (20:9–18) and his disciples (21:10–19) will soon share.
24–26. Corresponding to each of the four blessings specified in verses 21–23 are four woes or sorrows. The rich are warned of impending woe because, inoculated against the comfort of God, they have already received their comfort (paraklēsin). Meanwhile, those who are currently full will experience hunger at the eschaton, presumably because they will be excluded from the messianic table. Similarly, those who laugh now will one day find themselves in a perpetual state of deep grief. Finally, Jesus concludes, those who are widely praised will one day be revealed as companions of the false prophets, who, while claiming to speak for God, self-servingly told people exactly what they wanted to hear. Certainly, Luke finds no shame in the church’s possession of a good reputation (Acts 2:47), but he also makes it clear that the gospel will always be unwelcome news to the ideologies and values of even the most allegedly ‘gospel-friendly’ of human cultures. To choose to follow Jesus is to join the ranks of the prophets; it is also, inevitably, a choice to be hated along with Jesus.
27. Jesus’ words are not meant for all, but only for you that listen (hymin . . . tois akousin), those who obey, for Hebrew thought did not distinguish faithful listening from faithful doing (cf. Deut. 6:4). Accordingly, to listen to Jesus was to obey the covenant; by the same token, failure to obey him constituted a breach of Israel’s solemn obligation. At the heart of this new covenantal responsibility was a commitment to love even one’s enemies. Jesus’ point is not that love for enemies takes priority over love for one’s own friends and kin, but that the former category of people should not receive any less of our goodwill. The phrase love your enemies is parallel to – and therefore partially explained by – do good to those who hate you. The love which Jesus requires, then, cannot be reduced to inward sentiments or attitudes. It must be expressed through practical action.
28. Inviting kingdom citizens to do good to their enemies, Jesus also demands that they make it their business to bless those who curse them. Although the verb eulogeite may convey little more than the communication of goodwill, the context suggests that the power to impart such blessing lies only with those who have received the blessings announced in the Beatitudes. Thus, by responding to their enemies with blessing, Jesus’ followers demonstrate their own blessedness, their present participation in the kingdom. Another vocation entailed in kingdom life is interceding for one’s verbal abusers. Such prayer likewise presupposes not only the disciples’ forgiveness of their enemies but also their reception of divine forgiveness (cf. 11:4). To summarize, Jesus’ followers are called to respond to human hostility in two different ways: on a horizontal level, by answering with words of blessings; on a vertical level, by answering with words of prayer. Because blessing and prayer are distinctively priestly activities, Jesus is teaching that members of his kingdom belong not only to the company of prophets (6:23), but also to a new priesthood. It is exactly at the crosshairs of such opposition, Luke’s beatitudes also hint, that the prophetic voice becomes most clear and the priestly service attains its truest form.
29. Unlike other religious teachers within Judaism (we think, for example, of the author of the Qumran text 1QM, who looked forward to a holy war between God’s elect and God’s enemies), Jesus insists that his movement be characterized by the practice of non-violence. Jesus brings home the radical nature of this vocation by requiring his disciples both to forgo retaliation and to embrace enthusiastic cooperation with their enemies, despite any negative impact this might have on their person or personal resources. In due course, Jesus will model his own teaching by patiently enduring the cruel blows of his Roman captors (22:63–65) and surrendering himself to a process which will eventually deprive him of his clothes (23:11). For this reason, extreme as Jesus’ demands may appear, they cannot be written off as either rhetorical exaggeration or a hopeless ideal. Jesus practised what he preached and expected his disciples to follow suit.
30. Driving the point home, Jesus now envisions two scenarios: one in which personal boundaries are respected; the other, in which such boundaries are transgressed. Despite the difference in intention in the two scenarios, the end result is the same. To the one who asks, whether with or without force, Jesus says, ‘Give!’ – no questions asked. What is more, he continues, once one’s possessions have been surrendered, the better part of wisdom is to surrender all hope of reimbursement. Undoubtedly, such demands would be virtually impossible apart from a prior decision of faith to entrust oneself and one’s affairs to divine providence.
31–34. Having described what love is, Jesus now explains exactly what love is not. He does so by ruling out any alternative approach that restricts love to those who love you, or limits benefaction to one’s benefactors, or lends only to one’s creditors. Jesus rhetorically asks, ‘In such situations how could such a response be a credit (NRSV, NIV, NASB) or “benefit” (ESV) to you?’ Perhaps both of these translations can be improved upon. After all, the operative word here is charis, a word typically translated as ‘gift’ or ‘grace’. While either of these renderings might initially seem awkward, I suspect the point is this: if sinners (those outside the covenant community) reflect no divine charis in their lives when they live according to a quid pro quo or the Roman principle of ‘I give to you that you might give’, then the distinguishing mark of God’s ‘grace’ is the ability to love individuals who have no means to reciprocate.
35. Against such self-serving strategies, Jesus reiterates the necessity of loving one’s enemies, doing good to them and lending without any expectation of repayment.42 The motivation for this extravagant self-giving is twofold. First, for those who give according to this prescription, Luke’s Jesus holds out the prospect of great reward (misthos . . . polys), a turn of phrase reminiscent of God’s promise to Abraham that his reward would be great (Gen. 15:1, LXX: misthos . . . polys). If the allusion is intentional (certainly a possibility worth considering), then this would imply that the disciples’ obedience to this ethic of radical love will one day be crowned by the right to participate in the Abrahamic inheritance.43 In this case, then, Jesus’ call to radical love is not a reversal of Old Testament ethics (as has often been claimed) but rather the culmination of the way of life inaugurated under Abraham. Second, in faithfully carrying out this love command, Jesus’ followers should expect to become children of the Most High, standing to inherit the land of promise from Yahweh even while mirroring God’s unconditional kindness. Here, as with other instances of this title in Luke (1:32, 35, 76; 8:28), one may find undertones of Daniel, where ‘the Most High’ is a circumlocution for God.44 This, together with the mention of the Danielic Son of Man in connection with persecution (v. 22), has the effect of embedding the substance of Jesus’ teaching in the fabric of Daniel’s story. The climax of that story is of course the victorious coronation of the Son of Man, not to mention the defeat of his enemies, including those who have set themselves to opposing some of Luke’s believing readers.
36. Rounding out this string of commands, Jesus summarizes his teaching by introducing the concept of mercy. Be merciful (ginesthe oiktirmones), he says, if only because this is what it means to imitate the merciful Father. Whereas first-century Graeco-Roman culture openly looked down on the unfortunate, Jesus enjoins a visceral reaction to the hardships of others – the term oiktirmos and its cognates denote nothing less (TDNT 5, p. 159). Modelled repeatedly by Jesus in Luke’s narrative (19:41–44; 23:28), such affective depth is recommended as the principal disposition guiding Christians in their ethical decision-making. According to Luke, to retain a merciful outlook in the face of human need is to give full expression to one’s identity as one (re)created in the image of God.
37–38a. Turning to a new topic, Jesus issues a string of four second person plural commands (after all, these are community requirements), two negative and two positive: (1) Do not judge, (2) do not condemn, (3) forgive and (4) give. The most interpretatively difficult are the first two imperatives, regarding judging (mē krinete) and condemning (mē katadikazete). Clearly Jesus is not ruling out ethical judgments of any kind, for otherwise this would make a nonsense of verses 43–45 where he enjoins the making of moral distinctions. Moreover, unless the first two commands are utterly redundant, we must somehow distinguish judging from condemning. It seems that condemning has to do with the mental (as opposed to formal and legal) act of assigning irreversible guilt, thereby forestalling the possibility of reconciliation and/or restoration. Meanwhile, judging has to do with the uncharitable postures which lead us to ascribe base motives on the basis of limited evidence. A refusal to judge in this sense involves not a mindless unwillingness to differentiate right from wrong, but an attitudinal commitment to believe the best about another, notwithstanding possible evidence to the contrary; it is, in Paul’s turn of phrase, to ‘believe all things’ and ‘hope all things’ (1 Cor. 13:7). The entailment of this generosity of spirit is a willingness to forgive and to give freely. The result of such generosity (or lack thereof), Jesus promises, is repayment in kind: those who are judged will be judged, those who are condemned will be condemned, and so on. While commentators differ as to whether this promised recompense is of divine or human origin, the language of the fourth petition of the Lord’s Prayer (‘And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us’, 11:4) prompts us to focus on the latter without entirely ruling out the former.
38b. In order to illustrate his point, Jesus invokes the familiar world of the marketplace where grain and countless other dry goods were traded by volume. While shrewd (if not dishonest) vendors would find ways to reduce the amount of product actually contained in the measured unit, either by skimping or by somehow puffing out the contents, Jesus calls his followers to do the opposite in their giving, that is, by compressing as much as possible and by filling up the container beyond the brim. Of course, the point is metaphorical, as if to say that whatever our capacity to give, we must give in keeping with our utmost ability – and then some (running over). In time, Jesus further promises, such largesse will be measured right back into our laps.
39. Although verses 39–42 appear to present three discrete sayings (vv. 39, 40, 41–42), all three demand to be interpreted in relationship one to another. Forging an inclusio with the ‘hypocrite’ of verse 42, the metaphorically blind person is admonished not to lead another blind person (much less a sighted person!), lest the entire party end up in a pit (bothynon). Though the term typically refers to a cistern or catchment, its connotations of disaster cannot be ignored (LXX Isa. 24:17–18; 47:11; Jer. 48:43). On one level, the saying is a stern warning against those who, overestimating their own spiritual progress, presumptuously take on the role of teacher – not unlike the ‘blind guides’ of Matthew 23:24–26. On another level, the saying is also an exhortation, directed to those who aspire to spiritual leadership. Teachers of God’s Word must be ruthlessly honest in self-examination, lest they play the self-deceived hypocrite of verse 42, blinded by an eyeful of log!
40. An added reason for watchfulness in this regard has to do with a certain universal leadership principle, namely, that the life of the teacher will inevitably reproduce itself in the lives of those who follow the teacher – for better or for worse. Therefore, again, would-be disciples must be very choosy when it comes to deciding whom to follow, even as would-be leaders are obliged to exercise regular self-evaluation.
41–42. Through two closing rhetorical questions, Jesus asks his hearers to contemplate an absurd scenario involving a contrast between, on the one hand, a minute speck in the eye of one’s neighbour and, on the other hand, an immense log in your own eye. The first rhetorical question gets at the fallen human tendency to focus on the faults of another, while ignoring one’s own obvious faults; the second question deals with the related urge to redress another’s moral failings without acknowledging one’s own. To be clear, Jesus does not rule out the attempt to point out another person’s sin. Instead, the point is to underscore the ever-present danger of hypocrisy motiving such transactions. Luke 6:41–42 is no bar to moral confrontation. Rather, Jesus’ saying serves to remind his disciples of the enormity of their own sin (which on Jesus’ comparison dwarfs the sins of others) even as it underscores the crucial role of honest introspection prior to acts of correction.
43–44a. Verses 43–45 present a self-contained unit establishing an analogy between trees and people. The simple point of the analogy is to illustrate the organic connection between patterns of human behaviour and spiritual identity. Just as the type of any given plant can be safely inferred from its fruit, so too a person’s identity as a good tree or a bad tree can be inferred by the demonstration of fruit, good or bad.45 The image of fruit is grounded in the story of Israel, a people called time and again to bear fruit by maintaining covenant faithfulness.46 While Luke’s Jewish readers would have agreed with the basic premise of the metaphor (namely, that Israel had the covenantal obligation to bear fruit), the comparison implicitly raises the logically prior question – without settling it one way or another – as to whether the nation had the capacity to discharge its fruit-bearing responsibilities. The comparison, then, undermines any assumptive correlation between socio-ethnic identity and covenant privilege (i.e. status as a good tree), even as it emphasizes that the best evidence for one’s elective status is the demonstration of covenant faithfulness.
44b. Though it may seem that Jesus’ concrete examples of figs and grapes (along with thistles and brambles) are simply intended to drive the same point home, this would be to overlook the allusion to – among other resonances – Hosea 9:10:
Like grapes in the wilderness,
I found Israel.
Like the first fruit on the fig tree,
in its first season
I saw your ancestors.
But they came to Baal-peor,
and consecrated themselves to a thing of shame,
and became detestable like the thing they loved.
Though Yahweh had elected Israel even while it was still in the desert to bear – metaphorically speaking – figs and grapes, God’s people had turned to idols and therewith failed to produce their appointed fruit. The parable hints that though God is still looking for such fruit from Israel, one cannot expect as much if the plant itself has strangely morphed into another species of plant altogether.
45. Building on the logic of the previous verses, Jesus now invites his hearers to discern fruit on the level of the good person (NRSV) or the ‘good man’ (agathos anthrōpos), perhaps hinting that, ultimately, Jesus alone fulfils this criterion as the unique good man (cf. 18:19). If so, then the saying is less ecclesial than Christological. In any case, in this metaphor, the heart serves as a storeroom for treasures – some good, others evil. The moral quality of that heart/storeroom, Jesus continues, will be manifest not just through the fruit (or lack thereof), but also through the words of the mouth, which express the abundance of the heart. In the Graeco-Roman world, where persons were generally valued by their ethnicity, pedigree, social status, rhetorical eloquence and learning, Jesus’ focus on the moral quality of human speech would have been innovative.
46. Even more startlingly, Jesus’ rhetorical question assumes that his hearers call him Lord, Lord, but do not in fact do what he says. The sharply worded question, in other words, shockingly assumes some level of hypocrisy on the part of his hearers. To this extent, it is a call for self-examination, forcing Jesus’ followers to ask themselves not whether they have failed to do what their Lord says, but how they have failed. The term Lord would have been as fitting for Jesus’ first hearers (where the term takes on the meaning of ‘Sir’ or ‘master’) as it would have been for Luke’s first readers and even us today (where ‘Lord’ carries the meaning of divinity).
47–49. As if to put some teeth on his warning, Jesus closes out his Sermon the Plain, appropriately enough, by emphasizing the critical importance of not just hearing Jesus’ words but also obeying them. Here the contrast is between a man who dug deeply and built his house on rock and another builder who was content to build his house on the ground without a foundation. The former house is able to withstand the torrents of the river; the latter gives way to the same river, yielding a great ruin. Here one cannot fail to pick up the hints of the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem.47 After all, ‘the house’ in Luke’s Gospel is classically the house of God (2:49; 6:4; 13:35; etc.); the rock seems to stand for the rock of Zion (Isa. 28:16); the ‘river’ may well represent the empire founded on – and therefore symbolized by – the Tiber River.48 In this case, Jesus assumes that his own community will become like a temple which, firmly founded on his words, will have the wherewithal to withstand even the torrential forces of Roman military might.
So far in Luke’s story we have seen Jesus and his disciples getting resistance from all quarters. But if Jesus really were the Messiah, Luke’s readers would naturally ask, why should he and his followers meet so much opposition? In response, Luke’s Sermon on the Plain seems to say that such opposition was no unanticipated oddity but was actually intended to mark out the kingdom of God, at least in the present time. Eventually, however, there would come a day when God’s kingdom would arrive in fullness and all this would be made right and whole. The reality of present-day kingdom suffering also partially explains Luke’s recurring Exodus imagery. Just as the nation of Israel was given birth through the harsh trials leading up to the exodus, so too, Luke’s Gospel promises, before God’s people could inherit the future kingdom, they would have to face their own trials and their own pharaohs – and they would have to do so Jesus’ way.
Jesus’ way was of course exactly the opposite of how most of us would prefer to handle life. While most people do what they can to amass wealth, Jesus declares that it is not the wealthy but the poor who are blessed, for with poverty comes trust. While people of this world would sooner laugh than mourn, Jesus says that there is an inscrutable value – a kingdom value – in mourning, for with mourning comes a willingness to feel and even embrace the pain of living in a far-from-perfect world. Likewise, those who are well regarded in the culture’s eyes will one day find themselves in the dubious company of the false prophets: those who are reviled on account of Jesus, by contrast, will inherit blessing. In every way, Jesus’ kingdom is an upside-down kingdom. No wonder the message of Jesus and his followers has been so roundly rejected: it threatens the very foundation of the world’s operating system.
The narrative’s next five scenes (7:1–10, 11–17, 18–35, 36–50; 8:1–3), sandwiched by the Sermon on the Plain (6:20–49) on the front end and two parables (8:4–15, 16–18) on the back end, are action-packed. The first two of these five passages (7:1–10, 11–17) constitute the present section under consideration. The pair of episodes illustrate not only Jesus’ ministry of release but also his prophetic aspect. We recall that, in the aftermath of his inaugural sermon at Nazareth, Jesus adduced Elijah and Elisha as examples of two prophets who, like himself, were not well received in their home towns (4:24–27). Elijah, Jesus reminded his hearers, was sent to a widow; her son, the scriptural story reminds us, would be restored to life by the prophet (1 Kgs 17:17–24). For his part, Elisha healed a Gentile military commander (2 Kgs 5:10–14), but also raised a young man from the dead (2 Kgs 4:32–37). Given these scriptural backdrops, the healing of the centurion’s servant (Luke 7:1–10) and the raising of the widow’s son from the dead (7:11–17) conspire to depict Jesus’ prophetic ministry in the vein of Elijah and Elisha. That Jesus should refer to Elijah and Elisha in Luke 4 only to enact variations of their miracles here gives his earlier declarations a quasi-predictive force, further confirming his prophetic status.
1. As with Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount (cf. Matt. 5:1; 7:28), though all the sayings of Luke’s Sermon on the Plain are initially addressed to his disciples (6:20), his discourse now comes to a close in the hearing of the people.49 From here Jesus once again enters Capernaum, where, it will be remembered, he had been violently opposed for insinuating the Gentiles’ inclusion in the kingdom (4:24–27). Now, as Luke’s story is about to make clear, certain Gentiles are already responding in extraordinary ways to Jesus.
2. The first of these ‘certain Gentiles’ is a Roman centurion (the commander of a hundred men); his slave (pais), greatly esteemed by his master, is on the cusp of dying from an unspecified illness. First-century Roman centurions were normally persons of high social rank. In fact, given Capernaum’s modest size, not to mention the generosity of the centurion’s public benefaction (v. 5), this man would have been among the most socially powerful figures in the region. That he is eventually able to engage Jesus (v. 6) suggests that the latter’s mission to the poor (4:18) did not preclude his responsiveness to the powerful outside this social category. Though the centurion’s presence in the garrison town of Capernaum would not have been surprising for first-century readers familiar with the Galilee, his appearance on the heels of Jesus’ momentous announcements in 6:20–49 may have been. Though Jews were known to serve in the Roman army, Luke’s readers would have likely surmised that this figure was a Gentile centurion and therefore an unlikely beneficiary of Jesus’ healing powers.50
3. Although the centurion had never personally witnessed the miracles that Jesus had performed during his earlier stint in Capernaum, reports about the extraordinary healer had obviously got around, even as far as the headquarters of the local Roman encampment. Alerted to Jesus’ return, he asked a contingent of Jewish elders to intercede on his behalf in the hope of recruiting the famed healer’s powers (cf. vv. 7–8). In this connection, two points deserve mention. First, though a Roman centurion in distress would have been ordinarily scorned by pious Jews (if only on account of what he symbolized), here the elders carry out their delegation enthusiastically and with a deep sense of gratitude for his benefaction. Second, while the centurion never intends for Jesus to come to his house (vv. 7–9), the elders nevertheless pitch their request on the assumption that Jesus’ personal presence would be necessary for a successful healing.
4–5. Although Jesus’ earlier encounters with the Jewish leadership of Capernaum had been adversarial (5:17 – 6:11), now at least some of these same leaders are enlisting his help. Their heartfelt devotion to the man who loves our people and has built our synagogue for us is reflected not only in their sheer willingness to mediate on the centurion’s behalf but also in the fact that they appealed . . . earnestly (parekaloun . . . spoudaiōs), with the imperfect verb conveying a sense of repetition – in other words, ‘they kept appealing to Jesus earnestly’.
6–7a. As Jesus follows the elders back to the centurion’s house, it appears (though this is not explicitly stated) that someone had run ahead of the entourage, now attracting a crowd of curious onlookers (v. 9), to update the Roman officer. Yet even while this is taking place, a second delegation of friends (philoi) sent by the centurion meets Jesus and company en route. Mortified that Jesus is actually coming to his house (contrary to the initial intentions of the centurion who likely understood the real or perceived risks of defilement attached to such a visit), the commander has this time sent ahead a personally worded statement in order to ensure clear communication. Two remarks are apposite. First, the centurion addresses Jesus as Lord (kyrie). While in this context this word probably means nothing more than ‘Sir’ or something of the sort, Luke seems to suggest a double meaning: Jesus is being recognized both as an honourable man and as someone close to if not fully identical with divinity.51 Second, while the elders had earlier appealed to the centurion’s worthiness (v. 4) as grounds for their plea, ironically the commander emphasizes his deep sense of unworthiness (anticipating the so-called ‘prodigal son’, 15:19, 21). The inner sense of moral inadequacy that prompted the centurion to send the first delegation turns out to be the same motivation for sending the subsequent contingent.52
7b–8. Remarkably, the officer envisages a healing performed merely on Jesus’ word. Drawing an analogy between himself and Jesus as a man set under authority, the centurion reasons that if his own role in the military (as one under authority) authorizes him to give orders to lower-ranking soldiers, then Jesus (as one also under authority) should be able to manipulate creation in the same way. The analogy is filled out with three concrete examples, involving hypothetical subordinates being instructed to Go, Come and Do this. While Luke’s centurion may appear to be belabouring the point, the threefold illustration strikingly anticipates three of Jesus’ own commands issued elsewhere in the Gospel.53
9. Jesus’ response to the centurion’s words is one of pleasant shock: he is amazed at the soldier’s faith, for the centurion clearly expected Jesus to heal without the kind of intermediary techniques typically associated with ancient healings. Jesus’ point is not that such faith was unprecedented but that it was unprecedented in Israel. That a Roman centurion – of all people – should emerge as the leading example of faith not only underscores the theme of reversal in Luke’s Gospel but also contributes to the more specific theme of Gentile-inclusive mission. Just as Elisha had his Naaman (Luke 4:27; cf. 2 Kgs 5:10–14), Jesus had his centurion.
10. Without either a physical gesture or even a word, Jesus now leaves off, allowing the second delegation to return to the centurion’s house, where they and the centurion would find the servant restored to full health. As far as we know, the centurion’s second and carefully worded communication to Jesus is the single precipitating cause of the healing. This may imply the inherent power of Christ-centred faith, whereby the very expression of faith proves sufficient for securing the ends such faith desires.
11. The phrase soon afterwards aligns the action of verses 11–17 with the previous passage. The crowd that had attached itself to Jesus by the end of the Sermon on the Plain has now expanded – partially due to the miracle of 7:1–10 – into a large crowd. Along with the disciples, the throng accompanies Jesus to a town some 25 miles (40 km) to the south-west of Capernaum called Nain.
12. As Jesus and his followers approach the town, another large crowd, perhaps of comparable size, is coming towards them heading out of town. Their attention is focused on a dead young man, the only son of a widow, stretched out on a funeral bier. The details of the surviving ‘family’ have at least a twofold relevance. First, Luke’s readers would have understood that the death of an adult only son would have exposed the surviving single mother to grave uncertainty at best and dire economic consequences at worse. The man’s death is thus a tragedy on several levels. Second, as mentioned above, in the light of Jesus’ earlier mention of the widow of Zarephath (4:25–26), the story will invite a comparison with Elijah’s raising of the widow’s son (1 Kgs 17), retrospectively sharpening up an otherwise vague comparison between the Roman centurion (Luke 7:1–10) and Naaman (2 Kgs 5). On this emerging pattern, Jesus is beginning to be singled out as a prophet like Elijah. While the significance of an Elijah–Jesus interchange is disputed, I have become persuaded that Jesus imitates the prophet precisely as the human anchor of God’s continuing remnant.54
13. In a culture where hearty expressions of grief were expected at funerals, Jesus’ request – which comes not as a word of consolation but as an implicit promise that he will raise the young man – that the widow stop weeping verges on the socially unacceptable. On one level, Luke’s audience would have understood Jesus’ command here alongside other apostolic enjoinments not to grieve for the dead as the world grieves (1 Thess. 4:13). On another level, this instruction draws attention to itself as the first of three dominical injunctions not to weep (cf. 8:52; 23:28), all of which may possibly relate to Jeremiah’s instruction not to weep over the dead but to weep instead over those destined for exile (Jer. 22:10; cf. 31:16–17). This possibility is supported by Luke’s observation of Jesus’ compassion. While Jesus’ emotional response to the widow’s plight is meant as a model response, we should not lose sight of the fact that compassion is also the leading divine motivation for Yahweh’s enacting Israel’s return from exile.55 In this case, the story acquires two levels. On the most basic level, the episode shows that Jesus the prophet has the power to restore dead sons to their mothers. On another level, the passage shows that Jesus is the catalyst for return from exile as he brings the corporate ‘son’ (Israel) back from the dead.
14–15. As if Jesus’ words to the widow were not arresting enough, now he proceeds to approach and then touch the bier, an action which would normally result in his instantly becoming ritually unclean. Caught off guard by this increasingly odd turn of events, the pall-bearers stop dead in their tracks, unsure of either what to do with Jesus or how to proceed at this point. Yet the tension of the moment does not last long, for Jesus addresses the corpse: Young man, I say to you, rise [egerthēti]!56 Immediately, the dead man comes to life before a now-stunned crowd of onlookers, only then to begin speaking (perhaps as Luke’s proof that this was not the kind of thing that could be explained away by rigor mortis or something of the sort). Finally, Jesus gave him to his mother (kai edōken auton tē mētri autou), much as Elijah ‘gave him to his mother’ (kai edōken auton tē mētri autou), that is, gave the widow of Zarephath her son (1 Kgs 17:23, LXX).
16–17. Seized by fear (phobos), the onlookers glorify God, while making two assertions. First, the people are convinced that in Jesus a great prophet has risen among us, one in the order of Elijah. Second, they declare that God has looked favourably on, or, better, ‘visited’ (ESV, NASB), his people. While the people’s summation may appear to be a verdict of comfort, the verb also carries connotations of judgment (e.g. Zech. 10:3), visitation (episkeptomai) being associated with the convergence of divine initiative and divine power – coming as good news for some but bad news for others.57 Given the spectacular nature of this miracle, it is no surprise that word gets out, penetrating the breadth of Judea and the surrounding countryside.
In the Hebrew Scriptures, prophets are known to make true predictions, challenge and encourage God’s people, respond to the leading of the Spirit, perform miracles and embody the word of God. Having declared the Spirit’s anointing (4:18), Jesus discharges his prophetic vocation first through the Sermon on the Plain and then in this pair of passages centring around the miraculous restoration of life. Because Jesus’ prophetic role is epitomized by the giving of new life, Luke’s readers can take comfort in the truth that, though circumstances and humanly derived probabilities may shout otherwise, there is no person, no life, no relationship, no family, no community, no institution and no cause that is beyond the hope of restoration. Even when others have given up hope (as the centurion’s friends had), even when others weep inconsolably (as the widow’s son’s mourners did), the prophet Jesus still has the power to retrieve from death. First and foremost, prophets are to be messengers not of doom but of renewed life. The principle applies no less to Jesus’ followers than to Jesus himself.
The three scenes (7:18–35, 36–50; 8:1–3) which this section comprises speak not just about the person of Jesus but also of his impact. Perhaps the most significant of these three scenes is 7:18–35, where he clarifies the nature of his messianic ministry on the heels of having ‘just . . . cured many people of diseases, plagues, and evil spirits’, while also claiming to have raised the dead and preached good news to the poor (7:21–22). The catalogue of activities is retrospective. The curing of diseases, plagues and spirits has already taken place throughout the course of 4:31 – 6:11, the raising of the dead in 7:1–17 and the ‘gospelizing’ of the poor in 6:20–49. In this light, 7:18–35 is Jesus’ attempt to explain his activities Christologically. Yet as Jesus describes his ministry, he draws on a confluence of texts from Isaiah (Isa. 29:18; 35:5–6; 42:18; and 61:1), implying that these demonstrations of power are evidence that the prophet’s vision of the restored kingdom is now coming into view. Jesus’ hearers are not all equally prepared to concede the point: Jesus and his paradoxical outworking of the kingdom will leave some puzzled (Luke 7:18–24a), others scandalized (vv. 23, 29–35, 39, 44) and still others transformed (7:36 – 8:3). Those who belong to this last category are Wisdom’s children, living proof that Jesus really is the Messiah he implicitly claims to be.
18–20. John’s disciples relate all these things (i.e. the miraculous events of vv. 1–17) to their imprisoned mentor (3:20; cf. Ant. 18.119). Once updated, John now sends two disciples (the minimum number of witnesses for a legally binding testimony, Deut. 17:6; 19:15) in order to investigate Jesus’ putative messianic status.58 Languishing in his fortress cell, John wonders whether Jesus really is the one who is to come (as the Baptizer had initially been led to believe according to 3:16) or whether he and the rest of the faithful should redirect their hopes elsewhere.59
21. The question is well timed, for according to Luke’s report Jesus had just then cured many people of diseases. The Evangelist’s summary invokes Isaiah’s Suffering Servant who likewise had ‘cured’ or ‘healed’ (Isa. 53:5) ‘many’ (Isa. 53:11–12) of their ‘diseases’ (Isa. 53:4). And so, even if Jesus is not responding to evil in a way that John might have expected from a Messiah, Luke’s echoes of the Suffering Servant confirm that God’s purposes will indeed be achieved through Jesus as the fulfilment of Isaiah 53.
22. Jesus instructs John’s emissaries to report back on what they have seen and heard, not in their own terms but with language carefully drawn from Isaiah 26:19; 29:18–19; 35:5–6; and 61:1. At first blush, the sequence of actions appears strangely anticlimactic: the list climaxes not with the dead being raised to life but with the preaching of good news to the poor – as if this preaching were the most impressive and climactic point!60 For if both miraculous healing (the centurion’s servant) and raising from the dead (the widow’s son) had precedent in Elijah’s ministry (1 Kgs 17:17–22), it is above all Jesus’ vocation to preach to the poor that uniquely marks him out as the fulfilment of Isaiah 61:1, just as he had announced in his inaugural sermon (Luke 4:18–19).
23. Following his summation of his own ministry, Jesus declares a macarism (blessing) on individuals who might otherwise ‘take offence’ (skandalisthē) at his Messiahship. In its root sense, the verb skandalizō means ‘to make stumble’; in metaphoric usage, it means ‘to cause to disbelieve, to cause to sin, to give offense’.61 Paradoxically, for some, Jesus will be the fulfilment of the messianic high priest (Isa. 61:1); for others, he will be the hazardous temple stone described in Isaiah (Isa. 8:14–15), a source of stumbling.
24–25. Once John’s messengers make their way back to their master, Jesus debriefs the crowd on what must have been a highly charged moment. By questioning Jesus’ messianic status, John has potentially raised questions about himself, not least in the eyes of Luke’s readers. As if to allay any such doubts in regard to his forerunner, Jesus now pays tribute to John by posing a pair of rhetorical questions aimed at revealing his forerunner’s role and identity. Similarly worded, the two questions presume that the crowds had gone out into the desert for the purpose of observing John. Now by focusing on what the crowds did see and did not see, Jesus hopes to clarify just what made John so different from the other influencers of the day.
What did you go out into the wilderness to look at? The first possible answer in Jesus’ multiple-choice quiz is this: a reed shaken by the wind. A familiar sight in Palestine, especially along the Jordan River where John ministered, the wind-tossed reed is a fitting metaphor for individuals who are easily morally compromised due to external pressures or internal desires.62 That John was not such a person would have been clear from the very fact that he was at the moment locked up in Herod’s prison, all because he had spoken out against the tetrarch’s adulterous marriage. At the same time, the blown reed was an appropriate image of Herod Antipas, whose impetuousness was known to leave a wake of human wreckage (Mark 6:14–29). That Jesus alludes to Herod is confirmed by evidence from contemporary coins, showing Herod on the obverse (heads) and a reed on the reverse (tails). Unlike the morally flexible Herod, John is no vacillating reed.
What did the crowds go out to see? A second theoretical possibility is this: a man dressed in soft robes. Certainly no-one would associate John’s coarse camel-hair cloak with soft robes. More than that, the kinds of people who did wear such luxurious clothing lived in palaces and villas. Why does Jesus offer two possible responses to his own rhetorical question, only then to reject them both? To underscore that, like the righteous prophets of old, John was paying the standard price for having opposed the reigning evil king of Israel. Jesus draws attention to the fact that John had all the characteristic traits of a prophet.
26–27. Given historical evidence that the rank and file of first-century Israel had perceived John to be a prophet (Josephus, Ant. 18.116–119), quite apart from any supporting testimony from Jesus, it is unlikely that Jesus is introducing any startling new information here. He is simply confirming what the crowds have already come to know and believe about John. Yet Jesus also insists that John is something greater (neuter: perissoteron) than a prophet. Just what this means is illuminated by a subsequent citation of Malachi 3:1 and Exodus 23:20 (two verses that overlap considerably in verbiage). In Malachi, the forerunning messenger seems to be identified with Elijah (Mal. 4:5). So, then, John is the long-awaited Elijah redivivus – not just another prophet like Elijah but something greater, something more than a prophet (cf. 1:17).63 Jesus’ declaration of John as the ‘new and improved’ Elijah, as it were, confirms the Baptizer’s divinely assigned role as preparer of the way of the new exodus (3:4–6).
28. More than that, among those born of women no one is greater than John. Even with momentary reflection, one can hardly miss the extraordinary nature of the claim. Of all those born of women (including such bright lights as Abraham, Moses, David, Elijah, etc.), none is greater than the Baptizer! Though a conventional circumlocution for humanity (Job 11:2, LXX; 14:1; 15:14; 25:4; 1QS XI, 11; 1QH XIII, 14; XVI, 23–24; XVIII, 12–13), the phrase born of women, unless a redundancy, may hint that there is in fact one who is greater than John, namely, the one not born of woman, that is, Adam. Given Luke’s interest in correlating Jesus and Adam (cf. Luke 3:38), the Evangelist may have retained these words, at least in part, to implicate Jesus as the new Adam and therefore also as the one living figure greater than John. As if the shock of this statement were not overwhelming enough, Jesus then goes on to inflict mental whiplash on his audience by declaring John’s inferior status when compared with any and all members of the kingdom – down to its very least. Clearly, the kingdom reality now being introduced by Jesus would prove far superior to anything that God’s people had heretofore known.
29–30. In an uncharacteristic move, Luke now inserts an editorial aside on the divergent reactions to Jesus’ provocative statement. In response to Jesus’ words, all the people who heard this, including ‘even’ (kai) the tax collectors, ‘justified’ (edikaiōsan) God: they acknowledged the justice of God’s activity. Meanwhile, the religious authorities, the Pharisees and the lawyers (those who rigorously trained under a rabbi), rejected the thrust of Jesus’ words and therewith the very purpose (boulē) of God.64 The split reaction among Jesus’ hearers, Luke informs us, is not unrelated to these same hearers’ earlier divided response to John’s baptism. As it would turn out, those who had submitted to the baptism were now finding themselves on the right side of redemptive history; those who had not submitted to John’s baptism were tragically setting aside God’s purposes. Apparently, the great divine sorting process, which John had promised in Luke 3, had already begun taking place even through his administration of baptism.
31–32. The Evangelist’s editorializing segues into a comparison between the people of this generation and small children in a market-place. On one level, this generation refers quite obviously to Jesus’ contemporaries – more specifically, those who finally reject his words. On another level, the phrase invokes texts like Deuteronomy 32:5 (cf. Gen. 7:1; Pss 78:8; 95:10), where ‘a perverse and crooked generation’ refers to the disobedient among Israel destined to incur continuing exile. In the apocalyptic literature of Second Temple Judaism, the term ‘generation’ typically retains this negative evaluative force (see the Apocalypse of Weeks: 1 En. 91:11–17; 93:1–10). Jesus intends nothing less here.
Although children in Luke are generally characterized in positive terms, in this instance the case is otherwise. The children in the imaginary scene are irritated because their musical efforts have not garnered the reaction they had hoped for. When they had played joyful music, the other children’s response was not sufficiently joyful; when they had played mournful music, the response was not mournful enough. The imagery has a universal resonance: morally developing adolescents often struggle to see beyond themselves even as they are quick to impose their unrealistic expectations on others. Whereas the two protests issued by the parabolic children in the marketplace correspond to two different kinds of responses to John and Jesus’ respective dining habits, Jesus is essentially challenging his detractors with spiritual childishness.65 On a more general level, he suggests that those who resist the way of God will continue to cling to rigid and wrong-headed expectations.
33. Insofar as dancing is connected with feasting, the one who refuses to dance along with the Pharisees’ merry tunes must be John. In the historical context behind Luke’s Gospel, John’s diet and abstinence from alcohol had drawn no little attention from his contemporaries (Mark 1:6); in the world of the narrative, Luke has already alerted the reader to the reason for John’s teetotalism (Luke 1:15). Apparently, John’s dietary commitments had prompted a number of his contemporaries (presumably among those who had rejected his baptism) to suppose that demonic forces were at work in the Baptizer – a very serious charge.
34. Whereas the Pharisees and scribes had played a flute for the ascetical John, for the dining Jesus they had sung a mournful dirge. In the terms of the parable, by refusing to fast (5:33–39) Jesus had also refused to mourn. But Jesus objects to his critics’ darned-if-you-do-darned-if-you-don’t inconsistency, for when the Son of Man has come eating and drinking, they level accusations of gluttony, drunkenness and ill-advised consorting. With the words eating and drinking, Jesus means not simply the ingestion of food and alcohol, but the kind of overindulgence the first-century world associated with bawdy Graeco-Roman symposia (feasts). That Jesus in his day participated in feasts sharing some traits of the symposium is virtually beyond question; that Luke has already recorded Jesus as doing so alongside tax-collectors and sinners is also patently clear (5:27–31). Now by designating himself (along perhaps with his followers) as the Son of Man, Jesus sets all these allegations within the context of the cosmic battle taking shape in Daniel 7.
35. Jesus has drawn attention to the fact that he and John have been forced into a catch-22. Any effort to meet their critics’ expectations, like meeting the standards of silly children in the marketplace, would prove to be futile. Yet rather than leave the disagreement at an impasse, Jesus appeals to the ‘children of Wisdom’. To be a child of Wisdom is quite simply to follow the path of wisdom, one and the same as the path of God; it is to partake of her feasts (Prov. 9:1–6). In other words, the children of Wisdom are those who eat at the table of Jesus, who is also the Son of Man. The vindication of the ministries of John and Jesus will emerge not through disputes over proper Halakha (Jewish ordinances), but through the transformed lives of those who now embody the wisdom or Torah of God. Just as the likes of the tax collectors and sinners had justified God (v. 29), so too will they justify wisdom itself, that is, Jesus. Jesus and his followers are both justifiers and justified.
36. The Evangelist sets the stage for this poignant scene by introducing one of the Pharisees, who plays host to Jesus. That Jesus took his place at the table (kateklithē) in a reclining position, as suggested by the verb, points to a formal gathering. In picturing this scene, we imagine Jesus propped up on his elbows, lying down along with the other guests around the eating area, with his feet pointing to one edge of the room.
37. Without warning (idou) a woman appears; she is simply identified as a sinner (hamartōlos), that is, a prostitute by trade. Having been alerted to Jesus’ presence at the Pharisee’s house, she has brought with her an alabaster jar of ointment, myrrh to be exact. Myrrh was the primary ingredient in the oil mixture used to ordain the high priest (Exod. 30:23); a similar ointment would later be applied to Jesus’ crucified body (Luke 23:56). Thus, although this anointing scene probably reflects a historical event different from the anointing at Bethany (Matt. 26:6–13//Mark 14:3–9//John 12:1–8), Luke understands this anointing (as the Gospel tradition understands the anointing at Bethany) as a consecratory act. More than that, if the Evangelist intends to link this woman to Psalm 45’s ‘daughter’, who bows to her myrrh-anointed messianic king, then this implies not only Jesus’ messianic status but perhaps also the sinful woman’s newly acquired status of royal daughter (cf. Ps. 45:6–15).
38. Four main verbs (three of which are durative imperfects, suggesting continuous action) draw attention to four principal actions. The surprise intruder (1) dampens Jesus’ feet with tears, (2) wipes them with her hair, (3) kisses his feet and (4) anoints them. Strikingly, all her actions are concentrated on Jesus’ feet, stretched out towards the outer edge of the room. The woman’s position on the fringe of the gathering gives spatial expression to Luke’s theme of reversal, where the social outsiders become – by Jesus’ reckoning – the new moral exemplars. In the first-century world, the feet were considered the most shameful parts of the body. Very practically, they would also quickly become filthy from dirt and dust (not to mention other even less desirable materials!), as one travelled from point A to point B. As Jesus will soon point out (vv. 44–46), while the host had failed to carry out his socially expected duties, the marginalized woman in effect steps up in his place, discharging the hosting duties that should have been performed by Simon. She does so with exceeding extravagance.
39. The Pharisee who had invited Jesus begins thinking to himself, thereby undertaking one of many interior monologues in Luke.66 Though we suspect that a Pharisee in such a situation would have ordinarily banished the woman from his house without further ado, if only to protect his guests from ritual impurity, the host’s decision to observe and interpret the unfolding event as evidence against Jesus (If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what kind of woman this is who is touching him) is itself significant. From this, we sense that Simon’s motives for inviting Jesus in the first place were not so much a show of friendship as an attempt to put the upstart religious figure in his place. The Pharisee who had invited or called (kalesas) Jesus to dinner in this scene is but an example of the implacable children from the last scene, calling out (prosphōnousin) to the likes of John and Jesus (7:32).
40–43. Responding to the Pharisee’s inward thoughts, and thereby proving that he is in fact a prophet, Jesus rehearses a fictive story involving two debtors with different levels of indebtedness: one owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty (v. 41). In the time of Jesus, the silver-based denarius was the standard pay for a day’s wage. This means that the debtors owed the creditor roughly 500 and 50 days’ worth of wages. Yet both of these debts are cancelled. Jesus then closes out his imaginary scenario by directing a follow-up question (Now which of them will love him more?) to his host, now identified as Simon. In response, Simon offers the logical answer: I suppose the one for whom he cancelled the greater debt (v. 43).
44–46. At this point Jesus turns towards the woman while continuing to address Simon. He draws the Pharisee’s attention to her as a model, so as to contrast his host’s social failures (indicative of a deeper moral failure) with the woman’s praiseworthy efforts. According to first-century hospitality customs, Jesus would have had the right to expect water for his feet, a kiss on his cheek or hand, and oil for his head. As it turns out, all these expectations were frustrated, only to be strangely and unexpectedly met through the woman’s emotional outpouring.
47. As far as the present company was concerned, Jesus’ next words would have been as shocking as they were puzzling. Therefore, he says, her sins, which were many, have been forgiven; hence she has shown great love. Notably, Jesus does not whitewash or otherwise minimize the woman’s sin. Indeed, he acknowledges the multitude of her sins, while at the same time also acknowledging that those same sins were forgiven, precisely on account of her actions. Here it would be overreading the text to understand this as a salvation-by-works theology, as if the woman’s actions had somehow contributed to her justification. Rather, the point seems to be that her great love is evidence of her deep experience of forgiveness. Her love in turn is evidenced not just by her affective state but by the price she was willing to pay for the sake of this demonstration of love: the financial cost associated with purchasing the myrrh, as well as the huge social risk.67 Such extravagant generosity and unflappable courage testify to a profound love that can proceed only from an equally profound forgiveness.
48. Although Jesus already declares the woman’s sins to have been forgiven, now he turns to address her directly with the same announcement: Your sins are forgiven (apheōntai). The perfect form of the verb assures us that the forgiveness is an act that has already taken place in the past with continuing validity into the future. As such, the forgiveness Jesus imparts is a permanent forgiveness. The verb’s passive voice invites us to interpret this as a divine passive. The forgiveness, in other words, is of divine origin.
49. Not surprisingly, the guests observing this interaction now begin talking among themselves, speculating about Jesus’ identity. Jesus had just ‘cleared’ a conspicuously sinful woman. In Ancient Judaism, only God (Exod. 34:6; Ps. 103:12) could forgive – more exactly, only God and his properly anointed spokesperson or priest.68 What were these eyewitnesses to make of these events? The scene is reminiscent of Jesus’ healing of the paralysed man, where very similar questions are asked (Luke 5:21). Of course, once again Luke provides no closure to this question but invites his readers to consider the matter themselves.
50. To this point, Jesus has mentioned the woman’s love and state of forgiveness. Now he explains that it is in fact her faith that has saved (sesōken) her. This hardly contradicts his earlier statement. In early Christian thought, faith was expected to express itself through love (Gal. 5:6). Therefore, it is not simply the woman’s perception of Jesus’ willingness to forgive that caused her to love, but rather her appropriation of that forgiveness through faith, a faith acted out in extravagant acts of love. As beneficiary of the salvation offered by Jesus, the woman was now free to go in peace. Having heard of her forgiveness as a statement of fact (v. 48), now she receives a direct word of forgiveness from Jesus himself. Only then can she go in peace.
1. Soon afterwards Jesus proceeds systematically through cities and villages, proclaiming and preaching good news (kēryssōn kai euangelizomenos) as he goes, in keeping with his earlier stated mission (4:43). For Jesus, to preach is to bring the good news – and vice versa. The Twelve are also with him. Having been called (6:13), Jesus’ closest associates now re-emerge to the foreground, travelling alongside their master in a more visible way.
2–3. Jesus is also accompanied by ‘certain women’ (gynaikes tines), three of whom are mentioned by name, probably on account of the spectacular nature of their deliverance. First, there is Mary from Migdal, a city 3 miles outside Tiberias. Her claim to fame consists in having had seven demons, which Jesus had apparently exorcised. The specification of seven demons not only underscores the severity of Mary’s earlier state but may also hint, since seven is a number of fullness, at the thoroughness of the demonic control. Next there is Joanna, who was married to Chuza, Herod’s steward (epitropou Hērōdou). In the Roman world, such a person would have been a top-level functionary, a steward being a highly honoured position with considerable responsibility. The Herod in view is undoubtedly Herod Antipas who himself had mixed feelings about Jesus, at best. That Jesus should win sympathizers from members of households occupying such high-level positions shows that these same households were being divided over him; some were already living out his demands for absolute allegiance (14:26). Indeed, that Joanna should leave her husband at home to manage Herod’s household while she wandered the countryside with Jesus must have been seen as extraordinary, even scandalous. Both Mary Magdalene and Joanna will show up later at the empty tomb (24:10). Of Susanna we know nothing, though she was most likely known to Luke and his audience. These three women and many others ministered (diēkonoun) to Jesus and the Twelve from out of their worldly goods.69
That two of the three women named here are unmarried is significant.70 When we consider the widow of Nain (7:11–17), together with the sinful woman of the previous passage (who likewise would have also been unattached), we realize that Luke 8:1–3 is truly a summary of Jesus’ modus operandi. Even as Jesus’ community continued to expand by including socially marginalized women within its ranks, a new family was beginning to take shape. As Luke makes clear to a first-century culture that was often swift to denigrate women’s contributions, the Jesus movement depended not only on the financial benefaction of such women but also on their itinerant co-partnership. No wonder the commentator Alfred Plummer once remarked, ‘the Third Gospel is in an especial sense the Gospel for women’.71
The present section reveals contrasting responses to Jesus’ ministry. In answer to the wavering John, Jesus exhorts faith and reaffirms the blessing of not falling away. Meanwhile, he likens the unbelieving religious leaders to spoiled children. Then there is the sinful woman who is saved by her faith, a faith that Jesus’ Pharisaical host patently fails to demonstrate. Luke also weighs in by pointing out that the responsive children of Wisdom are proved right and by recording for posterity the presence of women who faithfully minister to Jesus out of their own resources. Both belief and unbelief come in different shapes and sizes.
Yet Luke also wants to show that there are certain attitudes and postures appropriate to faith. Those who encounter Jesus, the Gospel writer would have us know, will either follow the Pharisees’ lead in requiring him to perform on their terms, or follow suit with the humility and generosity modelled by the sinful woman and Jesus’ female financial backers. This saving faith is no mere mental assent. Faith has certain behavioural attributes. Faith has ‘a look’.
Ironically, some of the best models of this faith are the notoriously sinful. Even as the Magnificat and the Sermon on the Plain have already promised, the lowly likes of prostitutes and tax collectors – and not the religious leaders – are proving to be the children of Wisdom. The most unlikely of people are coming to faith, and Jesus remains faith’s focal point. God’s saving work cuts across all social barriers and conventional hierarchies.
The Jesus movement is now gaining an increasing number of prospective adherents and curious observers – just the kind of reaction one might expect the Messiah to provoke. But now, at the very cusp of his popularity, Jesus offers a parable that anticipates the mixed reaction he will soon receive from the public. This passage, part of a larger section focusing on the word of God (vv. 4–21), neatly divides into two parts: the parable itself (vv. 4–8) and its interpretation (vv. 9–15). This is followed by further warnings regarding the necessity of hearing (vv. 16–18), followed in turn by a case study of certain individuals – the kind who might be expected to hear well but in fact do not (vv. 19–21).
4. As a result of Jesus’ itineration, a great crowd has converged; the crowd includes people from various cities who are travelling great distances to experience the phenomenon for themselves. Like Luke, Matthew and Mark also situate the parable of the sower (sometimes called the parable of the soils) immediately after a report on the size of Jesus’ following (Matt. 13:2//Mark 4:1//Luke 8:4). In this light, it seems that the Synoptic tradition as a whole has understood the parable either as Jesus’ tactical response to his increasing popularity (separating the serious enquirers from the less serious through verbal puzzles) or as his interpretation of it (hinting that the presently massive following is not all that it seems) – or both.
5a. The parable begins simply enough with a narration of a nondescript sower who went out to sow his seed. The agricultural imagery would have struck a chord with the agrarian audience, as most of them would have been very familiar with such a scene. At first blush, Jesus’ parable lays hold of what is entirely familiar and then makes it strange through an apparently pointless story. However, those who may have sensed that there was more to this story than first met the ear would have pressed for further explanation.
5b–8a. Corresponding to four different types of soil, the four lots of scattered seeds produce four kinds of results. The first type lands beside the path or ‘way’ (para tēn hodon) (the NRSV’s reading of on the path is unlikely), only to be trampled on, and eaten by birds. While the interpretation attached to this seed comes soon enough (v. 12), already Luke’s readers have some sense of its meaning: if John and Jesus’ following was a movement of the ‘way’ (1:79; 3:4; 7:27), then this seed beside ‘the way’ will come to represent those who have opted out of the proffered return from exile ‘on the way’ (Isa. 40:3). These hearers will be fated to be trampled on, just like the judged city of Jerusalem (Luke 21:24). A second category of seed falls on the rock. This is not soil peppered with stones as some translations suggest but a thin layer of soil overlaying a large, natural sheet of rock. Although the initial plant would have every appearance of health, eventually due to lack of moisture it would dry up. Like the second seed, the next category of seed also has the appearance of a promising start. But as it lands among thorns, the seeds-turned-germinating plants are doomed to be choked out. Finally, still other seed fell into good soil. Far more promising, these plants grow and eventually produce a hundredfold crop.72 As to whether this is in fact a miraculous harvest, scholars have in the past been divided. The best evidence suggests that this would have been an excellent return in the first-century world but not beyond the realm of human possibility.73 In any case, the emphasis is on the astounding degree of fruitfulness. The parable of the sower is a study of contrasts, more specifically, a contrast between three non-fruit-bearing soils, on the one side, and one fruit-bearing soil, on the other – a contrast that becomes clear only with the passage of time.
8b. The parable proper closes with a solemn warning which Jesus shouts out (ephōnei), as if for emphasis. It is an exhortation directed not to all, but only to those with ears to hear – reminiscent of a similar call made by the exilic prophet Ezekiel (Ezek. 3:27). The exhortation presumes in the first place that not everyone will in fact have such ears, and so the thrust of the parable will inevitably be lost on some, especially those who have become spiritually deaf (and blind) through the worship of senseless idols (Isa. 44:9–20).74 As for those who can hear, however, it now behoves them to attend closely. In this instance, hearing means far more than sensory perception: it means actual obedience. Indeed, in enjoining obedience to his mysterious parable, Jesus may also be ascribing his words a significance rivalling the fundamental article of Jewish faith, the Shema (‘Hear, O Israel . . . ’; Deut. 6:4). The ability to hear and obey indicates one’s own position within the good soil. Failure to hear, however, is in effect to prove oneself as unproductive seed and the bearer of an idolatrous heart.
9–10. As one might expect, the disciples are perplexed by the unusual story and turn to its teller to enquire into its meaning. In response, Jesus promises that to them belong the secrets of the kingdom of God, even as for others the parable remains a mystifying riddle. Following Mark 4:12, Luke’s Jesus explains the secretive nature of his story as a fulfilment of Isaiah 6:9: so that (hina), or in order that, looking they may not perceive, / and listening they may not understand. The hina (purpose) clause has been a source of much stumbling among commentators, not surprisingly. But, one asks, is it really the case that Jesus preached the parables in order to harden his hearers? While various approaches to this difficult question have been offered, I suggest that though the so that (hina) clause of verse 10b does not necessarily explain Jesus’ entire motivation for giving the parable, it does at least unpack one of his motivations, namely, to seal the judgment of the others (v. 10) who do not come for an explanation. Just as Isaiah was mandated to preach repentance to an ostensibly spiritually resistant Israel, so it is with Jesus, as witnessed by the fact that he could garner little response with the short-sighted individuals who couldn’t be bothered to push further. But Jesus’ preaching ministry is not just analogous to Isaiah’s preaching but the fulfilment of it. As Luke makes clear, the long-awaited return from exile first predicted by the prophet was now being realized in Jesus, and only those who proactively responded to Jesus’ teaching held promise for participating in it.
For Luke’s purposes, too, the parable of the sower speaks of what must have been a standard objection to Jesus’ Messiahship, to wit, the failure of the Jesus movement to win Israel over en masse. The reason why Jesus’ proclamation has not produced a more far-ranging response within Israel, the parable seems to suggest, is because (1) much of God’s elect nation has remained hardened (cf. Rom 9:30 – 10:21), and (2) God is in fact leveraging this hardness to establish a newly defined remnant involving unlikely converts both within and outside Israel. The secrets of the kingdom are precisely those kingdom purposes that are even now being realized through fruitful and unfruitful responses to the preached word. In the first-century setting, this by itself would have been not far short of stupefying. The simultaneous acceptance and rejection of the messianic kingdom would have thwarted all Jewish expectations of a clean break between ‘this age’ and the glorious ‘age to come’.
11. Towards revealing the meaning of the parable, Jesus first identifies the seed as the word of God. This identification of the word as seed conjures up a similar metaphor from the prophets (Isa. 55:10–13) as well as other Jewish literature (4 Ezra 8:38–41; 9:29–37). In these cases, it is Yahweh who sows his seed as the word; in these cases, too, the seed-as-word retains its own inexorable generative power. Paradoxically, the seed, precisely as the ‘seed of Abraham’, is also the remnant Israel.75 This dual reference is hardly problematic but gives fitting expression to the expected day of restoration envisaged when the word of Yahweh would coalesce with the righteous remnant in a new and powerful way. The imagery of seed is also appropriate for Luke’s purposes since throughout the Gospel Yahweh’s overriding concern is for fruit (Luke 3:9; 6:43–45; 13:6–9; 20:9–18), the fruit of covenantal obedience. In Jesus’ messianic kingdom, such fruitfulness cannot occur apart from the successful sowing of the word. And since Jesus is now the bearer of the word, he no less than God is the sower of the seed.
12. The seed beside the path, Jesus explains, refers to those who have lost the implanted word to marauding satanic forces, symbolized in verse 5 by the birds. Having been deprived of the life-giving word, such individuals cannot believe, much less be saved. From this, we learn that the proper reception of Jesus’ word is no exercise in mere cognition, but involves a battle with dark spiritual forces. People’s failure to accept the words of Jesus stems not from a lack of information but from the hardened condition of their hearts; at the same time, behind this moral failure stands the deception of the satanic kingdom. Proclamation, Luke means to say, is at its heart a spiritual battle.
13. The seeds falling on the rocky soil are interpreted as the flash-in-the-pan conversions to Jesus. True, such persons at one time may have received the word with joy, but this is no assurance that the word will actually carry through its prescribed purpose. In the time of testing (en kairō peirasmou), they stumble, failing to live out – as we shall see – the thrust of the sixth petition of the Lord’s Prayer: ‘Lead us not into temptation [peirasmon]’ (ESV). On one level, this ‘hour’ is the period of the promised tribulation (Dan. 7:22; 11:35); on another level, it refers to any moment when Jesus’ followers are tempted to cave in to social or political pressure.
14. Quickly recognized as impediments to agricultural fruitfulness, thorns are broadly associated with cursing (Gen. 3:18; Num. 33:55; Isa. 5:6; Jer. 4:3–4), in this case the curses of worldly cares, riches and pleasures of life. At the same time, especially in Isaiah, thorns symbolize external threats to Israel’s spiritual life (Isa. 9:18; 10:17; 27:2–4). Given that Jesus himself is being supported through the resources of some notable women (8:1–3), his warning against wealth cannot be understood as a blanket condemnation. Rather, the focus is on wealth’s power to sway the human heart, distracting it with trivial pleasures and weighing it down with cares (merimnōn), a morally negative term (cf. 12:25).
15. In describing the fruitful soil, Luke makes two important changes to his source. First, he emphasizes that fruitfulness is directly tied to an honest and good heart. This builds a bridge back to 6:45, where the good person speaks out of the abundance of his or her ‘good heart’. Second, Luke’s good soil produces with patient endurance (en hypomonē). This anticipates Jesus’ insistence on the necessity of the same patient endurance during the tribulation (21:19). The brunt of the test of fruitfulness awaits future tribulation, a tribulation which Jesus and his disciples will soon undergo.
16. Following an extended parable (8:4–15) about hearing the word, this mini parable of sorts offers a variation of the same theme by exploring the rewards and dangers attached to, respectively, obeying and disobeying. Here Jesus draws a comparison between effective hearing and an oil-fuelled house lamp (lychnon), commonly employed for night-time illumination. He asks his readers to imagine lighting a lamp, only then to put it – in a bizarre move – under a jar or bed, thereby nullifying its function. Because the envisioned lamp provides lighting not for those in the house but rather for those who enter, the metaphor seems to emphasize that the primary benefits yielded by faithful hearing are the saving benefits which stand to be embraced by the not-yet enfolded.76 By the same analogy, the comparison also warns that faithless hearing of the word has the effect of concealing or otherwise obstructing the light of salvation. In short, the disciples’ choice to obey or disobey is not without its own missional implications.
17. As Jesus acknowledges, there is a good deal that is hidden and secret, not least the realities anticipated in the parable of the sower (8:10). Nevertheless, Jesus also promises, all things will eventually come to light, for nothing is hidden that will not be disclosed. On the eschatological day, all human beings will be shown up for the kinds of hearers they are, even as the truth of the preceding parable of the sower runs its course in human reality. In the final analysis, then, Jesus’ followers must put the light of obedience on the lampstand, as it were, because God is in the business of bringing all things to light, not least the messianic light that is already beginning to burn within Jesus’ community. The truth will out!
18. On the basis of verses 16–17, Jesus exhorts his followers not just to listen but to pay attention to how you listen. For Jesus, in other words, the life of discipleship requires not just an attentiveness to the word of God, but an uninterrupted attentiveness to the quality of one’s attentiveness. The result of such faithful listening is superabundant reward: the just deserts of not listening are losing the little one has. In practical terms, though responsiveness to God’s word may be a sign of God’s initial grace, this is no guarantee against such grace being withdrawn as a result of spiritual neglect.
19. Having occupied a prominent role in the Gospel’s opening chapters, only to disappear from sight for five chapters, Mary now reappears, this time along with Jesus’ brothers. They are daunted by the very practical results of Jesus’ burgeoning popularity, namely, the people compressed around him. Unable to get to Jesus because of the crowd (dia ton ochlon), they face the same predicament as those who had been earlier carrying the paralysed man (where the same Greek phrase is used; cf. 5:19).
20. When Jesus is informed that his immediate family members are hoping to see him, the implication is that he is being summoned. That Jesus’ family should expect him to be at their beck and call reflects a posture noticeably different from that of the four men carrying the paralysed man (in 5:17–26) who, as we recall, having likewise been hindered by the crowd, nevertheless pressed forward into Jesus’ presence. Nor is it incidental that Mary and her sons are described as standing outside (hestēkasin exō ), for generally speaking in Luke, to be outside (exō ) is to be outside God’s salvific purposes (13:25, 28; 14:35; 22:62). On these considerations, it appears Mary comes to us as an instantiation of one who has received the word (Luke 1 – 2) but who also, notwithstanding the warning of the previous passage (8:16–18), has failed to improve consistently on it.
21. For this reason, perhaps shockingly, Mary’s status as the mother of Jesus, as well as the status of Jesus’ biological brothers, now becomes qualified. By Jesus’ reckoning, true family relations are constituted not biologically but spiritually. Only those who hear the word of God and do it, as the parable of the house on the rock has demanded (6:46–49), can claim rights as Jesus’ mother and brothers. In Luke’s editorial handling, the moral weaknesses of Jesus’ family not only temper any potential tendency among his readers to glamorize members of the holy family (outside of Jesus) but also serve to establish the circle of obedience as the fundamental community in the emerging kingdom of God.
The central thread running through these scenes is the theme of hearing. Consider Jesus’ story involving four categories of seeds and four soils. The first measure of seed falls beside the path, representing those who fail to hear ultimately because they have fallen victim to demonic forces. The second grouping of seed/soil symbolizes those who take in the word but finally cave in to persecution. Meanwhile, the third seed/soil marks out those who fail to hear due to life’s distractions – whether born of prosperity or trouble. In contrast to all these, the seed that falls on good soil stands for those who truly hear the word of God and as a result bear fruit. On the parable’s logic, then, the fundamental question is not whether or not one has ‘converted’ to Jesus (which would have been true for the second, third and fourth seeds), but whether or not one bears fruit of obedience. For Luke (not to mention the NT as a whole), the most accurate barometer of one’s standing in the kingdom is the quality of one’s life. And, from the human vantage point, the crucial predictor as to whether Jesus’ hearers will bear such fruit is the quality of their listening to him. The word of God is no respecter of persons. Even Jesus’ own mother and brothers could not guarantee their position inside Jesus’ family, especially if they failed to listen.
But the parable of the sower is not just about human listening, for it is also about God and what God is doing in Jesus. It announces an already-but-not-yet kingdom, one that is taking shape in the present and destined to emerge fully in the future. While Jesus’ first-century hearers were expecting a clean and definitive break between the present age and the kingdom to come, this parable portrays the kingdom of God as a sphere of reality that exists concurrently alongside cheap and idolatrous kingdom imitations, that is, spheres of human reality that fail to engage his word. As Jesus saw it, the advent of the kingdom did not mean the eradication of things such as persecution, temptations and apostasy. Rather, strangely and paradoxically, the kingdom is due to emerge through such things. The path to the kingdom is laid with the stepping stones of trial and opposition.
In the previous chapter, in an attempt to allay perplexities surrounding his own putative Messiahship, Jesus alluded to the activities he had performed up to that point in the story, including healing diseases, exorcising demons, raising the dead and preaching the good news (7:21–22). Such activities were not only characteristic of Jesus but also just the kinds of things one would expect of the Messiah. And because several of these same messianic functions also crop up in the last two of the three episodes making up 8:22–56, one could not be much amiss in suspecting Luke’s interest in reinforcing the messianic signs. Meanwhile, the first of these three scenes (8:22–25), the so-called ‘stilling of the storm’, naturally builds on the parable of the sower (8:4–15) and provides a lens through which to view the subsequent two scenes. Whereas the parable has urged appropriate responsiveness to the sown seed of God, Jesus’ calming of the storm serves to plant a seed of its own kind, putting him in a category reserved for God. As these events make clear, Jesus’ Messiahship is not merely extraordinary: it is tinged with divinity.
22. The seemingly innocent segue one day (en mia tōn hēmerōn), plausibly to be translated ‘on the first day’, may be carrying more freight than first meets the eye, especially since Luke uses the same phrase to introduce Jesus’ healing of the paralysed man (5:17). Given that similar language also marks the first Easter morning (‘but on the first day of the week’, tē de mia tōn sabbatōn; 24:1), Jesus’ imminent stilling of the storm, together with the healing of the paralysed man (where questions of Jesus’ divine prerogative are in play), may be pointing forward to the new creation of resurrection. It is not implausible that Luke intends both miracles, themselves concerned with authority, as harbingers of the divine authority more fully to be revealed at the resurrection. Getting into the boat along with his disciples, Jesus directs his band to go to the other side of the lake, that is, the eastern side of the lake, which is also Gentile territory.
23. As the boat sails, a sudden gust of wind descends on the lake. When cool air from the Golan Heights collides with warm air over the low-lying Sea of Galilee, waves have been known to crest up to 3 feet high. In this case, it would be only minutes before the boat became entirely swamped. Among the three Evangelists reporting this event (cf. Matt. 8:23–27//Mark 4:35–41), Luke alone editorializes that the men on board were in danger. And yet Jesus appears to be sleeping through it all!
24. While Matthew’s disciples try to rouse Jesus with the title ‘Lord’ (Matt. 8:25) and Mark’s disciples call him ‘Teacher’ (Mark 4:38), Luke’s terrified sailors address him as Master (epistata, vocative) – twice in fact, as a realistic expression of their franticness. Their panic is understandable, as they believe they are perishing. Though some argue that by designating Jesus as Master the disciples are betraying an inadequate Christology, this does not square either with other applications of the same epithet in Luke where there is no hint of critique (5:5; 9:33, 49; 17:13) or with Judaism’s designation of God as ‘Master’ (e.g. Sir. 23:1). Most likely Luke is simply hoping to get double duty out of the term: Jesus is at once the disciples’ human master and the lord of the universe! The same incarnational theology underwrites Jesus’ remarkable ability to sleep through the furious squall. As the fully faithful man, the sleeping Jesus exhibits complete trust in the providential care of his heavenly Father; as God incarnate, Jesus is roused on the model of Yahweh who likewise is awakened by the faithful in order to quell the forces of chaos (Pss 7:6; 44:23; 59:5; Isa. 51:9). The stilling of the elements at Jesus’ rebuke (cf. 4:35, 39) equally corroborates his divine identity, since God alone controls the weather (Job 28:25–27; Ps. 135:7; Jer. 10:13). The point is not just that Jesus is God but that Jesus is a God who saves the wayward (see parallels with Ps. 107:23–30).
25. Having commanded the disciples to join him in visiting Gentile territory (v. 22), Jesus may now be faulting them for their failure to believe that such a directive was tantamount to a guarantee for safe passage. In response to Jesus’ stinging question, the disciples are afraid and amazed, and now question among themselves his identity – an issue which will not be resolved until 9:20.
26. If the phrase of the Gerasenes was in fact original to Luke (some manuscripts have ‘of the Gergesenes’ while others read ‘of the Gadarenes’), then the country of the Gerasenes represents an expansive district that included the steep slopes that still loom today over the north-eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee. Positioned opposite Galilee on the lake, the eastern territory was populated mostly by Gentiles. This fact alone would have given pious Jews ample cause to avoid the area. For Jesus’ band, the area’s undesirability would only have been exacerbated by its providing garrison for a nearby detachment of the Romans’ Tenth Legion, space for a number of tombs (which in the rabbis’ estimation were the ‘mother of uncleanness’) and a herding ground for a large number of ritually unclean boar. In coming here, Jesus could not have visited a less congenial place. Clearly, he came with some kind of purpose.
27. No sooner does Jesus step ashore than a certain man of the city (perhaps paralleling the sinful ‘woman in the city’ of 7:37) appears on the scene. He was a highly conspicuous figure, going about for a long time naked and unhoused, and lingering among the tombs. Though such activity is (and was) not uncharacteristic of the mentally ill, Luke assures his readers that this man had demons. The demoniac’s naked and homeless state gives expression to the demons’ ravaging effects, including deprivation and uprootedness. In mentioning that the unnamed demoniac met (hypēntēsen) Jesus, Luke chooses a verb (hyantaō ) that normally has connotations of aggressive confrontation, suggesting that the demon-possessed man was about to engage Jesus in a spiritual conflict.
28–29. Now approaching Jesus, the demoniac fell down before him. The man’s prostrate posture not only prepares for his forthcoming pleas for mercy, but also, within Luke’s broader eschatological perspective, anticipates the universal obeisance which all beings, visible and invisible, would one day give to the victorious Risen Christ (Phil. 2:10–12). By addressing Jesus as the Son of the Most High God (cf. 1:32, 35, 76), the beleaguered Gentile – undoubtedly prompted by the demons’ preternatural insight shared with Satan (4:3, 9) – acknowledges Jesus as the Son of the God of Israel (cf. 4:31–37).77 The impetus for the whole encounter is that Jesus had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man, presumably even as the demoniac was en route to meeting Jesus. The comparison between Jesus’ authoritative command here and his earlier rebuke of the natural elements (8:24) is hardly incidental. Because the ancients regularly ascribed meteorological disruption to demonic forces (1 En. 69:22; Jub. 2:2; T. Sol. 16), Luke must have seen Jesus’ earlier stilling of the storm (8:22–25) as foreshadowing the present passage. Juxtaposing the two uncanny events while highlighting their shared threads, the Gospel writer implies that Jesus’ authority over the demonic is of a piece with his sovereignty over fallen creation.
30. In compelling the demon to give his name, Jesus complies with exorcistic practices of the day, where successful exorcism often depended on knowing the name of the invading spirit.78 The demoniac’s terse response (Legion) underscores not only the abundance of demons (as Luke points out), but also their association with the nearby occupying Roman soldiers. Elsewhere, I have argued that in the original historical context the convergence of unclean spirits in this area may have had something to do with the nearby Roman soldiers engaging in (idolatrous) worship of their military standards.79 Given the imminent demise of ‘a large herd of swine’ (vv. 32–33), and given, too, the fact that the wild boar was the official mascot of the local legion, Luke’s readers may well have read between the lines to learn that the powerful forces of pagan Rome would one day succumb to Jesus’ power.80
31–33. Once Jesus secures their collective name, the demons know they are outmatched. Accordingly, they beg Jesus not to send them into the abyss (eis tēn abysson), that is, the holding place for evil spirits pending the day of judgment.81 More than that, they ask permission to enter a large herd of swine feeding on the hillside – more simply ‘on the hill’, perhaps another surreptitious nod towards Rome, the famed ‘city on the hill’. While in a seemingly surprising show of leniency Jesus grants their request, justification may lie in the scriptural image emerging from the now-demon-possessed pigs descending down the steep bank into the lake.82 Just as Pharaoh’s forces were doomed to drown in the Red Sea, so too, Luke seems to say, the Roman Empire (symbolized by the swine on the hill) would one day succumb to a judgment no less decisive.
34. Exactly how much the pig herders saw of all this is anyone’s guess. Certainly, the sight of an entire herd of swine plunging to its watery death would have been remarkable enough – even terrifying. Understandably, they ran off (ephygon) or ‘fled’ (ESV); as they go, they proclaim (appēngeilan) the amazing turn of events in the city and in the country. Notably, the same two verbs (phygō and apangellō ) also occur in Isaiah 48:20 (‘Go out from Babylon, flee from Chaldea, / declare this with a shout of joy, proclaim it, / send it forth to the end of the earth; / say, “The LORD has redeemed his servant Jacob!”’; emphasis added), perhaps suggesting that the demoniac’s redemption from ‘Legion’ symbolizes apostate Israel’s return from exile. By this analogy, the state of the demoniac (naked, unclean and without a house) would also represent those who reject Jesus and choose instead to continue in exile: naked, unclean and without a properly functioning temple.83 On the flip side, the metaphor also promises eschatological redemption from exile, a redemption now taking place through Jesus.
35. Eventually, a crowd of fascinated spectators comes out to see what has happened.84 After examining the remains of the drowned swine, they come to Jesus who, along with his disciples, had obviously lingered long enough to allow the alarmed swineherds to return (with an intrigued contingent in tow). Even more startling than the herd’s collective plunge was the presence of the once-notorious demoniac, now clothed and in his right mind. More than that, he is sitting at the feet of Jesus (para tous podas), thus again bearing some resemblance to the sinful woman who stood weeping next to Jesus’ feet (para tous podas, 7:38). At this sight, so we might imagine, they were afraid.
36. Not unexpectedly, the original eyewitnesses repeat their story: those who had seen it told them – an action described with the same verb of proclamation (apangellō ). The content of that proclamation is simple enough: the man who had once been demon-possessed had been healed (esōthē ) or ‘saved’. Though Luke also uses sōsō in connection with salvation stemming from the preaching of the gospel, the Evangelist seems to understand this dramatic exorcism as a kind of salvation.
37. By this time, members of a crowd have gathered from the surrounding countryside; on hearing the eyewitnesses’ most recent report, they are seized with great fear. As if the sight of the transformed man were not unnerving enough, even more awe-inspiring was the realization that the power to bring about such transformation was concentrated in this person Jesus. Like Peter before them (5:8), the locals are psychologically overwhelmed by Jesus’ display of power and ask him to leave. Much to their relief, he obliges by getting into the boat and prepares to head back to the western shore.
38–39. Yet even while Jesus and the disciples board, the transformed man pleads with Jesus that he might be with him (einai syn autō ). Perhaps because ‘being with Jesus’ was a privilege restricted to the Twelve (8:1; cf. Acts 1:21–22; Mark 2:14), Jesus declines. Yet as he dismisses the erstwhile demoniac, he gives him a charge: Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you. Here two remarks are in order. First, strikingly, in enjoining the restored man to declare God’s works on his behalf, Jesus uses the same verb (diēgeomai ) the Evangelist himself will use in describing the apostles’ post-mission debrief (9:10), when they report back on what God has done through them. It is also the same lexical root with which Luke introduces his Gospel as narrative (1:1). In so many words, then, the liberated man is encouraged to present his own ‘gospel story’, revolving around his own experience of Jesus’ power – all on the model of the apostolic proclamation and even of Luke’s very own Gospel account. Second, though the man is told to declare what God has done, he instead proclaims how much Jesus had done for him. The implication could not be any clearer: from Luke’s point of view, to declare God’s great works on humanity’s behalf is to declare what Jesus has done – and vice versa.
40. On Jesus’ return (en de tō hypostrephein) to the west side of the lake, the crowds welcome him, for they had been eagerly waiting for him (prosdokōntes). The latter verb has already been used in connection with messianic expectation (3:15; 7:19–20) and may be hinting at the same here. If some report of Jesus’ stunning exorcism (8:26–39) had already preceded him, then this news, together with popular expectations regarding the Messiah’s power over the demonic (1 En. 55:4; T. Mos. 10:1), would have convinced the crowds of Jesus’ messianic candidacy.
41–42. Though the two female characters in this scene remain anonymous, the suppliant synagogue ruler is identified as Jairus, meaning ‘Yahweh shines’. Casting aside all the dignity of office, he falls at Jesus’ feet (not unlike earlier characters; cf. 7:38; 8:35), repetitively begging (iterative imperfect parekalei) the much touted healer to come to his aid. Like the centurion (7:1–10), Jairus intercedes on behalf of a loved one who lies gravely ill back at home – and to this extent he evidences faith. Yet unlike the Gentile officer, ironically, the Jewish ruler does not have sufficient faith to believe that Jesus can heal from a distance.
As if the prospect of losing one’s young daughter were not grim enough, the threatened tragedy is compounded by the fact that she is the synagogue ruler’s ‘only-born’ (monogenēs) and is about twelve years old, the age at which young Jewish girls are typically about to be married through betrothal, and therefore on the cusp of perpetuating the biological family line. Despite the high-stakes situation, Jesus is impeded by the crowds who in their curiosity are continually pressing (synepnigon) upon him – much to the ruler’s vexation.85
43. Yet matters are about to change from bad to worse, for Jesus is now delayed by a certain woman who had been suffering from haemorrhages for twelve years. Due to this condition, which we might suppose to be chronic menorrhagia (prolonged menstrual bleeding), the woman had spent all she had on physicians, and no one could cure her.86 Quite apart from its debilitating physical effects, a continuous menstrual flow would have rendered her a permanent niddâ (menstruating woman) (Lev. 15:19–23), not only consigning her to a ritually unclean state but also isolating her from others. Such a woman would have required nothing less than a financial, physical, social and spiritual restoration.
Noting the Evangelist’s careful interweaving of these two stories, the alert reader senses that both females are made to symbolize something much larger than themselves. Unless the exact match between the twelve-year duration of this woman’s illness and the age of Jairus’s daughter is sheer coincidence (as commentators disinclined to recognize metaphorical layering are inclined to believe), it seems that both women – one standing in for errant virgin Israel (Jer. 31:4, 21), the other for exiled unclean Israel (Ezek. 22:26) – are being marshalled to represent Israel poised to be restored by Jesus. If the fertility of both women is under threat (albeit for different reasons), Luke seems to say, Jesus comes to renew the people of God in their Adamic mandate to ‘be fruitful and multiply’ (Gen. 1:28).
44. As in 7:36–50, a distraught woman approaches Jesus from behind (opisthen), this time not to offer precious ointments but to extract Jesus’ healing power by covertly grasping the fringe of his clothes (tou kraspedou tou himatiou autou).87 The woman is not disappointed, for on seizing the garment she experiences immediate relief, proving that just as Jesus had power over enthralling unclean spirits and unclean surroundings (8:26–39), the same power could also be brought to bear on the woman’s ailing and unclean body. Together, both extraordinary acts of purification point, on the one side, to Jesus as the eschatological priest who declares the unclean clean, and, on the other side, to the people of God who are now – with the advent of Jesus – in the process of being cultically repurified. The retrieval of such purity of course is not an end in itself but the necessary prelude to the vocation of worship.
45. Jesus’ question (Who touched me?) may be either a genuine enquiry born out of real ignorance or a rhetorical question posed in order to ‘smoke out’ the woman from the crowd. When all denied it, Peter remonstrates with the master, pointing out that the crowds are both surrounding (synechousin) and pressing in (apothilbousin).88 The first of these two participles denotes intense compression, with possible connotations of oppression; the second may be justifiably translated as ‘squeezing’. Together, the two words not only explain Jesus’ difficulty in moving forward but also metaphorically allude to a crowd’s power to choke out faith through peer pressure.89
46–47. Despite Peter’s exasperation, Jesus remains adamant, convinced that power had gone out from him. Though the Evangelist does not say as much, at this point one can only imagine Jesus now turning both head and body around with a searching gaze – and that was enough to solve the mystery. Though some translations (e.g. ESV, KJV) imply that the woman behind him had been attempting to conceal herself for a time (albeit unsuccessfully), she may have actually been rejecting that option outright: ‘knowing that she was not about to hide’ (idousa de hē gynē hoti ouk elathen). And so we are graphically reminded, ‘nothing is hidden that will not be disclosed, nor is anything secret that will not become known and come to light’ (8:17). Against the backdrop of 8:17, then, Luke’s Jesus calls out the woman not to embarrass her, but to put the light of her faith on a lampstand.
In Ancient Judaism, if a niddâ or any unclean person were to make physical contact with another, the unclean state would transfer like a contagion. That meant that if the woman’s condition and actions were to come to light, she might ordinarily expect a stern reaction from those she had touched. Of course, part of Luke’s point is that in this respect, too, there is something decidedly unordinary about Jesus. Though conflicted and trembling (tremousa) with swirling emotions of guilt and fear, the woman entrusts herself to her healer by prostrating herself, getting right to an explanation for her socially unacceptable actions: she declared in the presence of all the people why she had touched him, and how she had been immediately healed. As in the immediately preceding passage (8:34, 36), this verb of reporting (apangellō ) retains a kerygmatic, proclamatory aspect. The woman’s testimony declaration speaks not only of her personal transformation but also of her motivations for seeking Jesus.
48. Perhaps to everyone’s surprise, Jesus does not chide the prostrate woman but profoundly affirms her by addressing her as daughter. As the newest member of Jesus’ family, she does the will of God (8:19–21). And if she has done the will of God precisely by touching Jesus’ garment and confessing no less, then she need not fear recrimination. Though Jesus has intimated that it was his ‘power’ that healed the woman, this is qualified by your faith that has made you well (sesōken se) – ‘has saved you’. Divine power and human faith combine in the saving transaction. Finally, Jesus instructs the now-healed woman to go in peace. That is, she is to go forth not just in a state of emotional peace, but with the assurance of health, wholeness, blessedness and right-standing before God.
49–50. Even while Jesus is still speaking, a messenger from Jairus’s house announces that the ruler’s daughter has passed. For the moment, as far as the synagogue ruler is concerned, Jesus’ drawn-out interaction with the former niddâ proves to be a tragic distraction at best, an act of gross negligence at worst. Yet Jesus remains unruffled. On hearing the news, he turns to Jairus with a negative command (Do not fear), a positive command (Only believe) and a promise (and she will be saved ). That Jesus uses the same verb of saving (sōsō ) for both his healing of the bleeding woman and his imminent restoration of Jairus’s daughter frames the ‘saving’ of the first miracle as a kind of down payment for the second. The theological dividends of this story – as a storied metaphor of Christ’s redemption from restored purity to future resurrection – are not hard to come by.
51. Finally arriving at Jairus’s house, Jesus restricts entrance to Peter, James, John and the girl’s parents. The decision to allow the parents to accompany him is patently sensible. But by inviting these three disciples, apart from the Twelve, Jesus establishes an inner circle within the apostolate – the same three will have the sole privilege of accompanying Jesus at the transfiguration (9:28–36).90
52–53. As the six adults prepare to enter, Jesus admonishes the weeping and wailing bystanders: Do not weep; for she is not dead but sleeping. Though astute members of the crowd might have recognized that Jesus was using sleep as a metaphor for death (Dan. 12:2), the parable falls on spiritually deaf ears: they all (pantes, v. 52) laugh at Jesus. Relating this episode on the far side of 6:21b (‘Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh’) and 6:25b (‘Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep’), the Gospel writer is undoubtedly leveraging the combination of mourning and laughter to fill out the meaning of the earlier stated paradox. It is not mourning per se but rather mourning with the ears of faith that seals one’s participation in the kingdom. While some mourning quickly devolves into laughter at Jesus, other mourners, not least those who witness life from death, will have their weeping turn to joy.
54. That Jesus should take the girl by her hand is striking, especially since Luke’s readers are aware that Jesus’ healings do not require physical proximity, much less physical touch (cf. 7:1–10). Yet by coupling this gesture with the command Child, get up! (hē pais egeire), Jesus not only expresses practical care for the girl but also draws on a scripturally rooted analogy between her and himself, on the one side, and Yahweh and exiled Israel on the other: ‘Rise up . . . O captive daughter Zion! . . . The LORD has bared his holy arm’ (Isa. 52:2, 10). On another level, the phrase hē pais is meant to round out a complementarity of gender. The centurion’s male pais (7:7), who also lay gravely ill at home, has now found its female counterpart in the pais of the resuscitated girl. Jesus’ saving powers are for both male and female.91
55. On Jesus’ command, the spirit of the girl returns and the girl herself – in literal compliance with that command – gets up. Next Jesus orders that she be given something to eat, in part because she may have gone without food for some time, in part, too, in order to prove that the restored girl is no ghost but a flesh-and-blood reality. Another interpretative level may also be in view, with the mention that her spirit returned (epestrepsen to pneuma). If the return of the spirit to the girl is a figure of the eschatological return of the Spirit to Israel, which Ezekiel associates not just with return from exile but also with resurrection (Ezek. 37), then the food which Jesus commands for the recovering child stands for the food promised to restored Israel (Ezek. 36:29–30). Luke’s story, then, speaks of Jesus’ deep compassion for an individual, but nods to God’s compassion for Israel as a whole.
56. Now Jesus instructs the astounded parents to tell no one. Exactly why Jesus enjoins silence in this case (but not in the case of the resuscitation of the dead man at Nain) is unclear. In any event, like Mark the Evangelist, Luke is also concerned to take up the theme of secrecy. Jesus is keen to keep word of such astounding events within a tightly controlled circle, at least until the resurrection should make all things clear.
As Luke’s story has already made clear, there is no predicting who will – and who will not – respond to the word of God. And for that very reason, Jesus invites his disciples to join him on a trip to the east side of the lake – into Gentile country. They go into this spiritually uncultivated territory to sow the word, so to speak, even if that ‘word’ turns out to be almost entirely without verbal content. The decision to cross the Sea of Galilee sets in motion a train of extraordinary events. Consider this: had Jesus never led his disciples across the lake in the first place, the miraculous events recorded in this passage might never have transpired. Once again, mission sets the stage for God’s performance of mighty deeds through Jesus.
In this section, we again find Jesus raising the dead, healing the diseased and exorcising the demon-possessed. Yet before performing any of these activities he calms the unruly waters, just as Yahweh did in Genesis 1 when he asserted his kingdom over and against the realm of chaos. As the first in a series, the stilling of the storm illuminates the events that follow. Whereas exorcism, healing and raising the dead confirm that Jesus the Messiah has come to establish his kingdom, the prior stilling of the storm asserts Jesus’ divine identity. As the disciples obediently accompany Jesus on increasingly risky missions like these, they come into closer contact with his identity as Messiah and Lord. Knowing Jesus as Messiah and Lord is no theoretical acquaintance. Such knowing, Luke reminds his readers, occurs pre-eminently in the rough and tumble of divinely prompted mission.
We recall that Jesus summoned his disciples in 5:1 – 6:19, only then in the Sermon on the Plain (6:20–49) to sketch out the terms of that vocation. Now in 9:1–9, as an early indication of the kinds of tasks the church would be about in Acts, he commissions the Twelve. They are to bring along no earthly supplies but only their experience of Jesus who has now shared his authority with them. If the success of this initial mission was not evidence enough of this granted authority, the point is further driven home by the feeding of the five thousand (9:10–17). The movement from mission to feeding suggests not only that the disciples bear – to their surprise –a responsibility in hosting the crowd but also that this show of hospitality is somehow integral to their role as the Twelve. This in turn helps explain the frequency of meals in Luke–Acts (Luke 5:27–39; 14:1–24; 22:14–38; 24:13–35; Acts 1:4; 10:1 – 11:18; 27:33–38). The feedings which Jesus performed as Messiah are meant to be replicated, metaphorically and literally, in the ministry of the Twelve.
1–2. Though the Twelve have gone virtually unmentioned after their appointment (6:12–15), now they re-emerge to receive Jesus’ delegated power and authority over the demonic realm and over disease. Their charge? To exercise the same prowess Jesus demonstrates in subduing the unruly realms of spiritual darkness and physical disease (6:17–19). Insofar as 6:20 – 8:56 narrates Jesus’ modelling of kingdom power, the Twelve must now function as an extension of Jesus. The concepts of power and authority are related but distinct. Whereas the former typically carries the sense of ability or capacity, the latter pertains to office or station. In granting the Twelve both power and authority, then, Jesus conveys both special abilities and special rights; as such, they are empowered to heal and to proclaim the kingdom in the face of dark forces.92 Again, the distinction between the content of the kingdom proclamation and its authentication, the ‘what’ and the ‘how’ of the kingdom message, recedes to the point of almost disappearing.
3. Jesus’ list of prohibited items includes precisely those things that one would expect to take on a journey.93 In part, Jesus seems to impose such restrictions in order to foster God-directed dependence rather than self-reliance. In part, too, by undertaking a journey without such provisions, the Twelve would be imitating the twelve tribes of the exodus who were prevented from storing up food (Exod. 16) or packing clothes (Deut. 8:4; 29:5). For the Twelve, the modality of their exodus-like existence becomes part of their message.
4. The Twelve are also discouraged from moving from house to house. Perhaps the logic here revolves around the Twelve needing to build a solid relational base, which would seem to require longer-term (rather than shorter-term) enjoyment of the supporting family’s hospitality.
5–6. Jesus is aware that while some villages will welcome his emissaries, other places will not. In the latter such cases, Jesus instructs the Twelve that when they are leaving that town they are to shake the dust off their feet as a testimony against them. Because dust is associated with the curse (Gen. 3:14), the disciples’ act of shaking dust off the bottom of their soles would be to place that town under a curse, sealing the community’s separation from the divine covenant. Having received their brief, they depart and follow Jesus’ orders to a tee, preaching good news to the people and healing their sick.
7a. Herod the ruler (or the tetrarch) has already been mentioned in Luke’s ‘who’s who’ of power brokers (3:1). Now the high-ranking figure is reintroduced as one who is bewildered by these activities. Bewildered – and threatened. In proclaiming the kingdom of God, the Twelve, exactly as the symbolic representatives of the twelve tribes of Israel, were powerfully signifying Jesus’ subversive intentions of reconstituting Israel around himself. This could also mean that Jesus had designs on replacing the current political structure in Galilee, which included Herod as its head.
7b–9. The Twelve’s deeds were not only creating a stir in their own right but also provoking speculation regarding Jesus’ origins. Depending on whom one talked to, Jesus was either (1) a John the Baptizer redivivus, (2) a manifestation of Elijah the prophet or (3) the re-emergence of a long-dead prophet other than Elijah.94 As Herod considers these options, he seems to rule out the possibility that Jesus is a second version of John. After all, as Herod says, John I beheaded. As for options (2) and (3) – the tetrarch doesn’t even bother to ruminate. In contrast to the rank and file’s tendency to link Jesus to some deceased holy figure, Herod’s puzzlement drips with disdain: his words might be rendered, ‘Who is this fellow’ (houtos: this one) about whom I hear such things? Still his interest is piqued, for he keeps trying (imperfect: ezētei) to see Jesus.
10. Once their mission is complete, the apostles report back on all they had done, prompting Jesus to initiate a private retreat. The Greek word hypechōrēsen, translated here as withdrew (NRSV), has connotations of a fugitive status or flight from political persecution – not surprisingly since Herod is almost certainly trying ‘to see’ Jesus (9:9) with ill intent.95 Their destination is a city called Bethsaida. Luke’s phrasing suggests that the small fishing town on the northern tip of the lake would be unfamiliar to many of his readers.96
11. Despite the unexpected arrival of the crowds, Jesus exercises hospitality by welcoming the people in all their neediness. For the benefit of some, he heals; for the benefit of all, he then speaks about the kingdom. Yet even before the issue of food arises, Jesus’ actions reflect those of the consummate host.
12. For the moment, however, the Twelve appear to surpass Jesus in their seeming sensitivity to the crowds’ needs. For as the day ebbs, the disciples have already formulated – strikingly apart from Jesus – a plan for the crowd and now inform their master regarding his prescribed role in it. Send the crowd away, they instruct Jesus, in order that they might disperse to the surrounding towns and countryside in the hope of finding food and lodging (katalysōsin).97 After all, the Twelve continue, we are here in a deserted place. Ironically, while the disciples should have perhaps recognized the combination of crowds and desert as an important clue that Jesus was preparing to re-enact the miraculous desert feeding of the exodus (which in turn might have implied their shared responsibility in feeding the people), the Twelve see their wilderness location as grounds for dismissing the crowds altogether.
13–14a. To the disciples’ surprise, Jesus responds with a counter-imperative of his own: You give them something to eat (dote autois hymeis phagein). The laconic Greek sentence, which lacks an immediate direct object for ‘give’ (i.e. ‘you give them to eat’), looks ahead to the Last Supper, when Jesus ‘gave it [i.e. broken bread] to them’ (edōken autois, 22:19), for their eating (phagein) (22:15). Just as, as we shall see, the meal of Luke 22 is both a ‘new exodus’ meal and a ‘new covenant’ meal, the feeding miracle here takes on both redemptive-historical and sacramental significance. In the former aspect, the feeding miracle signals the arrival of the kingdom and marks out Jesus as its appointed presider; as a prelude to the Eucharist, it designates the apostles as delegated hosts, as it were, laying the foundation for the continuing performance of the Lord’s Supper in the church. Meanwhile, faced with such scant resources (five loaves and two fish) and such a massive crowd (about five thousand men), the apostles remain perplexed as to how they might hope to discharge Jesus’ command. They contemplate aloud the possibility of buying food for the crowds but do so only to underscore the sheer absurdity of the idea. Whereas Luke’s Jesus has already insisted that his followers give (dote) without reserve (6:38), the Twelve’s tepid response to Jesus’ ‘Give!’ (dote) here betrays spiritual shiftlessness. As this passage makes clear, if Jesus bids his followers to give freely, unconditionally and lavishly, their principal constraint is not lack of resources but lack of faith.
14b–15. Jesus’ immediate followers started out in this passage as ‘apostles’ (v. 10) and the ‘twelve’ (v. 12), but now – for all we know – they have been demoted to his disciples. They receive orders to have the crowds sit down in groups of about fifty each. Though the majority of English translations join the NRSV in rendering kataklinō as ‘sit down’, the YLT’s ‘cause them to recline in companies’ (emphasis added) gets at an important nuance. Whereas everyday Jewish meals were taken sitting down, festive meals, including the Passover, were enjoyed in a reclining position. Passover of course was the segue to the exodus. This is not unrelated to Jesus dividing the five thousand into roughly a hundred groups numbering fifty – all in imitation of Moses who parcelled the exodus generation into ‘thousands, hundreds, fifties, and tens’ (Exod. 18:21).
16. Luke now describes Jesus’ actions with three main verbs (blessed . . . broke . . . and gave), precisely the same verbs predicated of Jesus at the Last Supper (22:19); the string of clauses is preceded by two participles: taking and looked up. That which Jesus ‘takes’ is none other than the previously mentioned bread and fish, again drawing to mind the Mosaic wilderness feeding.98 Jesus’ heavenward gaze seems to show that had the disciples themselves previously looked to heaven, they might have been better positioned to fulfil his request. But perhaps Luke’s point is actually that neither heavenly mindedness by itself nor human resourcefulness by itself is sufficient to meet the needs of Christian ministry. Rather, the potential of our meagre resources is fully realized only when Jesus takes them and offers them up – through blessing, breaking and redistribution – to God the Father.
17. The crowds not only ate but were filled. Their satiety makes impossible the reading commonly handed down in the nineteenth-century liberal interpretation that the real miracle here was not that Jesus multiplied loaves and fish (which is said to be too incredible), but that everyone shared. This kind of abundance was also characteristic of the messianic banquet, as Second Temple Jews understood it (Isa. 25:6; Ezek. 34:17–30). Luke also tells us that the Twelve collected the leftovers in twelve baskets (kophinoi), containers roughly 2 gallons (4 litres) in size used for transporting daily provisions. If Jesus’ disciples had managed to fill twelve such kophinoi, totalling 24 gallons (48 litres) altogether, such a volume would far outstrip the volume of the original five loaves and two fish. Given Israel’s hope of a restored remnant, the vision of the scrap-gathering Twelve perhaps pictures the restoration of the twelve scattered tribes, which themselves are fragments of once-unified Israel. Through the feeding of the masses, Jesus reveals himself as the messianic king who cares for Israel and also his own imminent role in the eschatological restoration of the tribes – all sure-fire evidence that the kingdom had come in Jesus.
Though the Twelve’s first mission was a spectacular success by any human measure, the afterglow of their achievement is quickly dampened by their failure to grasp that the same God who miraculously supplied their needs on their missionary journeys could equally provide for the crowds. To be sure, in fairness to the disciples, one could hardly imagine, especially in that desert setting, a greater disparity between supply and demand. Such a vast need and yet so scant the supplies! Both the Twelve’s mission and the subsequent feeding miracle illustrate that wherever resources are scarce, God’s miraculous provision becomes all the more conspicuous. In both passages, Jesus bids the Twelve as he does in order to show that the kingdom normally advances not through abundance and strength but through scarcity and weakness. Once turned over to Jesus, our meagre resources become God’s opportunity.
This section is an important hinge in the Gospel’s structure. Peter’s confession of Jesus as Messiah builds not only on the preceding feeding miracle (9:10–17), where the apostles have surmised their master’s royal role (i.e. by effectively feeding the people as kings should do), but also on Jesus’ baptism (3:21–22), where he is marked out as a Davidic son – and therefore as the Messiah. Next, the transfiguration recapitulates the divine voice first heard at the baptism, declaring Jesus’ sonship. And yet these scenes are intermixed with two predictions concerning Jesus’ death, which at last shed light on his earlier mysterious remarks about the bridegroom being taken away (5:35). Immediately following this section, at 9:51, Jesus will turn his face towards to Jerusalem in order to die. Straddling these twin emphases of messianic glory and messianic suffering, 9:18–50 epitomizes Jesus’ full messianic self-disclosure.
18–19. By this point in the story Jesus has already prayed alone twice: right before his baptism (3:21–22) and immediately before calling the Twelve (6:12–15). On discovering Jesus again praying alone, we suspect that we are on the verge of another major turning point (see also 22:39–46). As it turns out, each of these prayer scenes anticipates a crisis in terms of either Christological identity (Who is Jesus and how will he discharge his vocation?) or apostolic identity (Who are the Twelve and how will they discharge their vocation?). Consistent with this pattern, the present passage marks a major stride in resolving the question ‘Who is this Jesus?’, even as it spells out the unexpectedly arresting terms of both Jesus’ calling and the calling of those who would follow him. But first Jesus quizzes his disciples: Who do the crowds say that I am? Without committing themselves, they respond by mentioning three different possible identities, identical to those contemplated by Herod (9:7–9).99
20. The lead position of the second person pronoun you (hymeis) in the Greek of Jesus’ query is emphatic: ‘But you, who do you say I am?’ Characteristically speaking on behalf of the Twelve, Peter tersely responds, The Messiah of God. Whereas only angels and demons have assigned Jesus a messianic role up to this point (2:11; 4:41), here for the first time – likely in answer to Jesus’ prayers (v. 18) – a human voice confesses the astonishing truth. In Peter’s mouth the term christos would not necessarily entail notions of either transcendence or divinity. Instead, the disciple is affirming that Jesus is the long-awaited fulfilment of the Davidic promise (2 Sam. 7), the one who would be tasked with restoring Israel’s sacred space, regathering the twelve tribes, driving out the Gentiles and restoring the Davidic throne. Given Herod’s recent queries (9:7–9), Peter’s public confession is a bold and even dangerous move, effectively linking his fate to the fate of his master.
21. Notwithstanding the formal accuracy of Peter’s response, he is met by a ‘stern order’ (epitimēsas) – the same response which Jesus had earlier issued to an unclean spirit (4:35), a fever (4:39) and the unruly waters (8:24). And so rather than congratulating his lead disciple at this moment, Jesus rebukes him. He does so seemingly because Peter and the rest of the Twelve still harbour grave and ultimately satanic misunderstandings regarding the nature of Jesus’ Messiahship. For this very reason, until Jesus’ messianic vocation should be clarified through his death and resurrection, it is imperative that the Twelve keep this astounding disclosure to themselves.
22. Self-identifying not only as the Messiah but now also as the Danielic Son of Man, Jesus foretells his suffering, his rejection by – ironically enough – the temple elite, his death and finally his being raised on the third day. All these events are a matter not just of imminent certainty but of divine necessity: it is necessary (dei). Given the parallels between Jesus’ predicted sufferings and vindication, on the one side, and the suffering and vindication of the Son of Man of Daniel 7, on the other, Jesus’ resurrection must correspond to the Son of Man’s enthronement as the Messiah (Dan. 7:13–14).100 How will the unclean pagan nations threatening God’s people finally be routed? According to Jesus’ mysterious logic (still incomprehensible to the Twelve), this will occur through the resurrection of the Son of Man.
23. On the assumption that ‘all’ in the phrase he said to them all refers to an audience now perhaps larger than the Twelve, Jesus’ stipulations are intended as a challenge for his immediate followers as well as generalized instructions for those who would later receive the apostolic message.101 Jesus’ requirements for discipleship are threefold, involving (1) self-denial, (2) daily cross-bearing and (3) following. The condition of self-denial pertains especially though not exclusively to the realm of material possessions. This may be inferred from the fact that the Twelve had just come off a leanly supported missionary journey (9:3), even while Luke’s most prominent examples of self-denial have revolved around financial sacrifice (7:37; 8:3). Second, that true disciples must also take up their cross daily indicates that the decision to follow Jesus is no glorious one-off: on the contrary, it entails a day-in, day-out recommitment to carrying the same kind of ignominious burden that Jesus himself would be forced to carry. Third and finally, those who would come after Jesus must follow me. On one level, Jesus is referring to the convention of rabbinical discipleship simpliciter. On another level, however, with Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem (9:51) on the horizon, Luke’s readers are made to sense that they too must, so to speak, make their own ominous journey to Jerusalem on the pattern of Jesus.
24. Jesus’ severe conditions for discipleship do not remain as naked fiats but are now supported by explanatory remarks introduced by for (gar). Here again Jesus depends on a paradoxical line of reasoning, where it is only those who want to save their life (tēn psychēn autou) who will lose it, while those who lose their life for my sake will save it. The term life (psychē), the equivalent of the Hebrew nephesh, is virtually untranslatable, referring to the sum total of the human person without our modern-day sharp distinctions between physical, mental, spiritual and volitional aspects.102 It denotes all that one is and all that one stands for (attachments, desires, commitments, goals, values and behaviours) as these come to expression in the course of life. Thus to lose or ‘destroy’ one’s psychē is to undergo a complete reorientation that is virtually tantamount to the annihilation of the self, giving way to a renewed self. All this, Jesus says, is for my sake. Thus Jesus offers himself as not just the primary motivation for this paradoxical exchange but also its goal. He is the human blueprint for the eschatologically saved life.
25. Mindful of the high stakes of his challenge, Jesus seeks to elicit further reflection by posing a rhetorical question. Drawing on conventional accounting language (profit [ōpheleitai] . . . gain [kerdēsas] . . . forfeit [zēmiōtheis]), Jesus asks his hearers to create a mental balance sheet, comparing the prospective assets of the whole world against the liability of losing oneself. Since Jesus has already turned down ‘all the kingdoms of the world’ (4:5) for the sake of his appointed mission, and since too the ‘nations of the world [kosmou]’ are themselves on an errant course (12:30), it is to be surmised that there is no real comparison between these ephemeral realities and the human psychē. Yet the notional framework for this cost–benefit analysis involves not a Platonic-style pitting of eternal/spiritual things against temporal/material things. Rather, with his gesture to the Danielic Son of Man (9:22), Jesus calls his hearers to decision with reference to the fact that he will finally judge the unclean rulers of the world, just as Daniel 7 promises.
26–27. Jesus also contemplates the eschatological assizes where humanity will essentially be divided into two categories: those who have been ashamed of me and my words and those who have not. If the present verse has any continuity with verse 25, the choice to identify with or distance oneself from Jesus is closely tied to another dilemma: whether to gain the world while losing oneself or to save oneself by losing oneself. On this logic, Luke’s reader gathers that worldliness most fully emerges not so much through the more conspicuous sins as, more quietly, through the individual’s failure to identify publicly with Jesus. If picking up one’s cross entails embracing social shame for the gospel’s sake, the corollary of the same principles means guarding against the temptation to cave in to social pressure. Although Jesus’ promise regarding some standing here has often been taken as evidence that he and/or the early church expected the parousia within the lifetime of the Twelve, it is more probable that the seeing of the kingdom which Jesus has in mind actually occurs in the very next scene (9:28–36).
28. The phrase after these sayings links the present passage with Jesus’ promise (9:27) that some of his immediate hearers would see the kingdom of God prior to death. Closely tied to the previous passage, the ensuing transfiguration scene proves to be a fulfilment of that promise. Whereas Mark (and Matthew) has six days separating Peter’s confession and the mountaintop experience, Luke prefers to think of the same period as being about eight days.103 Perhaps this approximation is meant to establish a parallel with the earlier eight-day window spanning Jesus’ birth (2:1–20) and naming (2:21). After all, on the day of Jesus’ birth, as well as on the day of Peter’s confession, Jesus is identified as Messiah (2:11; 9:20), then on the eighth day after both of these events, Jesus’ identity receives further specification (2:21; 9:35). In any case, Jesus takes Peter and John and James – the same group of disciples (listed in the same order) selected to observe the resuscitation of Jairus’s daughter – up to the mountain to pray.
29. In the midst of his prayer, the appearance of Jesus’ face becomes ‘other’ (heteron), even as his clothes became dazzling white. While it may not necessarily be incorrect to explain this event with reference to the glory of Moses’ face (Exod. 34:29–35), a more apt comparison is found in the high priest’s clothing, more exactly his breastplate, studded as it was by precious stones that had a light-emitting appearance (Exod. 28:15–30).104 This is supported by Peter’s plea. Given his proposal to build ‘dwellings’ (skēnas; Luke 9:33), which invokes a feast of Tabernacles setting behind the whole event, and given too evidence that the high priest normally acceded to office during the feast of Tabernacles (Josephus, Ant. 15.50–52), we tentatively conclude that Luke’s transfiguration scene is modelled on the high priest’s enthronement.105
30. Suddenly (kai idou) two individuals appear to speak with Jesus; they are identifiable as Moses and Elijah. Exactly how Peter recognizes these two figures is unclear. In any event, their presence – as opposed, say, to the presence of David and Abraham – is intriguing. One traditional interpretation holds that Moses represents the law and Elijah, the prophets. But this is forced: Moses was himself a prophet (cf. 9:8) and there is no reason why Elijah should be singled out as the chief representative of the prophetic guild. More to the point, it seems, are the mysterious circumstances surrounding their deaths as well as the highly conflictual nature of their ministries while alive. According to Scripture, Elijah was translated directly to heaven; Moses was buried by God (though according to some traditions he, like Elijah, was also translated into heaven). In their role as divine spokespersons, both experienced hostility and rejection. Given these considerations, along with the subject of their conversation (v. 31), their fellowship with Jesus, precisely as the Son of Man who is destined for suffering and exaltation (v. 22), can be explained as a function of not only their rejection but also their unusual transition to post-mortem reality. But between Jesus and his precursors important differences remain:
In contrast to Moses and Elijah Jesus will attain heavenly glory, not by forgoing death or after dying a natural death, but by being raised by God after being put to death by his own people as an innocent and righteous prophetic figure.106
31. If the glory now enveloping Moses and Elijah was the same glory that would accrue to the Son of Man (Dan. 7:14), then the whole scene powerfully reminds Luke’s readers that this same glory also awaits God’s faithful agents on the other side of suffering. The substance of the three figures’ conversation is Jesus’ departure (exodos) or exodus, which he was about to accomplish or fulfil (plēroun) in Jerusalem. The term departure is intentionally ambivalent, referring simultaneously to Jesus’ impending death and to the theological significance of that death, entailing as it would a new exodus for the people of God. This new exodus would occur not in Egypt or indeed in any pagan territory but, ironically, in Judaism’s holy city, suggesting that the present temple space was not the terminus for such exodus but a point of departure.
32. Luke mentions the sleepiness of the disciples to show, among other things, that they presently overcome the same temptations that will later overcome them at Gethsemane (22:45–46). In the future garden scene, the disciples will spectacularly fail: for now, despite being weighed down with sleep, they remain watchful (cf. 21:34–36) and as a result of their perseverance behold his glory. Like the Twelve, Luke’s larger narrative seems to say, followers of Jesus will experience varying degrees of success in overcoming spiritual lethargy and, consequently, varying levels of insight into God’s glory.
33. Just as the two patriarchs begin to distance themselves following their conversation with Jesus, Peter brusquely breaks the disciples’ awed silence by proposing to build three dwellings, most likely Sukkoth booths, one for each of the three spiritual heavyweights. Wowed by the extraordinary experience (it is good for us to be here), Peter is perhaps hoping that by extending their celebration of the feast of Tabernacles, he might detain this gathering of venerable personages for just a while longer. Not knowing what he said, the disciple has intruded on the solemn convocation, while patently failing to understand the thrust of the patriarchs’ speech. For whereas by the first century the annual Sukkoth ritual of building booths was designed to symbolize the eschatological exodus, when God would finally bring about a full release from the ‘Egypt’ of the present evil age, Peter’s proposal that the three figures submit themselves to the same ritual revealed his inability to grasp the eschatological significance of the moment: rendering the long-standing feast of Tabernacles ceremony redundant, Jesus was now tasked with implementing the final exodus.
34. As Peter is still speaking, almost as if to answer the disciple’s prattling, a cloud appears and quickly overshadowed them. The cloud in view is none other than the very cloud of glory that had once ‘overshadowed’ (epeskiazen) the Mosaic sanctuary (Exod. 40:35).107 Since this pillar of cloud was also understood to prefigure the great eschatological light at the final feast of Tabernacles (Zech. 14:6–7), its appearance here corrects Peter’s misapprehension by reinforcing the fact that the eschatological day of the Lord, predicted in Zechariah 14, is in fact now taking place.108 For the disciples, it is a forceful reminder indeed: for they were terrified as they entered the cloud. The disciples’ reaction corresponds to the response of the exodus generation as they encountered God in the cloud on Sinai (Exod. 20:18). In this respect, the transfiguration combines imagery of the future pillar of cloud with the self-revelation of Yahweh at Sinai.
35–36. In the aftermath of Sinai, Israel was instructed to receive and heed the law, encapsulated in the Shema (‘Hear, O Israel . . . ’, Deut. 6:4). But now the disciples receive a different sort of ‘Shema’: This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him! As the Son of God, Jesus not only supplants the law by giving the law its fullest expression (cf. Heb. 1:1–4), but also overrides the Sinai generation’s preference for Moses’ mediation, reverting to the unshielded glory of God (Exod. 20:18). Within Luke’s narrative, this heavenly announcement is not the first of its kind, for a very similar pronouncement occurs at Jesus’ baptism (3:22). While the baptism clarified Jesus’ identity as divine Son, the transfiguration extends the idea by insisting that this same Son is now also the supreme focal point of divine self-revelation. For Luke, this Christological claim does not stand opposed to monotheistic Judaism but is in continuity with it. Indeed, after the voice speaks, Jesus is found alone (monos), signifying not only that the two patriarchs had disappeared but also, on a theological level, that Israel’s monotheistic faith had been reconfigured around the person of Jesus.
37. On one level this passage relates Jesus’ increasing popularity as well as the limitations of the disciples’ powers when confronting the tenacity of the dark forces. But in order to make full sense of this puzzling scene, we must also recognize that the Evangelist is leveraging the event as a recapitulation of the apostasy of the wilderness generation (Exod. 32). The evidence for this interpretation emerges soon enough. While Jesus is on the mountain, a great crowd remains attentive to his return. In the time of the exodus, it was also a ‘great crowd’ that followed Moses through the desert and – restlessly and faithlessly – awaited his return down the mountain (Exod. 12:38). For Jesus as for Moses, the mediator of revelation comes back down from his mountaintop experience only to find God’s people in the valleys of spiritual darkness.
38–41. Within the crowd stands a man who is desperate to find a solution for his only son (cf. 7:12; 8:42) – the last of three only children in Luke. The direness of the situation is heightened by the emotional charge of the man’s appeal, the grim effects of the boy’s condition and the disciples’ inability to remediate the problem. The last point is curious because Jesus had earlier granted the disciples authority to drive out all ‘all demons’ (9:1, emphasis added). Later on, the seventy-two sent out by Jesus seem to have mastery over the demonic forces (10:17). But here matters are at a standstill.
But why? Was this an unusually intransigent demon that could withstand all merely human efforts? Or perhaps someone was to blame – maybe the disciples or even the boy’s father? Fortunately, Jesus himself sheds light on the issue by identifying those around him as part of a faithless and perverse generation (v. 41). Jesus’ castigation of the onlookers echoes Moses’ charges against the Sinai generation, a people who had given themselves over to false gods and sacrificed to demons (Deut. 32:5, 19–20). The fundamental problem, it seems, is not just the severity of this particular demonic possession but also the fact that Jesus’ generation still remained – like Moses’ ‘faithless and perverse generation’ – in exile. It was a spiritual exile born of idolatry. The key to overcoming such idolatry – the key for healing the demon-possessed boy – was in bringing the matter to Jesus: Bring your son here (v. 41).
42–43a. As the boy is brought to Jesus, the demonic forces within become agitated and violent. No surprise: in the Gospels Jesus’ very presence regularly provokes the demons. Jesus responds with a threefold action: rebuking the demon, healing the boy and returning the young man to his father. Understandably, those gathered respond in astonished worship of God’s majesty. Here, then, is a story of an extreme exorcism. Yet it is also an enacted parable of Jesus’ actions on behalf of Israel, indicating that though Israel has nearly been destroyed by the forces of darkness, Jesus has responded by encountering the demonic, healing Israel of its sin and returning the nation to Yahweh. This in turn would result in grateful worship.
43b–45. In this the second passion prediction, Jesus once again foretells that the Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands. A reprise of such shocking news was not to be treated lightly, and so Jesus asks his disciples to Let these words sink into your ears. Earlier, following his parable of the sower, Luke’s Jesus had invited those with ears to hear (8:8). Presumably, then, those without ears could not hear and despite their best human efforts the disciples cannot hear well. Again, their inability to penetrate the mysterious fate of the Son of Man is not unconnected to the idolatry of the heart which forecloses on the possibility of fruitfulness. That the disciples fail to understand and fail to enquire suggests that their present status is for now in grave question.
46. Luke’s particle de, a Greek word which typically goes untranslated, gestures towards a contrast with what has gone before. It is a stark contrast, as the disparity between Jesus’ predicted sufferings (9:43b–45) and the disciples’ vainglorious squabbling could not be more pronounced. An argument (dialogismos) has arisen among the disciples, apparently in Jesus’ absence – a telling detail in itself. Equally telling is this: wherever Luke uses dialogismos (2:35; 5:22; 6:8; 24:38), a word which carries connotations of doubt as well as legal wrangling, it is decidedly negative.109 Whereas the NRSV (as well as ASV, CEB, ESV, etc.) translates eisēlthen de dialogismos as an argument arose, the YLT’s ‘And there entered a reasoning among them’ more effectively conveys the spatial element introduced by the chosen verb. On Luke’s wording, the dialogismos becomes a personal or impersonal force in its own right, entering into the community of disciples.
47–48. Characteristically, Jesus is fully aware of their dark inner thoughts (dialogismos tēs kardias autōn).110 By way of response, he brings to his side a paidion, a term generally applied to children seven years old or younger, as part of an object lesson. In Ancient Graeco-Roman society, ‘a child was seen as an unfinished or imperfect adult’, and thus as inherently flawed and valued only insofar as the child held potential for contributing to the adult world.111 To be sure, while first-century Jews laid a higher intrinsic value on children than did their pagan counterparts, the Hellenistic spirit would have certainly had a corrosive influence on the first-century Jewish concept. And it is precisely this spirit which Jesus takes head-on, when he lays down a string of logical conditions: if anyone welcomes this child in my name, then that person also welcomes Jesus himself; and those who welcome Jesus (who by implication is God’s emissary) welcome God. Therefore, according to the syllogism, the one who receives a child, including but not limited to the paidion next to Jesus, receives God. Luke does not mean to suggest that God is uniquely present in children, but rather that God finds no better expression in fallen humanity than in a mere child who, unlike the disciples, has neither pretensions nor aspirations of social power. This is not to sentimentalize children but to idealize the humility and unselfconsciousness characteristic of children in general.
49. John, one of the select three witnesses to Jesus’ transfiguration, begins to process Jesus’ teaching with a specific question related to the phrase ‘in my name’. If children are to be received in Jesus’ name simply because they are children, John begins to wonder, then what about adults who cast out demons in Jesus’ name? Thus John’s words (Master, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he does not follow with us) is perhaps more of a question than a statement. The question for John is, ‘When we see some outside our circle engaging in exorcistic activity in the name of Jesus, should we stop them?’ 112
50. For Jesus, the short answer to this question is ‘No’. After all, whoever is not against you is for you. Though there is a sense in which those who are not with Jesus are against him (Matt. 12:30), it is also true, Luke seems to remind his readers, that there is no reason to make enemies of individuals who, though not part of the ‘in-group’, are to all intents and purposes allies.
By all appearances, Second Temple Jews did not expect a Messiah who was also divine. An exalted figure? Perhaps. But on a par with the God of Israel? No. This historical fact makes Luke’s unfolding report of Jesus’ messianic identity all the more striking. If Elijah was a great prophet and Moses a great lawgiver, even regarded in some circles as of quasi-divine status, Jesus comes to us as one who surpasses both Elijah and Moses, in terms of both personage and role. More than a prophet and lawgiver, Jesus is, once again, both Messiah and God.
Yet, strangely enough, Jesus’ transcendent status in no way exempts him from his appointed calling of suffering and co-identification with the weak. On the contrary, suffering and weakness are the modes through which his divinity and Messiahship would be most clearly revealed. This truth lies at the heart of the gospel mystery. This truth is also the scandal of the gospel, virtually impossible to comprehend.
On a formal level, to be sure, Peter accurately identifies Jesus as the Christos. In other words, he is right in regard to the ‘Who?’ question. But on a substantive level, when it comes to discerning how this Messiah and his followers would operate, he and his peers could not be any further off the mark. This is demonstrable from the fact that even just after Jesus’ sobering prediction of suffering, the disciples are still bickering among themselves about who would be the greatest. Luke is well aware that his readers are not so very different from Peter. Knowledge of the Messiah’s identity is merely the precondition to knowing what is at stake in following him – and choosing to follow him despite the cost.
1. Contra Edwards, p. 136; see Swarup, Self-understanding, pp. 23–24.
2. Jeremias (Promise, pp. 44–45) argues that Jesus’ omission of Isa. 61:2b (‘and the day of vengeance of our God’) in his reading would have implied the Gentiles’ immunity from divine judgment, and that this in turn was the provocation for Jesus’ audience (vv. 22–30). Despite its pervasive influence, the argument is simply unsupportable.
3. See Green and Perrin, DJG, pp. 450–452.
4. See Siker, ‘First to the Gentiles’, pp. 76–79.
5. Stoning was accomplished either by throwing stones at the victim with deadly impact or, more commonly in antiquity, by lofting the victim on to the stones with equal results; cf. m. Sanh. 6:4.
6. On Capernaum, see Green, p. 222 n. 63.
7. See Perrin, Jesus the Temple, pp. 159–163.
8. The Hebrew root nṣr retained messianic connotations on the basis of ‘the branch [nṣr] of David’ in Isa. 11:1. See N. Piotrowskwi, DJG, pp. 624–625.
9. Perrin, ‘Jesus as Priest’, p. 83.
10. Jesus’ entrance implies a pre-existing relationship with Simon. Peter’s appearance here anticipates the next passage (5:1–11) even as it secures early on his role as an eyewitness who both appears in and gives confirmation to Acts. See Green, Vox Petri, pp. 236–241.
11. Contra Liefeld (p. 873), who wonders aloud whether ‘the fever is simply personified in effect’.
12. Marshall (p. 203) prefers to interpret epistata more specifically, stating the ‘word is used only by disciples or near-disciples’.
13. Hypothesizing the boats’ weight capacity based on a size comparison to a typical first-century fishing boat, we might estimate the weight of the catch to have approached at least a ton of fish, roughly the equivalent of 500 or more mature musht.
14. According to Bovon (pp. 171–172), the presence of two boats ‘may have something to do, in Luke’s presentation, with the twofold character of the Christian church as Jewish and Gentile’, even if ‘Luke does not draw any explicit allegorical parallels’.
15. On the double meaning of ‘Lord’ at 5:12 and in Luke in general, see Rowe, Narrative Christology, pp. 89–91.
16. Fitzmyer, p. 517.
17. Rowe, Narrative Christology, pp. 89–92.
18. Fletcher-Louis, ‘Messiah: Part 2’, pp. 66–70.
19. Contra Nolland, p. 229.
20. In the former case, the man’s showing himself amounts to an ‘FYI’; in the latter case, it is closer to an indictment.
21. Where Mark’s version tells us that they ‘dug through’ the ceiling (2:4), as would be fitting for Palestinian mud roofs, Luke envisions the removal of clay tiles, perhaps as a way of accommodating his Roman hearers who would have been more familiar with tiled roofs.
22. Jesus’ response is surprising but not incoherent; cf. b. Ned. 41a: ‘Nobody gets up from their sick-bed until all their sins are forgiven’ (my translation).
23. Authorization for humans forgiving sin is not unprecedented: see 2 Sam. 12:13; Tg. Isa. 53:6; 4Q242, 3–4; 11Q13 II, 4–13; 2 En. 64:5; Josephus, Ant. 6.92.
24. Luke’s characterization of the crowd may not be entirely positive; compare Wis. 5:2: ‘When the unrighteous see them [i.e. the righteous standing with great confidence] they will be shaken with dreadful fear, and they will be amazed at the marvel [paradoxō] of salvation’ (translation my own).
25. DeSilva, DJG, p. 145.
26. Fitzmyer, p. 590, dubs this as ‘theoretically possible’; Bock, p. 493, is more sanguine. As Eckhard Schnabel points out too, however, this theory is problematized by the fact that Levi and Matthew are Hebrew names, not Roman names.
27. The phrase also occurs in 1 Esd. 3:1.
28. BDAG, p. 164.
29. Here the term ‘sinner’ (hamartōlos) generally denotes those who defiantly transgress God’s law. But in Luke (e.g. at 18:9–14), it often designates ‘someone . . . [who] had violated a group consensus as to how one should live a law-abiding life before God. So when Jesus is accosted for partaking of the company of sinners, it is because he and his disciples failed to adopt the particular way of life regarded as valid by . . . a particular sect such as the Pharisees’ (Bird, DJG, p. 865).
30. The combination of eating and drinking is distinctively Lukan; cf. 7:33–34; 22:30.
31. The Sabbath-day timing of David’s visit to Ahimelech is presupposed in the Jewish tradition; see Bock, p. 524.
32. Edwards, p. 179.
33. Perrin, ‘Mistaken Priestly Identity’, pp. 169–176; Jesus the Priest, pp. 190–207.
34. See pp. 102–103 above.
35. See Sweetland, Journey, pp. 149–164.
36. Schnabel, DJG, p. 34.
37. Luke’s positive treatment of Peter sets the foundation for Acts. See Brown, Donfried and Reumann, Peter, pp. 118–119; Wiarda, Peter, p. 106.
38. Influenced by the literary technique of Graeco-Roman novels, Luke also uses the crowds as a gauge of Jesus’ popularity; see Ascough, ‘Crowd Scenes’, pp. 76–77.
39. By including the city names of Tyre and Sidon, respectively derived from the Aramaic words ‘rock’ (tur) and ‘to hunt’ or ‘to fish’ (tsud ), Luke may be attempting a wordplay. It is to be recalled that John the Baptizer promised that God would raise up new children for Abraham from stones (3:8), while Jesus has just challenged Peter to become a fisher of people (5:10).
40. On this point, see Perrin, Kingdom of God, pp. 153–168.
41. More so than the other Evangelists, Luke tends to speak of Jesus’ power as if it were a self-contained entity (Luke 8:46; Acts 19:12).
42. Some manuscripts retain the phrase ‘hoping for nothing again’ (so the KJV). As best as we can tell, the phrase is a later scribal addition.
43. This would not be extraordinary. On the importance of Abraham in Luke, see Brawley, ‘Abrahamic Covenant Traditions’; Collins, ‘Abraham’.
44. See Dan. 4:34; 7:18, 22, 25, 27; also Gen. 14:18–20.
45. In Isaiah, trees represent the returnees from exile (Isa. 55:12–13) as well as those destined to experience the eschatological fullness of the kingdom (Isa. 61:3).
46. Jer. 17:3b–8; 21:12–14; Ezek. 16:49 – 17:10; Hos. 10:12–13; Amos 8:1–6; Hab. 1:1–4; 3:17; Hag. 2:19.
47. Though scholars are divided as to whether Luke was written before or after that destruction (see Introduction above), an allusion to its destruction would be appropriate in a Gospel where the fall of the temple has been all but assured (21:5–24). On this interpretation, see Wright, Victory of God, p. 334.
48. See Campbell, Rivers.
49. Moses’ Song (Deut. 32), which closes out the terms of the Sinaitic covenant, seems to be in play: ‘Moses came and recited all the words of this song in the hearing of the people’ (Deut. 32:44, emphasis added). This would imply a correlation between Jesus’ sermon on an unspecified plain and Moses’ issuance of a covenant on the plains of Moab.
50. The centurion’s Gentile identity is supported by vv. 5 and 9.
51. Rowe, Narrative Christology, pp. 114–117.
52. Edwards’ (p. 211) assumption that the ‘centurion grounded his first appeal in his worthiness’ is unwarranted. There is nothing in the centurion’s instructions to his first embassy to contradict his claim I did not presume to come to you (v. 7).
53. E.g. ‘Go’ (5:14), ‘Come’ (9:23), ‘Do this’ (22:19).
54. See Otten, ‘Elijah and the Remnant’.
55. See Perrin, ‘Jesus’ Anger’.
56. The verb used here (egeirō ) is typical of resurrection language.
57. Bock, p. 654.
58. Fitzmyer, p. 665.
59. As Bock (p. 665) points out, the ‘coming one’ is also used in a messianic sense in 13:35 and 19:38; see also Marshall, p. 290. The use of the second person pronoun (‘you’) plus the verb ‘to be’, as found in John’s question ‘Are you the coming one?’ (sy ei ho erchomenos), recurs in the Gospel’s major Christological confessions (3:22; 4:41; 22:67; 23:3, 39).
60. The Qumran text 4Q175 ascribes a very similar catalogue of actions, precisely in the same order, to the coming Messiah.
61. Stählin, TDNT 7, pp. 339–358.
62. Contra Bock, p. 671, who understands ‘reed’ literally.
63. On the expectation of an eschatological Elijah, see Sir. 48:10; 2 Esd. 6:25–28; Exod. Rab. 32:9.
64. The concept of the purpose (boulē) of God is important in Luke’s writings (cf. Luke 23:51; Acts 2:23; 4:28; 5:38; 13:36; 20:27; 27:12, 42).
65. Some interpreters (e.g. Fitzmyer, p. 680) understand Jesus and John to be the children, playing the flute and singing the dirge, respectively. But for all its merits this interpretation finally stumbles, since it would awkwardly align these two righteous figures with the wicked generation.
66. See Sellew, ‘Interior Monologue’. Cf. 12:16–20; 15:11–32; 16:3–4.
67. To put this in perspective, it is to be recalled that she is essentially a streetwalker, and therefore a walking contagion of ritual impurity. Her barging into a gathering of socially powerful figures, whose overriding goal was to maintain cultic purity, is a very bold move.
68. See discussion in Hägerland, Forgiveness of Sins, pp. 1–12.
69. In antiquity, it was not unusual for women to financially support rabbis (Josephus, Ant. 17.33–35). The KJV has the women ‘ministering unto him of their substance’ (emphasis added), but this translation is based on a suspect text-critical reading. See Metzger, TCGNT, pp. 120–121.
70. Had they been married, their husbands would have been mentioned.
71. Plummer, p. xlii (emphasis original).
72. Luke shortens the more expansive ‘thirty and sixty and a hundredfold’ of Mark 4:8, tightening the allusion to Isaac’s blessed harvest of a hundredfold (Gen. 26:12). See Perrin, Jesus the Priest, p. 104.
73. Hedrick, Parables, pp. 172–173.
74. Beale, What We Worship, pp. 165–166.
75. Ezra 9:2; Isa. 1:9; 6:13; 43:5; 44:3; 45:26; 53:10; 54:3; 60:21; 61:9; 65:23; 66:22; Jer. 24:6; 31:27; 32:41; 46:27; Hos. 2:23; Amos 9:15; Zech. 8:12.
76. As Nolland (p. 391) puts it: ‘His intention is that those who still need to find their way in may see the word of God streaming out from those already inside.’
77. Josephus (Ant. 16.162–164) notes that this term was the Gentiles’ epithet of choice for the God of Israel. At the same time, the divine epithet may conjure Dan. 7, where the cosmic battle between the unclean forces of the pagan kingdoms and the royal-priestly Son of Man comes to a head (Dan. 7:18, 22, 25, 27).
78. At the same time, in failing to perform rituals or prayers prior to his exorcism, Jesus is decidedly unlike any contemporary exorcist. See Klutz, ‘Exorcism’, pp. 159–160, 164–165.
79. Perrin, Jesus the Temple, pp. 163–170.
80. The Romans were impressed by wild boars’ brute strength. The animal became the chief symbol of the First Legion (Italica) and Twentieth Legion (Victrix), the latter of which was stationed not far from the scene of this exorcism.
81. On the abyss, see Jeremias, TDNT 1, pp. 9–10.
82. On the other hand, because ‘abyss’ can also refer to the sea (e.g. Gen. 1:2; 7:11), there is some sense in which Jesus refuses the demons’ request; see Bovon, p. 437 n. 59.
83. This interpretation is supported by 11:14–26; see commentary below.
84. Though the Greek does not specify a subject, the NRSV rightly supplies the word people.
85. Having used the same verb (sympnigō ) in connection with the thornchoked plants in the parable of the sower (8:14), Luke may intend a parallel between Jairus’s anxiousness and the word-choking worries of life.
86. The original wording of Luke 8:43 is uncertain. The NRSV here (along with the ESV and many other translations) retains mention of her medical costs; other translations (e.g. NIV, NLT and NET) omit it. The manuscript evidence is ambivalent, but in my view the evidence favours the phrase’s inclusion.
87. The fringe would have also included four tassels designed to remind pious Jews ‘of “all the commandments of the Lord” so that they would do them (cf. Num 15:37–39). But the woman is violating a purity commandment by touching this fringe’ (Tannehill, p. 149).
88. The KJV’s inclusion of ‘and sayest thou’ before repeating Jesus’ query depends on manuscripts which likely reflect a copyist’s decision to conform Luke’s version to Mark 5:31.
89. Similarly Green, p. 348.
90. Mark identifies these three as being present at Gethsemane (Mark 14:33), but Luke’s account does not specify individual names (Luke 22:39–46).
91. Gender pairing has been regularly noted in Luke’s Gospel; see e.g. Kopas, ‘Jesus and Women’, p. 192.
92. The mission of the Twelve prepares for a much more significant mission set to unfold in Acts 2. Nolland (p. 426) comments: ‘As the rejection in Nazareth is a kind of dress rehearsal for the passion of Jesus, so this mission is something of a dress rehearsal for the post-Pentecost role of the Twelve.’
93. It is sometimes claimed (see e.g. Johnson, p. 148) that the Twelve’s modus operandi is meant to resemble that of Cynic philosophers (cf. Epictetus, Diatr. 3.22.50); if this were the case, Luke could have certainly done much more to strengthen the parallel.
94. As Tannehill (p. 153) points out, one of the ancient prophets ‘could suggest that Jesus is the prophet like Moses, which will be affirmed in Acts (3:22; 7:37; cf. Deut 18:15)’.
95. BDAG, p. 1043.
96. On Bethsaida, see Riesner, DJG, p. 51; also Savage, Bethsaida.
97. The verb katalyō implies taking advantage of another’s hospitality; see BDAG, pp. 521–522.
98. Second Temple Jewish interpreters sometimes interpreted the quails from the sea (Num. 11:31) as a kind of flying fish; see Bovon, ‘Scriptures’, p. 29.
99. See commentary above for 9:7–9.
100. On the messianic interpretation of the Son of Man, see Beasley-Murray, ‘Interpretation’.
101. The more public nature of Jesus’ teaching is supported elsewhere. For example, when the angelic figures speak to the women at the tomb, they presume that the women were privy to Jesus’ teaching at just this point (24:6–8).
102. Schweitzer, TDNT 9, pp. 608–660 (especially p. 620).
103. Even if Luke had said ‘exactly eight days’, this would not necessarily have contradicted his Markan source. Ancient counting practices sometimes included and sometimes excluded the first and last items; cf. Miano, Time Measurement, pp. 49–62.
104. For Second Temple rumination on this property of the high priest’s embedded stones, see references in Fletcher-Louis, ‘Sacral Son of Man’, pp. 294–295.
105. Horbury (Jewish Messianism, pp. 111, 134) teases out striking parallels between the priestly ordination of Aristobolus III (during the feast of Tabernacles) and the transfiguration; cited in Fletcher-Louis, ‘Sacral Son of Man’, p. 296. On the feast of Tabernacles background to the transfiguration, see Bock, p. 871; Fitzmyer, p. 108; Green p. 383.
106. Heil, Transfiguration, p. 99.
107. See also the angel’s words to Mary (‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow [episkiasei] you’) in Luke 1:35.
108. As Grindheim (Biblical Theology, p. 117) reminds us, the feast of Tabernacles’ ‘light ceremonies reminded the Jews of the pillar of fire that had led them in the wilderness (Exod. 13.21). They also pointed forward to the light of the new creation (Zech. 14.7).’
109. See Schrenk, TDNT 2, p. 97.
110. The weight of the manuscript evidence is divided evenly between eidōs, ‘knowing’ (e.g. ESV, NASB, NIV), and idōn, ‘seeing’ (e.g. ASV). In the end, the NRSV’s aware arrives at something of a compromise between the two competing manuscript options.
111. Reeder, DJG, p. 111.
112. Elsewhere (Perrin, Jesus the Priest, pp. 122–128), I argue that John’s question is based on the unstated assumption that the Twelve retained a quasi-priestly role, which included the responsibility of performing exorcisms. For Jesus’ closest disciples, the very fact that Jesus-sympathizers outside their own circle were performing exorcisms in his name potentially undermined their exclusive standing as eschatological priests in the making.