Day 68

Memorize: Spirit descends on Jesus

Luke 3

Key Verses: 1, 3, 7, 8, 16, 22,

The Gospel is anchored in history. Notice the pinpointing of these six people in time and John the Baptist’s ministry beginning. As RallyPointChapel.com points out, the Scriptures are anchored in real people, real places, real time. Luke does that to confirm Jesus’ place in history for his readers. They would have heard of these people, and therefore could have verified, just as Luke had, the accuracy of Luke’s account. We too can trust the Scriptures.

John’s message was simple: repent and be baptized as an outward symbol of that repentance. We might say it like this: start moving headlong toward God and away from sin, and wear a “I’m A Jesus-follower” T-shirt every day. For John, and for the early believers, Jesus’ coming was THE turning point in history. Everything before this point in time was leading up to it, and everything after it pointed back.

John was not very diplomatic, not very politically correct. Perhaps we need to be a bit more like John. He called his listeners a bunch of snakes. Snakes slither out of any trouble. They are hard to catch, and hard to pin down. Sounds like many of us. We need to have solid beliefs and solid convictions. People should know where we stand on important issues. Faith always involves a change in behavior, what John calls fruit. It is easy, John says. Provide for the need of others. We tend to make it so complicated, but it is simple. Don’t steal. Think about other’s needs ahead of your own. Radical, but simple.

In many cultures today, as back then, feet were dirty. Open toed sandals, dirt roads with animals; you get the picture. So tying someone’s shoes is the lowest task. And John says he is not worthy to do this lowest task to Jesus. That is because Jesus’ mission is so much greater than John’s. John’s soaking used water; Jesus’ will involve God Himself thoroughly cleaning people. Everything impure will be removed. But John’s message gets him in trouble. He ends up in prison for telling the Truth.

Jesus is baptized at the start of His ministry as a way to mark the inauguration of it. It is not that He needed to repent, but that the connection with the consistent theme of Scripture would be marked with an exclamation point. Repentance and faith in what God says have always been the cornerstone of God’s plan for mankind.

The list of Jesus’ ancestors, traced through His earthly father, though not his biological father, goes all the way back to Adam. It is not a complete list, but draws the direct line between Adam’s sin and Jesus’ obedience. The purpose of scriptural genealogies is not to provide a complete list of every generation, but to draw the line back through history to the key people in an individual’s background. Gaps are part of the normal course of these lists. The word “the son of” means something closer to our “ancestor” rather than biological father.