November 11

Leviticus 26:14-27:34, Luke 1:1-25, Proverbs 7:1-5

Not an easy one to end Leviticus with, but here we are at the end of it. There is not a great deal to add to Ali’s explanation here as to the relevance of this rather harsh sounding passage. As for tomorrow, I hope you like names and family trees, because, boy, are you in for a treat.

What I do want to take a look at today is Luke, not so much the passage before us but the man behind it. We did not really explore Matthew or Mark before we delved straight into what they said but there is always mileage in knowing the context of what you are reading. For starters, the author of this Gospel is believed to have been a doctor, he was into his science and accordingly his attention to detail is quite brilliant. Where as Matthew and Mark might have talked about feelings and what it meant in relation to the Jews, Luke’s focus is what actually happened. It is for this reason that having four gospels helps us to understand more because we get different eye witness accounts.

For Mark, John the Baptist prepares the way, that is all that really matters in relation to John. Just wait for the next few days in Luke though, the detail he goes into about this important relationship is beyond comparison, and at the end of the day, twenty-odd/thirty years later, this is the man that is to baptise Jesus. He is no insignificant prophet and Luke recognises that!

We can also see how the Bible is knit together with history. The thing that Zechariah (John’s dad) was doing is linked very closely with exactly what we have finished reading in Leviticus. It has been a long hard slog, but it does help us see the context into which Jesus was born and in which he ministered.

Today we can focus on what happened for Zechariah in the temple, where he met the Angel Gabriel. Zechariah was a bit scarred and losing his voice was not the best thing that could have happen to him. But what did happen was that he came face to face with a small fraction of the glory of the Lord. Even though these passages have been tough, they still lead us to look upon the glory of the Lord and that can be no bad thing!