Advent Journey - 23rd December

Advent Journey – Day 25

Read: Luke 1 vs 1-4

Luke’s gospel contains some of the best known Christmas stories. It is in Luke that we watch on as the Angel Gabriel appears to Mary, it is in Luke that we read of Jesus being wrapped in cloths and laid in a manger and it is in Luke that we hear the heavenly choir of angels announcing good news to all people.

However, before we read any of these things Luke introduces his gospel by explaining how he pulled his gospel together, and why he took the time to write it in the first place. It seems that many people were writing accounts of the life of Jesus in Luke’s time (1:1), with various eye witnesses of events such as the first Christmas sharing what they had seen and heard (1:2).

In the midst of this sea of information Luke set himself the task of ‘carefully’ investigating all the different eye witness accounts that he had access to. Luke was a medical doctor, and he brings a careful thoughtful mind to this process. With his research done he wrote up his gospel for a friend called Theophilus – but he did all of this for a purpose. Here’s the key line: ‘So that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.’

Living in this part of the world all of us have grown up familiar with the stories of Christmas. Even if church has played no part in our upbringing, we will all have made our way to Bethlehem at some point, all seen Mary, Joseph and the baby Jesus in some nativity play, somewhere.

Luke writes what he writes not simply to inform us (what happened) but to give us ‘certainty’ that these things really happened and that this gospel is good news today. In an uncertain world the gift of ‘certainty’ is an amazing gift this Christmas. Just what the doctor ordered. 

Prayer: Father this Christmas give to me a new certainty that the good news of Jesus is true. Help me to be certain about the things that really matter. In Jesus' Name. Amen.