‘Hope in Jesus’ by Owen Lynch, 14 January 2024

What does it mean to have hope in Jesus? Owen Lynch looks at the difficulties and divisions in society in Jesus’ time and we might relate to some of them today. People were not looking for a nice idea to make them feel better, they needed a restoration of hope, and the way Jesus offered this transformed their world. How can it do the same for us?

This talk on Luke’s Gospel will be followed by a series on Acts of the Apostles, starting in February 2024.

Transcript

Hands up! Who loves January?

I tend to like January, it’s the beginning of a new year, the days are getting longer, the year is spread out in front of us full of promise and possibility!

This year I am full of hope, because inflation appears to be falling back to normal levels and with it interest rates and with any luck we might have a change of government!

But you know it’s not wise for me to put my hope in politics or the economy, because these things can change easily.

Politics and the economy may not improve! The conflict between Russia and Ukraine, and the conflict in the Middle East could get worse and push prices up again.

It’s also not wise for me to put my hope in politics and the economy, because these things affect us all differently, depending on our life circumstances.

The people I might like to see in Downing St and the White House may not be the same people you would like to see there. Some of us might like interest rates to be high because we have savings in interest bearing bank accounts, some of us might like them low because we have expensive mortgages and loans.

So whilst I might be hoping that the world changes to be more to my liking this year, you might be wanting something different.

Don’t we need something more permanent and universal to base our hope on than the economy and politics? Don’t we need that for our peace of mind?

Now as with all Christian sermons, the simple and short answer to that is yes and the person is Jesus! Period! Job done! Shall I sit down?

Whilst many of us would agree with the idea that Jesus is the answer to all the world’s problems, it can become a bit of a cliche that loses its power through overuse.

However, I want to offer some thoughts on why I think Jesus is a permanent and universal basis for hope as a preface to our new boxset series on the book of Acts in the New Testament.

If you don’t know, Acts is actually series 2 (or volume 2) of a boxset who we think was written by a man called Luke. Series 1 is actually called Luke and in Acts 1:1-2 (The Message), Luke writes this:

Dear Theophilus, in the first volume of this book [Luke] I wrote on everything that Jesus began to do and teach until the day he said good-bye to the apostles, the ones he had chosen through the Holy Spirit, and was taken up to heaven.

Scholars are not entirely sure who Luke was. The best guess is that Luke was the friend of the apostle Paul who he mentioned in Colossians 4:10-14:

10 My fellow prisoner Aristarchus sends you his greetings, as does Mark, the cousin of Barnabas. 11 Jesus, who is called Justus, also sends greetings. These are the only Jews among my co-workers for the kingdom of God, and they have proved a comfort to me.

12 Epaphras, who is one of you and a servant of Christ Jesus, sends greetings.....14 Our dear friend Luke, the doctor, and Demas [also] send greetings.

So scholars think that since Luke isn’t included in the list of his Jewish companions, he must have been a gentile. What we also learn here is that Luke was a trained medical doctor, which chimes with Luke’s desire to present as accurate a picture of Jesus as possible.

Scholars think that Luke was writing this letter to either a person called Theophilus or a group of people who were “God lovers”, because the name Theophilus means lover of God.

They were probably living in Rome as this is where the two volumes end with Paul fulfilling his dream of preaching the gospel in the capital of the Roman Empire.

Luke may well have been living in Rome with Paul when he wrote this letter, that would have been between AD 60 and 70, about 30 to 40 years after Jesus died.

Now it’s really important for us to understand that the 130 years from 63 BC, to 70 AD were a time of geopolitical conflict and tension in Judea. In 63 BC the Roman general Pompey captured Jerusalem and ruled through a client king. Religious conflict, oppressive taxation and unwanted imperialism created festering tension that often erupted in violence, culminating in the massacre of the population and destruction of the Temple and the city walls in AD 70.

The Jewish/Roman historian and one of the Jewish rebel leaders - Josephus wrote that,

“From one end of Galilee to the other there was an orgy of fire and bloodshed."

During the 33 years of Jesus’ life, Judea and Galilee was a tinderbox - a dangerous, heated situation just waiting to explode into violence and suffering.

And we can see this boiling cauldron of political and religious tension in in Luke’s letter. The Jews are desperate for a saviour, someone to put their hope in.

Luke described the angel Gabriel promising Mary that her baby

(Luke 1:32-33):

32 ...will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, 33 and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.”

Luke repeats Zechariah’s words (Luke 1:68-71)

68 “Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, because he has come to his people and redeemed them. 69 He has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David 70 (as he said through his holy prophets of long ago), 71 salvation from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us—

Luke writes about the Pharisees anger with Jesus for socialising the Roman tax collectors (Luke 5:27-32):

27 After this, Jesus went out and saw a tax collector by the name of Levi sitting at his tax booth. “Follow me,” Jesus said to him, 28 and Levi got up, left everything and followed him.

29 Then Levi held a great banquet for Jesus at his house, and a large crowd of tax collectors and others were eating with them.

30 But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law who belonged to their sect complained to his disciples, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?”

31 Jesus answered them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. 32 I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”

Jesus did the same with a tax collector called Zacchaeus (Luke 19) - he was eating with the enemy and all the Jews were angry.

Although Luke doesn’t mention this, the senseless murder by decapitation of Jesus’ cousin - John the Baptist - described by Matthew reflects the lawless corruption of Herod the local dictator who had him murdered simply as a gift for his daughter.

Jesus’ sermon on the mount reflected the social and economic inequality that was festering across Jewish society (Luke 6:20-21, 24-25)

20 “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. 21 Blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be satisfied. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.

24 “But woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort. 25 Woe to you who are well fed now, for you will go hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you will mourn and weep.

The poverty and deprivations of most of the population is clear to see as Luke describes how thousands of people desperately followed Jesus simply for food and miraculous healing from diseases.

It is clear from Luke that Jesus became an increasingly powerful leader because of these miracles and because of his repeated public criticisms of the religious and Roman authorities.

Thousands of people began to hope and believe that Jesus would make their lives better. Jesus was becoming the champion of the poor and needy, which at that time was the majority of the population.

Luke records this conversation between Jesus and his disciples

(Luke 9:18-20):

18 Once when Jesus was praying in private and his disciples were with him, he asked them, “Who do the crowds say I am?” 19 They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, that one of the prophets of long ago has come back to life.” 20 “But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?”

Peter answered, “God’s Messiah.”

As if to ratify this conversation Luke then records what is called the Transfiguration - a mystical, dream like event on top of a mountain, where Peter, James and John witness Jesus talking with Moses and Elijah and are told that Jesus is God’s son and they should listen to him.

Luke is clear - Judea and Galilee are a boiling cauldron of political and social tension where the Romans and the complicit Jewish leaders are facing off with the majority of the population who are poor and deprived. From within this majority Jesus emerges as the revolutionary leader who is giving them hope that he has divine authority to overthrow the evil authorities and restore justice and mercy.

But Jesus knows that this is going to end badly for him. Three times Luke records Jesus predicting his own death (Luke 9:21-22)

21 Jesus strictly warned them not to tell this to anyone. 22 And he said, “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.”

From chapter 9 onwards, the language and metaphors that Luke records Jesus using are increasingly disturbing and divisive.

For example, Jesus warns his disciples about the cost of following him to his death. Jesus is accused of being the devil by a crowd of people, to which he responds by calling them a wicked generation. He criticises the rich for trusting in their wealth, telling them that they should use their wealth for the benefit of everyone. He uses powerful allegories and metaphors to make his point as clear as possible that justice and mercy are the pillars of Jewish law and teaching.

His war of words is always with the corrupt religious leaders and Roman stooges like Herod and Pilate who do the bidding of the empire.

Jesus isn’t even like a benevolent member of the aristocracy who is reaching out to help the poor majority. Luke has made it clear that Jesus is one of the poor majority who also happens to be descended from the royal line of King David.

It is no surprise that Jesus is killed by a coalition of the religious leaders and the Roman stooges. They humiliate him, execute him under corrupt false charges and think that’s the end of that revolution.

But what is a surprise, at least to everyone at the time, is that Jesus came back to life!!!

This is why Luke wrote two volumes on the life and times of Jesus and his followers. It wasn’t because Jesus was a great politician, or a great military leader, it wasn’t that Jesus was a great economist or an efficient legislator, it wasn’t even because Jesus was a great priest or religious teacher!

We all know that politicians, generals, economists, legislators, priests and teachers have their flaws and weaknesses. They come and go, they get seduced by power and wealth, they struggle to maintain their integrity.

I think Jesus is a permanent and universal basis for hope, because in the words of Philippians 2:6-11:

.... he did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross!

Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

I love those words. Jesus is a permanent and universal basis for hope, because he made himself nothing, he did not lord it over others, but served others with justice and mercy, which eventually got him killed.

But you can’t kill that sort of life. It’s enduring, it’s eternal. And that gives me hope.

The sort of hope that carries us through the ups and downs of life.

Through our times of illness and our times of wellness, through our times of need and our times of plenty, through our times of sorrow and our times of joy, through our times of anxiety and our times of peace.

More in this series