Yes, this is the first post in two months.
Yes, this post is 17 books later in the canonical order.
Yes, this blog-a-day thing is harder than it sounds (or I'm just much, much worse at it than I thought).
Moving on.
Luke has always been one of my favourite books in the entirety of the Bible, which is maybe why it's the first one since early September to drag me out of the last stretch of writing doldrums. It appeals to me as a person with theology and English lit. degrees - Luke (yes, yes, making authorial assumptions - deal with it) is just great at the subtle elements of good storytelling, much moreso than the authors of any of the other Gospels.
As a for-instance, when Jesus is in the wilderness being tempted by Satan, and He rebuffs him over and over again, Luke writes "and when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from him until an opportune time." (4:13 - emphasis mine)
What a spectacularly tantalizing addition! It doesn't need to be there for the story to work any better or worse, it's simply there as a lovely bit of foreshadowing. It's brilliant.
Luke, the book, is full of stuff like this. I love it.
Anyway, this passage in particular seems to be about one main thing - power. More precisely, it's about the various manifestations of Christ's power, with a secondary emphasis that I'll get to later.
The chapter kicks off with the aforementioned story about Jesus' power to resist Satan's temptation. Power in itself, obviously, but then the temptations themselves are all about power as well - power over the elements to turn stuff into other stuff, political power of kingdoms and nations, and Heavenly power accessed through Son-of-God connections. None of which Jesus bothers to deny. There's no sense of "nah, I can't do that anyway," it's simply a case of "step off, Satan!"
Next up there's the account of his teaching in Capernaum, where "they were astonished at His teaching, for His word possessed authority." (4:32) The demon possessing the random dude at the back of the room recognizes Jesus instantly for what He is. This recognition seems to be the biggest problem Jesus has with this particular (and, later, other) demon, who then has no choice but to obey and leave the guy he'd possessed.
Then He gets into a discussion about power with the Pharisees when He forgives the sins of the paralytic man brought to him, and wins (obviously).
All of this, of course, skips the more well-known displays of power (fishing miracles, and the immediate obedience of summoned disciples), but they're there, too.
So we've had demonstrations of His power in spades. We've also had examples of when He wouldn't use His power (for personal satiation/wealth/glory - as seen in the wilderness with Satan - or for personal fame - as in His insistence on the demons and cured people to stop being such blabbermouths about Him). So what's it for?
Well, we get a pretty concise summary from Jesus Himself back in chapter 4, in His home town of Nazareth.
18 "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, 19 to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."Now, the thing about all this is that it's not particularly popular when it comes to worldly views on uses of worldly (or otherwise) power. So between this message and the bit condemning the people of Nazareth for being entitled and short-sighted, Jesus ends up at the top of a tall cliff in front of a large and very angry mob, fully intent to throw Him to His death.
And here we get what is, in my opinion, one of the most beautifully described and succinct accounts (thank you again, Luke) of Christ's power.
"But passing through their midst, He went away."
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