I Heart Luke

The charming and obviously well-planned chronology of EfM Year Two had us reading through Luke right before the start of Advent, and the whole new life/new beginnings thing had me waxing nostalgic.

As very briefly noted this past June, on Pentecost 2011 the match caught and WHOOSH-- I felt the Spirit began to move in my life in a new way. Just a couple of months later I sat shoes off/legs crossed in the upstairs of my church, ready to start EfM and about to have my faith blown even more wide open.

One year after that, on Pentecost 2012, I processed in for my first ever turn as a chalice bearer, and was fully freaked out. I was half seriously contemplating bolting for the sacristy when we sang "Come Down O Love Divine," and being that close to the choir and organ and the altar transformed from the worst feeling in the world to the absolute best.

"And so the yearning strong, with which the soul will long,
Shall far outpass the power of human telling;
For none can guess its grace, till he become the place
Wherein the Holy Spirit makes His dwelling."

And hey! The Gospel of Luke opens with exactly that: two women who have become quite literally the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit, as they prepare to bear sons who will grow into John the Baptist and the Messiah.

Until my first year of EfM I'd never read most of the Old Testament, and I came away amazed. Though I'm much more familiar with the New Testament, sitting down and reading entire Gospels in one sitting, or back to back, with all the accompanying commentary is like amazing plus one. God's unyielding faithfulness to the Hebrews was one thing, but now it's like I'm looking through the family picture book of Redemption and Salvation and Forgiveness and all those other graces upon which Christianity rests.

And here it is almost Advent, and I'm reading Luke in this fresh new way, and it's...dare I say it...AMAZING!! I mean, look at Gabriel, giving Elizabeth the surprise of her life and then getting to deliver even more incredible news to Mary, and doing it in this beautiful narrative. (I mean, please, who thinks it appropriate that in Matthew it's Joseph that gets the news first? NOT I, SAID THE LITTLE RED HEN.)

And then I consider this: rather than just continuing on to far more salient details to The Greatest Story Ever Told, Luke gives us a window into a fragile and beautiful connection between two women-- cousins, yes, but friends-- and their happiness and astonishment at simultaneous pregnancies. Sure, there are all those stories in Luke that aren't found in any of the other Gospels, and so many of them feature women in a prominent way-- the widow's son at Nain, Mary and Martha, the woman with the spirit of infirmity-- but if you ask me, this is one of the most endearing and compelling things about Luke's nativity. It's the simple wonder and joy shared between two friends.

This might be my favorite Gospel. I can't say for sure because I'm not finished with John yet, but Luke? Yep-- amazing!