Msgr. Beaulieu – Better Understanding of Luke

Luke 3:1-6

Luke’s litany of imperial, regional, and religious authorities does more than date the Baptist’s preaching to 28 or 29 AD. It also contrasts human kingdoms with God’s reign. The opening verse gives the setting for the entire passage, but more than just chronologically. The year in question is established in relation to Emperor Tiberius and the leadership that the Romans have put in place in and around Judea. Pontius Pilate, Herod, and Caiaphas are all mentioned. Eventually, Herod would be responsible for the death of John the Baptist and, along with Pontius Pilate and Caiaphas, both of them would be in part responsible for the death of Christ.

Like the prophetic voice that is cited at the end of the Gospel (Isaiah 40:3-5), John challenges God’s people to see the wilderness as a place not of desolation, but of hope. God is calling them, like the Babylonian exiles, to leave their captors behind and head home through the wilderness. God is calling them, like the people of Israel in Egypt, to join an exodus out of slavery into God’s promised fresh start (see Lk 9:31), where Jesus discusses His own exodus with Moses and Elijah. John preaches that the first step on this journey toward freedom is a baptism of repentance.

Citation of Isaiah 40:3-5

A voice proclaims: In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord! Make straight in the wasteland a highway for our God! Every valley shall be lifted up, every mountain and hill made low; the rugged land shall be a plain, the rough country, a broad valley. Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together; for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.

In Luke 3, the primary use of Isaiah is to directly connect John the Baptist’s ministry to prophecy by quoting Isaiah 40:3-5, where those verses describe “a voice crying in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him'” – essentially portraying John as the forerunner preparing the way for Jesus’ arrival. Luke uses this Isaiah passage to show how John the Baptist is fulfilling an ancient prophecy about a messenger who would come to announce the coming of the Messiah. This phrase directly references Isaiah 40:3 and is applied to John’s preaching in the wilderness, emphasizing his role as a herald calling people to repentance.

The message of “preparing the way” signifies that John’s ministry was designed to make people ready to receive Jesus as the Messiah—“all flesh shall see it (the salvation of God) together.” It is the last entry in the string of Isaiah’s greatest declarations found in Sunday’s Gospel. Luke concludes the litany by recalling a promise of God – “all the ends of the earth can see the salvation of our God (Is 52:10).

John proclaims a baptism of repentance that leads to forgiveness or release from sins. Release or aphesis (Gk ἄφεσις) is the same word that Jesus used twice in His inaugural speech in Luke 4:18 to describe His mission: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me … to proclaim deliverance (or release) to the captives and … to let the oppressed go free … ” The release or forgiveness that follows repentance does not undo past sins, but it does unbind people from being enslaved to them. It opens the way for a life lived in God’s service. By proclaiming such release, John fulfills his father’s prophecy: “you, child, … will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation to his people by the forgiveness (aphesis) of their sins” (Lk 1:77).

This salvation looks like a new dawn for those trapped in darkness and death’s dark shadow. It is light that reveals a new path, the way toward peace (Luke 1:78–79). Preparing the Lord’s path toward peace requires overturning the world as we know it. John quotes the prophet Isaiah to describe the earthshaking transformation that must take place. In contemporary thinking, though Isaiah’s words can certainly be taken as mere pictures of road construction, in the context of Luke’s writings they evoke richer associations: valleys filled full (Gk. πληρωθήσεται), mountains, hills humbled (Gk. ταπεινωθήσεται), everything crooked made straight and true.

In her Magnificat, Mary sings of the God who has looked on her humble state (Gk. ταπείνωσις=tapeinosis). Mary extols the God who saves by dethroning the powerful and exalting the humble (Gk. ταπείνωσις), sending the rich away empty-handed and filling up the hungry (Lk 1:52–53). Jesus blesses the poor and the hungry and the weeping but announces woe for the rich and well-fed (Lk 6:20–26).

On the Day of Pentecost Peter warns the people, “Be saved from this corrupt or crooked generation ” (Acts 2:40). Whether the Greek word skolios (Gk. σκολιός) is translated as crooked, corrupt, or perverse, that Greek word is the same expression Isaiah uses for the things that must be straightened out. Preparing for God’s final Advent or arrival means rethinking systems and structures that we see as normal but that God condemns as oppressive and crooked. It means letting God humble everything that is proud and self-satisfied in us, and letting God heal and lift up what is broken and beaten down.

Excerpted from http://www.workingpreacher.org. Judith Jones. “Commentary on Luke 3:1-6” 6 December 2015.