There were several frightening experiences during my mother’s long illness... [Where] the mere knowledge that someone had gone to the drugstore phone to call the doctor and the word that he was on the way, changed the atmosphere in our small apartment from terrified helplessness to a secure sense that somehow the dreadful situation could be made right.That man — the man who stepped across the threshold with a smile and an air of competence, who called each of us by name, who understood that beyond anything else we needed reassurance, and whose very entrance into our home conveyed it — that was the man I wanted to be.1
Nuland’s childhood physician did who not have a modicum of medications, and tests, and procedures that our physicians had. In fact, in another book, The Uncertain Art, he himself reflected on the fact that for most of his career as a physician he lived without most of the diagnostic tools doctors have at their disposal today.
Obviously, St. Luke was working with even less. There was very little in his black bag, if he even had one, to bring. All he could probably do in his day was stride across the threshold armed only with air of confidence and the reassurance that the dreadful situation could be made right.
Is it any wonder why Saint Luke was drawn to Jesus? His skill, his kindness, his air of confidence that things could be made better must had been what attracted him to this man who seemed to be a better physician than Saint Luke would ever hope to be in his life.
So, when Luke sat down to write his orderly account to a person whose background to this day remains unknown but who name meant “friend of God” he does so with the precision of a physician looking into the background of a patient and the soul of a poet.
You may not realize it, but it is Saint Luke we have to thank for all the trappings of our Christmas story. With the precision of Bob Woodward some of the more imaginative among us like to believe he sat down with many of the characters who were involved to get the “deep background” on exactly what happened.
Matthew did a great job telling us about the doubts and faith of Joseph, Jesus’ earthly father, but St. Luke broadens out the cast of characters to people whose words affect us and inspire us to this day.
So, Luke gives us the encounter of Mary with the Angel Gabriel who tells her that if she goes along with the plan he is proposing she will give birth to a wonderous child. Luke brings us right into the room where that tense conversation happened. Gabriel first tells her not to be afraid – for in his announcement there is much to be afraid of – and then has to wait, and wait, and wait until Mary finally, after some difficult questions, for Mary to say “Yes.”
Then Dr. Luke takes us to the house of her cousin Elizabeth already heavily pregnant with the one we will know as John the Baptist. Elizabeth, who upon seeing Mary “spoke out with a loud voice and said, ‘blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb.”2 These words along with Luke’s recorded greeting of the Angel Gabriel to Mary, “Mary, full of grace." gives us the words of the second most recited prayer in all of Christendom, the “Hail Mary” which, in addition to being what fans call the last ditch effort in any sport, has been on the lips of the faithful for centuries, “Hail, Mary full of grace, the Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus.”
Elizabeth’s assurance gives Mary the strength to sing of her hopes for her child, this very special child. “His mercy is on those who fear him from generation to generation. He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. He has put down the mighty from their thrones and exalted the lowly.”3
The Good Doctor, Saint Luke, through Mary’s magnificent song is telling us what Jesus was to be about.
And most of all, Saint Luke gives us the Christmas Story. It maybe the reason we leave the dishes in the sink and put on our winter coats to hurry off to a late evening worship on Christmas Eve. We venture out into the darkness to hear again the story of an imperial decree which forces a heavily pregnant Mary and her faithful husband Joseph to take a journey to Bethlehem where Jesus was born in a manger “because there was no room for them in the inn.”4
Aren’t you glad that Doctor Luke left his surgery and took time to give us all the images we love so much at Christmas? Shepherds, angel choruses, we have Luke’s hard work to thank for these.
But even more important for this day is that when decades pass in the life of our Lord, and we find him staring at his cousin John the Baptist the “voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord.’”5
John was preaching and baptizing. And the people came. They left furrow in the field and the bread in the oven to hear John preach and be baptized by him. Then, St. Luke tells us, “when all the people were baptized and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”6
Today we are going to react the scene St. Luke gave us. Like the people in St. John the Baptist’s day who marched down to the river Jordan we are going to march to the back of this church and the baptismal font hymnals in hand, singing. Then we are going to affirm our baptismal promises and baptize Miles, surrounded by his parents, and Sydney’s classmates, their parents, and you, the people of God.
We are going to celebrate that all of us who have been dunked, or dipped, or sprinkled, or spayed by the waters of baptism have heard the same promise that was said to Jesus at his baptism: ““You are my Son[my daughter], chosen and marked by my love, pride of my life.”7
We’ll hear those words spoken over Miles as they were once spoken over us. And we’ll have Saint Luke to thank for putting down whatever tools doctors used in those days and taking the time to record them for us so that in every dreadful situation of terrified helplessness we’ll have the reassurance that “the Lord is with us” and that marked with Christ’s love we are his chosen, his delight.
1. Sherwin B. Nuland, How We Die: Reflections on Life’s Final Chapter (New York, NY: Vintage Books, 1995), 247.
2. St. Luke 1:42. (NKJV) [NKJV=The New King James Version]
3. St. Luke 1:42. (NKJV)
3. St. Luke 1:42. (NKJV)
4. St. Luke 2:7. (NKJV)
5. St. Luke 3:4b (NKJV)
6. St. Luke 3:21–22. (NRSV) [NRSV=The New Revised Standard Edition Updated Edition]
7. St. Luke 3:22b. (MESSAGE) [MESSAGE=Eugene H. Peterson, The Message (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2004).
