The gospel text for this Sunday is Luke 5:1-11, and looking at that text was a reminder to me that the context of a word or a thing is important. You might think of the previous uses of a word to be sort of a dictionary, to help you understand the word when it comes up later.

Peter ends up saying that he does not want to be close to the Lord. ‘Depart from me…’, he says. And you can see that same thought come up in a lot of places.

Right after the text, Jesus heals a leper, and only in this account does the text say that the leper falls on his face (verse 12)—and is, therefore, not able to see Jesus. In the healing of the paralyzed man that follows after that, the response of the crowd is, literally, that they saw a ‘paradox’, something unusual (verse 26). According to the actions of Jesus—that he forgave and healed a person—he was God, and a person should not be able to look at God. But Jesus looked like a normal person, and they had no trouble looking at him and being in his presence.

This theme of presence has not gone unnoticed. In The Lutheran Study Bible, on page 1705, right at the very top of the page, are the following words: ‘God ‘s presence permeates the birth events of John the Baptist and Jesus (Luke 1:5-2:52).’

You can see that in the unique phrases which follow. ‘[Zechariah and Elizabeth] were righteous before God (Luke 1:6).’ ‘[John] will be great before the Lord (1:15).’ An angel says, ‘I [Gabriel] stand in the presence of God (1:19).’ There is also the part of Simeon’s song which relates to presence—in this case, the presence of people: ‘…my eyes have seen your salvation that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples…(Luke 2:30f).’  In Jesus’ temptations, Satan says that if Jesus would worship ‘before me’, then he would give him everything (4:7). And I may be making too much of this, but in the Greek text of this gospel account, Jesus sometimes says things ‘toward’ someone rather than ‘to’ someone. With that word, you also get the idea that presence is important. (The translations usually do not pick this up though; compare Mark 1:38 and Luke 4:43.) In all these ways, the issue of presence is an important theme.

I recently found another new book which emphasizes this. The book is not for the faint of heart (and mind—and pocketbook—the price is outrageous). But the book supports the point I was trying to make above. The title is Scripture Re-envisioned: Christophanic Exegesis and the Making of a Christian Bible, by Bogdan Gabriel Bucur (Brill, 2019). Here is a quote from the Forward: ‘…Bucur offers us the first full and detailed study of how the ancient interpreters viewed God’s revelation as a dramatic act of presence, originally anchored in historic theophanic moments in the Old Testament where Jesus Christ was already active as principal revealer of the Divine (emphasis original, page vii).’ In other words, this idea of God’s presence has been present for a very long time; the New Testament is very much like the old one.

Like others, Bucur starts with a look at the two disciples on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:13-49). I like that connection because we know very little about those disciples; they are like us, how we feel about ourselves sometimes; we can sometimes get the idea that God does not know or care too much about us. In the past parents often used bible names to name their children, and that provided some connection to the bible, but today that is not so common. But as Jesus came to those two unknown disciples, he comes to us.​

The great thing about the theme of God’s presence is that it only takes one more step to say that the Old Testament word for gospel is one where the presence of the ‘king’—in this case, God—is important. We cannot stand in God’s presence, and so a messenger was sent with some very good news. And the name of that messenger, of course, is Jesus. And it is so wonderful that his name means the one who saves or rescues. 

The Gospel text for this Sunday [Luke 4:31-44] has Jesus rebuking a fever (verse 39). That is an interesting phrase and deserves some focus. It is unique to the gospel accounts (see Mark 1:31). And that Jesus also rebukes a demon just a bit earlier in the text might make you wonder if there is some similarity between a fever and a demon!

That kind of conclusion would focus too much on ourselves and our own situations. It would certainly be nice for Christians to be able to rebuke a fever and it would leave. But the focus of this text and basically of the entire scriptures is and should always be Jesus.

Focusing on the word ‘rebuke’ will help to keep that focus on Jesus. According to its form, the word ‘rebuke’ is connected to the word ‘honor’. Whoever is doing the rebuking, that person is in a position of authority to the person (or thing) being rebuked. The person in authority deserves some sort of honor. And in the Greek dictionary [BDAG, p. 384], regarding the word ‘rebuke’, the following description is also given: ‘speak seriously’. That perspective may be helpful to understand the meaning of the word and the text’s proper focus.

Jesus is the one speaking seriously to the fever. Jesus is also the one speaking seriously to the demon. Given that context, the confessions of Jesus to be the ‘Holy One of God’ (verse 34), the Son of God (verse 41), and the Christ (also verse 41) do not seem to be serious enough for Jesus.

I also think it is not a coincidence that Peter calls Jesus ‘the Christ of God’ (Luke 9:20), and Jesus gives the same ‘rebuke’ (although it is translated as ‘strictly charged’). He starts to speak seriously to his followers. He says this: ‘The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised (verse 22).’

Jesus goes to Capernaum, and then he goes away from Capernaum. He goes to another place, but then he also goes away from that place. And then there is the famous verse in this gospel account which summarizes the rest of the account: ‘When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem (Luke 9:51).’ He goes to Jerusalem, to his cross, and then he goes away.​

From the days of his youth to the day of his death—and the days which followed after that—he was the obedient one. He was the one who spoke seriously when people needed to hear some serious words about life and death, about who they were and about who he was. He was the hard worker, the serious one, the one who is like the ox, always willing to get the job done—for us.

The Gospel text for this Sunday [Luke 4:16-30] has Jesus in his hometown, and he opens a scroll and reads aloud from it. It is sometimes forgotten that this was an ancient practice. The Old Testament text from Nehemiah has some interesting aspects regarding this as well.

A scroll containing the book of Isaiah was found as part of the Dead Sea Scrolls. It is about 24 feet long and is about 1000 years older than the previous manuscripts that had been discovered. It was certainly a significant discovery, and it was good to know that it was virtually identical with the other manuscripts that we already had.

With all that in mind, have you ever considered the importance of a book? It is most certainly true that all books have some information, but the way in which a modern book is laid out, that certainly makes it easier to get to other parts of the book than unrolling and rolling a huge scroll.

This form of a book, a book with pages, has the fancy name of ‘codex’, and the codex is a consistent characteristic of the early Christian Church. And I do not see this simply as a need to be ‘modern’.

The New Testament is a highly interconnected work, one where the four gospel accounts relate to one another, one where the Gospel according to Luke relates to the Acts of the Apostles, one where the four gospel accounts relate to the first four epistles, and one where the book of Revelation relates to everything else.

With that in mind, why not have a book with pages? The only downside to that would be the attitude that sometimes comes with comparison, that of an arrogance to decide which one is better or more accurate or _______(fill in the blank).

It is interesting that the early Christians also had a solution for that situation. Every time Jesus (and related words) would be mentioned, they would be done in a very special form. For those who understand some Latin (and, if you understand some English, you ALREADY understand some Latin!), these are called ‘nomina sacra’.

When we walk through the Bible, we are treading on holy ground. We have been blessed with the ability to ‘skip around’. Or we may wish simply to ‘rest’ a while in one place. It is such a gift. Jesus is such a gift.
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The Gospel text for this Sunday is the miracle of Jesus turning water into wine [John 2:1-11]. But, because that text is within the Gospel according to John, it is not always that easy to describe.

Certainly, much more could be written. And, certainly, much more HAS been written.
Since I have recently been at the Fort Wayne seminary for their annual symposia, and since that city is currently in a different time zone than much of the Midwest, I have experienced what it is like to have a different time frame. And that is similar to the Gospel according to John; it uses the Roman way of telling time instead of the ‘Old Testament way’ (for more detail about this, see The Lutheran Study Bible, page 1567).

The Romans started counting the hours of the day earlier than the Jews. And that difference actually fits with the ‘time frame’ of this gospel account. Very early within this account you hear some wonderful confessions of faith. And the ‘hour’ that Jesus talks about for a long time within this account comes to him BEFORE he is put on the cross. And it is interesting that the hour comes to him when Jesus is told that some Greeks have come to Jerusalem to worship, and they say, ‘Sir, we wish to see Jesus (John 12:21).’ That is actually when Jesus says that his soul is troubled (12:27). In the Garden of Gethsemane, and even on the cross, Jesus seems not to be having too much trouble. (On the cross he says, ‘I thirst’, but even the text says THAT was done to fulfill scripture; 19:28).

With that in mind, much already has been written about the way in which this miracle text begins: ‘On the third day… (John 2:1a).’ Most connections have been made to something in the Old Testament, and that should be expected.

Since there are three ‘next day’s in the previous chapter (vs. 29, 35, 43), some have seen a connection to the six days of creation (since, of course, three plus three is six; see The Lutheran Study Bible, p. 1778). I appreciate that connection, especially since there is, within the first creation account, a division between the first three days and the last three. (If you are interested in more specifics, the first three ‘set the stage’ in a way, and the second three fill that stage. There is also a way to see this layout as also pointing to the structure of the entire book of Genesis, with its two divisions being 1:1-11:26 and 11:27-50:26; in this way, God sets the stage with his creation and then fills that stage with his story of redemption—at least the very beginnings of that redemption story.)

I would much rather see within the mention of the ‘third day’ a connection to Jesus’ resurrection—since it also was on the third day that he came back to life. In the same way that Jesus hides the miracle of turning water into wine, he also has hidden the miracle of his resurrection from the eyes of many.​

Just imagine how easy it would be for Jesus to show many more people that yes, he really did rise from the dead. And as the servants of the wedding feast knew that the water had turned to wine, Jesus’ servants today know his current whereabouts.