Reading the Gospels Together Jesus and John the Baptist – Part 4 As we turn to Luke’s gospel we will discover that, like Matthew, Luke is quite faithful in following Mark with respect to John the Baptist; although Luke does provide his readers with some interesting twists. Luke adds more material than Matthew did and in a peculiar way Luke also subtracts a few things. The first thing that jumps out at readers of Luke’s gospel is that Luke adds information regarding the birth and origin of John the Baptist. We have already looked at Luke’s beginning and noticed that he has written the story of the birth of John the Baptist in such a way that it parallels both that of Jesus and of Samuel in the OT. Luke wants his readers to know that John the Baptist, like Jesus, comes from faithful people who are fully in line with the OT. John’s parents are faithful Jews waiting for the coming of the Messiah – the visitation of God to his people. In fact, Luke at least implies that the mother of John the Baptist and the mother of Jesus are kinsfolk. It is from Luke that we get the idea that John the Baptist and Jesus are related as cousins. This does add a measure of complication to the story when one reads all four gospels together since the implication at the time of his baptism is that John does not know Jesus – the gospel writer, John, will say that specifically. Given what Luke has told his readers, we are left to imagine that somehow John the Baptist and Jesus have totally lost connection with one another over the years. Of course it is likely that neither the writer of John, nor Mark, or for that matter Matthew ever imagined what we are led to imagine. Luke’s story of the birth of John the Baptist does present readers of the gospels with a great challenge. It is difficult to read all the gospels together and meld their stories into one. It will be helpful if we are willing to “sit a little loose in the saddle” and not force Luke to be concerned about telling “historical facts” instead of creating a story to proclaim the gospel. If we can look at Luke in this way we see that what Luke is doing is providing his readers with the information that John the Baptist is to be known as Elijah from the very beginning. While Zechariah is in the Temple he is told that this child to be born to Elizabeth and him “will go before him, to turn the hearts of parents to their children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord” which is exactly what Malachi had said of Elijah. And when John the Baptist next appears in Luke’s gospel he will have this exact role. When Luke picks up the story he begins by using his major source, Mark. For the most part Luke is quite faithful in using Mark to tell the story of the emergence of John the Baptist and the baptism of Jesus. Like Matthew, Luke adds material to the story by presenting more of the words that John proclaimed. Matthew and Luke are in agreement about that. And, as we mentioned earlier it may be that Mark also knew some of these words but omitted them. Luke’s words of John the Baptist are harsh like they were in Matthew; although Luke has mitigated some of the harshness by providing instruction for those who hear how they might respond through better actions – those who have two coats are invited to share with those who have none, tax collectors are to collect no more than prescribed, and soldiers are to avoid extortion. This theme of the care for the poor will be emphasized by Luke later in his gospel. When it comes to the story of the baptism of Jesus, Luke does a couple of interesting things. First of all he tells his readers that John the Baptist was arrested by Herod before he tells the story of the baptism of Jesus. Is Luke implying that John may have not been the one who baptized Jesus? The order of Luke’s story seems to indicate that. Why might Luke have done that? Was Luke attempting to downplay John the Baptist because Luke was aware of a degree of competition between the followers of John the Baptist and the followers of Jesus later on in time? Luke tells his readers an interesting story of Paul encountering some followers of John the Baptist in the book of Acts. These followers have heard only of the baptism of John and need to be instructed about the baptism of Jesus. Luke’s ordering of things does present some interesting possibilities for his readers. Perhaps Luke is intentional in leading his readers to at least contemplate that John did not baptize Jesus since he was already arrested and put in prison. And we should notice that Luke tells his readers up front that the one who arrested John the Baptist was Herod because of Herod’s indiscretion regarding Herodias. Mark and Matthew will provide their readers with this information much later and interestingly when Luke relates the same story he will omit the gruesome story of John’s beheading. Luke also tells the story of the descent of the Spirit in the form of the dove and of the words of God regarding Jesus as his beloved Son in a slightly different way. Luke takes the emphasis off of the baptism of Jesus. He tells his readers that Jesus is out of the water and engaged in prayer when the Spirit descends and God speaks. In spite of all these differences Luke has not strayed far from Mark. The main points are essentially the same. Like Mark, Luke presents John the Baptist as Elijah who comes to prepare the way for Jesus who is the mightier one. John the Baptist is the fore-runner of Jesus. He takes the role that Malachi and Isaiah had foreseen. The next time Luke mentions John the Baptist is in the story of the religious leaders and the disciples of John fasting while the disciples of Jesus do not fast. Luke is extremely faithful to Mark in telling this story using virtually the same words. The next time Luke mentions John the Baptist he provides his readers with almost exactly the same words that Matthew had provided his readers about the followers of John the Baptist coming to question Jesus and Jesus’ further praise of John. Like Matthew, this is material that is interjected into Mark’s gospel. Mark does not mention any of this. And the exact same things that were said regarding Matthew could be repeated here with respect to Luke. Luke and Matthew are in full agreement. Again following Mark, Luke next mentions John the Baptist in connection with Herod’s mistaken identity that somehow Jesus is John the Baptist raised from the dead. Luke’s story follows Mark’s faithfully; although, as was noted earlier, Luke omits the story of the beheading of John. Luke is also following Mark when he tells the story of Jesus asking his disciples who others think Jesus is. Thinking of Jesus as John the Baptist is to engage in a mistaken identity. Jesus is the Messiah. John is not. When it comes to the story of the Transfiguration of Jesus, Luke does an interesting thing. He tells the story of the actual Transfiguration in almost the same words as Mark, but then Luke omits the story of Jesus and his disciples coming down from the mountain and the disciples asking Jesus about Elijah. Both Mark and Matthew had used that occasion to solidify that John the Baptist is Elijah. Why might Luke have dropped that story from Mark? This is a difficult question to answer since earlier in his gospel it is clear that Luke agrees that John the Baptist is Elijah. He does not omit this story from Mark because he disagrees with Mark about the identity of John the Baptist as Elijah. The fact is that there appears to be nothing in what Mark says that might have bothered Luke and caused him to leave it out. Perhaps all we can say is that we are left with a mystery about why Luke did what he did. The next time Luke mentions John the Baptist is in material that is unique to Luke’s gospel. There are similarities here with what Luke had said earlier in connection with the disciples of John the Baptist coming to question Jesus about whether or not he is “the one” and Luke likely got it from that story. The point that Luke makes is to set John the Baptist as a line of demarcation between the OT and the proclamation of the good news in Jesus. The law and the prophets are until John but now something new has dawned. Jesus is the new act of God, fully in line with the old, but expanding it in a new and bold way. As we saw earlier in Matthew, Luke understands John as something of a bridge from the old to the new. Like Mark and Matthew, the last time Luke specifically mentions John the Baptist is in the controversy between Jesus and the religious leaders regarding the authority of Jesus and of John. Luke follows Mark faithfully relating the same story in nearly the same words. And that is the last time Luke will mention or even allude to John the Baptist. Luke does tell the story of Jesus dying on the cross but he omits the cry of despair on Jesus’ lips and consequently Luke also omits the story of a bystander mistakenly thinking Jesus was calling for Elijah to come.