Written by: Les Ellison - Salvation Army

Luke’s Gospel of the life of Jesus, and his sequel concerning the acts of the Apostles, are both addressed to his ‘friend of God’, Theophilus. Supposing the name represents a particular individual rather than the generality of people seeking the truth of God. What might they say to each other about Luke’s account of Jesus’ last days?

Luke 22 v 44-46
Being full of pain, Jesus prayed even harder. His sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground. When he finished praying, he went to his followers and found them asleep because of their sadness. Jesus said to them, “Why are you sleeping? Get up and pray for strength against temptation.”

Notes

Theophilus:    Well you’d know, I suppose.
Luke:             I’d know what?
Theophilus:    I suppose it’s a matter of capillaries and high blood pressure.
Luke:             I’m sorry; you’ve completely lost me.
Theophilus:     Sweating blood. You said his sweat was like drops of blood.
Luke:             I said like drops of blood; his sweat fell as heavy as drops of blood.
Theophilus:     It just sounds a bit unlikely to me; but you’re the physician.
Luke:             The physiology is not important; whether he sweat blood or not. The point is that he was terrified.
Theophilus:     Who wouldn’t be?
Luke:             Only the man with nothing to fear. The man who cannot suffer pain or grief or death. A man beyond the weaknesses of men.
Theophilus:     He wasn’t though, was he; I mean, Jesus wasn’t merely a man?
Luke:             There is nothing mere about being a man. We were not made to be merely men or merely women.
Theophilus:     And that was Jesus? A man? A prophet, a teacher; a good one, but completely human, and that’s all?
Luke:             At that moment, that instant in time... yes, I think he was. Thank God.
Theophilus:     Thank God?
Luke:             That he allowed himself, or denied himself, to be nothing else; and so completely.
Theophilus:     I’m sorry, but now it’s me who’s completely lost.
Luke:             What use a God who doesn’t know what it’s like to be completely and hopelessly human?

Luke’s Gospel and his sequel concerning the acts of the Apostles, are both addressed to his ‘friend of God’, Theophilus. Supposing the name represents a particular individual, what might they have to say to each other about Luke’s account of Jesus’ last days?

Luke 22 v 47-48
While Jesus was speaking, a crowd came up, and Judas, one of the twelve apostles, was leading them. He came close to Jesus so he could kiss him.
But Jesus said to him, “Judas, are you using the kiss to give the Son of Man to his enemies?”

Notes 

Luke:             Kiss me, Theophilus.
Theophilus:     What?
Luke:             Kiss me.
Theophilus:     What for?
Luke:             I don’t know. You tell me. Why would you kiss anyone? That young girl I saw you with. You kissed her.
Theophilus:     We have... we have a...
Luke:             You’re blushing.
Theophilus:     Of course I’m blushing; you’re embarrassing me.
Luke:             And you ask me why Judas should kiss Jesus.
Theophilus:     It’s not the same .
Luke:             Oh, but it is. You don’t kiss by accident and certainly not without some purpose or meaning. Most human interaction; including the most intimate, can be done with no purpose other than self satisfaction. But a kiss; that is made to reveal yourself - your meaning - to another. Your mother used to kiss you, I expect.
Theophilus:     Of course...
Luke:             She used to kiss your childish cuts and bruises?
Theophilus:     Yes...
Luke:             Well, what pleasure for her in kissing? What practical use? If it had any medical value we physicians would simply kiss every ailing patient that came our way.
Theophilus:     Affection.
Luke:             Hers for you, yes. And now yours for your young friend.
Theophilus:     Judas for Jesus?
Luke:             I think so. Uncomfortable, isn’t it? To imagine that Judas had an affection - a love even - for the man he was marking out to die? These men of my gospel; they’re not characters in a melodrama, they’re complicated human beings. Like you and me. They do and think and say the most unreasonable things. And yet, they can still kiss their saviour. And yet... he will still let them.

Luke’s Gospel and Acts, are both addressed to his ‘friend of God’, Theophilus. What might they say to each other about Luke’s account of Jesus’ last days?

Luke 22 v 49-51
When those who were standing around him saw what was happening, they said, “Lord, should we strike them with our swords?” And one of them struck the servant of the high priest and cut off his right ear.
Jesus said, “Stop! No more of this.” Then he touched the servant’s ear and healed him.

Notes

Theophilus:     This makes no sense at all.
Luke:             It was a minor act, by his standards. Now Lazarus; that made no sense at all!
Theophilus:     I mean, you’re out to get someone - an enemy of the state - and someone else maims one of your men, are you really going to take him in when he heals the guy in front of your eyes?
Luke:             What can you do? You have orders. Disobey and it could be more than your ear that gets cut off.
Theophilus:     But if he could do that, he could just as easily do the reverse.
Luke:             But he doesn’t.
Theophilus:     Only because he chooses not to.
Luke:             Who’s going to believe you? The ear is good as new; no scar, presumably.
Theophilus:     They know he’s a good man. How can you kill a man capable of so much good?
Luke:             In war we destroy hospitals, kill nurses, imprison doctors.
Theophilus:     And that’s wrong too.
Luke:             You impose your own morality that works - might even be vital - in your world, but not in theirs.
Theophilus:     Wrong is wrong.
Luke:             Yes is it is. But judgement is relative to where you find yourself.
Theophilus:     So we just accept it? 
Luke:             NO. It might not be enough though to just condemn actions as wrong - however abhorrent. Try to see from his point of view. He is made of the same flesh and bone as you, has the same ambitions, needs, loves and fears. However convenient it might seem to label him as inhuman, look closely, you will find he is still very, very human. Like you.

Luke’s Gospel and his sequel Acts, are both addressed to his ‘friend of God’, Theophilus. What might they say to each other about Luke’s account of Jesus’ last days?

Luke 22 v 52-53
Those who came to arrest Jesus were the leading priests, the soldiers who guarded the Temple, and the older Jewish leaders. Jesus said to them, “You came out here with swords and clubs as though I were a criminal. I was with you every day in the Temple, and you didn’t arrest me there. But this is your time—the time when darkness rules.”

Notes 

Theophilus:     When you wrote this ‘Gospel’, who did you think you were writing for?
Luke:             What do you mean?
Theophilus:     Well, you can’t have written down everything that Jesus said and did. How did you decide what was important?
Luke:             Important?
Theophilus:     This bit; the bit about Jesus being taken to the Temple and what he says about the authorities. "This is your time - the time when the darkness rules." Do you think the authorities aren’t going to read this?
Luke:             I don’t know, I suppose so.
Theophilus:     And what will they think when they do? That Doctor Luke thinks they’re something that crawled out from under stone? Hardly going to endear us to them is it?
Luke:             I don’t think that’s quite what Jesus meant...
Theophilus:     That the leaders of religion love darkness? That’s what you said he said. And don’t forget, they were the leaders of his religion. Is that the example being set here? What about the leaders of his followers now? Is that the way you want them to talk to you and the others?
Luke:             If we deserve it, yes.
Theophilus:     And what’s the point of that?
Luke:             To remind us.
Theophilus:     Of what.
Luke:             Of him. Everything he said and did, he did in broad daylight. In front of thousands of witnesses. Unrehearsed and from the heart. No press releases, no staged posturing, no edited speeches, no spin. At the end, no excuses. If we cannot live up to that kind of scrutiny, then for all the good we’re going to do, we might as well crawl under a stone - and stay there.

Luke’s Gospel of the life of Jesus, and his sequel concerning the acts of the Apostles, are both addressed to his ‘friend of God’, Theophilus. Supposing the name represents a particular individual rather than the generality of people seeking the truth of God. What might they say to each other about Luke’s account of Jesus’ last days?

Luke 22 v 54-57
They arrested Jesus, and led him away, and brought him into the house of the high priest. Peter followed far behind them. After the soldiers started a fire in the middle of the courtyard and sat together, Peter sat with them. A servant girl saw Peter sitting there in the firelight, and looking closely at him, she said, “This man was also with him.”

But Peter said this was not true; he said, “Woman, I don’t know him.”


Notes

Theophilus:     You knew Peter?
Luke:             Yes.
Theophilus:     Did you ever talk to him about this?
Luke:             No. Never.
Theophilus:     Did he know you would write about him this way.
Luke:             Which way?
Theophilus:     As a coward. A man who went back on his promise that he would rather die with Jesus than deny their friendship?
Luke:             Peter always spoke his mind no matter what the consequences. I liked that about him.
Theophilus:     And on that night. Did he speak his mind on that night?
Luke:             Yes. I think he did.
Theophilus:     That he had never known Jesus? I thought he walked with him for three years.
Luke:             He did. He walked with Jesus the miracle worker, Jesus the teacher, even Jesus the social visionary; the kind of man you would promise to live and die with.
Theophilus:     Until you were asked to die.
Luke:             No, even die. Anyone would die for such a man. It happens all the time. But Jesus the helpless? How could Peter be asked to give his life for a man like that? That was just not the Jesus Peter knew.
Theophilus:     So he denied him.
Luke:             We do prefer it when Jesus fits the image we make of him.

Luke’s Gospel and his sequel Acts, are both addressed to his ‘friend of God’, Theophilus. What might they say to each other about Luke’s account of Jesus’ last days?

Luke 22 v 58-60
A short time later, another person saw Peter and said, “You are also one of them.”
But Peter said, “Man, I am not!”
About an hour later, another man insisted, “Certainly this man was with him, because he is from Galilee, too.”
But Peter said, “Man, I don’t know what you are talking about!”
At once, while Peter was still speaking, a rooster crowed. 

Notes

Theophilus:     Are you sure you didn’t write this just to discredit Peter?
Luke:             What a strange thing to say.
Theophilus:     Is it? You knew the Apostle Paul.
Luke:             It’s no secret...
Theophilus:     You were friends; good friends. When Paul and Peter fell out, you took Paul’s side.
Luke:             It was not a choice that I wanted to make. I had no wish to hurt Peter.
Theophilus:     Then why mention this? Why have him deny Jesus three times except to make him look weak.
Luke:             It’s an important part of the story.
Theophilus:     No it isn’t. The arrest, the trial, the crucifixion; you don’t need this one incident to tell that story.
Luke:             I do if I want to tell Peter’s story. To all intents and purposes, Peter died that day. People do you know; die - some of them - long before their breathing stops, or their heart. He was more bound to Jesus from the time that cock crowed than in the years before. If there had been no resurrection, Peter would have hung on a tree as sure as Judas did.
Theophilus:     Why tell his story at all? I thought it was the story of Jesus you wanted to tell.
Luke:             They are the story of Jesus. We are the story of Jesus. His story tells us how to live. Their stories show how it is lived, and in some cases how it is not. We aspire to live like Jesus but we need the reassurance of the stories of men who tried, failed but carried on trying. Don’t forget, in the long term, Peter did keep his promise.

Luke’s Gospel and his sequel Acts, are both addressed to his ‘friend of God’, Theophilus. What might they say to each other about Luke’s account of Jesus’ last days?

Luke 22 v 61-62
Then the Lord turned and looked straight at Peter. And Peter remembered what the Lord had said: “Before the rooster crows this day, you will say three times that you don’t know me.” Then Peter went outside and cried painfully.


Notes

Theophilus:     This I understand.
Luke:             What, in particular?
Theophilus:     Peter crying. It takes more than a flesh wound to get tears out of men like Peter.
Luke:             This was a wound to his spirit.
Theophilus:     To his pride.
Luke:             Same thing?
Theophilus:     The scriptures warned us against pride.
Luke:             Why not have pride in yourself. You, Theophilus, count yourself as one of his; you’re not ashamed of it, then surely you are proud.
Theophilus:     Pride or shame?
Luke:             Which would you choose?
Theophilus:     Neither; they’re just words.
Luke:             Then humility.
Theophilus:     Humbled?
Luke:             Pride is the spirit’s shield. It is what we want to see when look at ourselves. Shame is the difference between what we think we are and what we really are. We only feel it when someone tears away the shield and we are forced to look on our real selves; naked, as it were.
Theophilus:     Jesus did that to Peter?
Luke:             Peter did it to himself. 
Theophilus:     What about humility?
Luke:             Very dangerous thing, humility. It means dropping the shield; constantly searching for those things you’d rather not find.
Theophilus:     Isn’t that just shame by another word?
Luke:             Depends what you do when you find them. Deny them? Cover up? There is no shame in the imperfect spirit that measures itself against the perfect and seeks that perfection.
Theophilus:     Perfection cannot be achieved.
Luke:             Is that not the ultimate pride; to see yourself as beyond God’s good will and grace? There is an ailment, I’ve noticed, common among even his most ardent followers.
Theophilus:     Which is?
Luke:             To judge yourself more harshly than God ever would.


word-on-the-web uses the Scripture text taken from the Youth Bible, New Century Version (Anglicised Edition) copyright 1993 by Word Publishing Milton Keynes